Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman

by Brooke Shields

Why do we never see how unique and special we are? And why, when we finally take the pressure off or count our blessings or just enjoy who we are, is it practically too late?

When we are no longer deemed sexy or able to contribute to society by birthing and raising young children, our value diminishes. We are overlooked, ignored, or worse, not seen at all.

This time of our lives is something to enjoy and revel in, not something to merely survive.

Because the time is now! If there is something you want to change, now’s the time to change it. If there’s something you want to stop, now’s the time to stop it. If there’s something you want to do, now’s the time to do it.

The world ignores middle-aged women at its peril.”

One of the joys of getting older, as far as I can tell, is the ability to say no to the things you don’t want to do.

Could it be that the narrative we’ve been fed of the irrelevant fifty-year-old woman is really just a product of men feeling their worst at this time? Might it be that they just assumed we’re bummed out, too, but never took the time to ask?

We are, each of us, a one-woman show. But our lives are not movie montages. It’s not a perfect story arc. It’s messy. You are scared to do something, and you do it, and you realize you don’t really want to do it after all. But you learn why. And if you choose, you change it. Or you stop doing it, because you can.

An interesting opinion, coming from someone without ovaries.

I wasn’t dignifying anything! I was sticking up for myself, and for women who were suffering, against irrational and dangerous comments from an unschooled actor who was speaking way out of his depth.

For so long, I had deferred to my mother, who always seemed to have the answers I didn’t. I relied on her to dictate my opinion on almost everything.

What confidence really is, according to psychologists, is a belief in your abilities and in your capacity to overcome challenges.

What would it feel like in my body if I told myself I’m smart, I’m talented, I’m strong, I’m beautiful, I’m a good person and friend? I asked myself. What if I just assumed I was good enough as is? Turns out, it’s liberating!

make the choice, every day, not to let my insecurities dictate my behavior or my choices. To act from a place of confidence.

It’s nice when other people appreciate you, but these days, the biggest rush comes from valuing myself.

As young women, we aren’t encouraged to sit still so much as we are expected to put one foot in front of the other and keep it all together and satisfy other people.

You’ve survived moments, or months, or maybe even years that felt unbearable.

When we’re younger, regret has some value—it can encourage us to make better choices. But as we age, the ability to let go of regret is tied to both emotional and physical health.

Studies show that as we hit our forties, fifties, and sixties, most of our regrets are tied to inaction rather than action.5

But the only way to really embrace a new beginning is to be okay with closing the previous chapter.

Even though I knew I was loved, I can’t say I ever really felt safe. My girls do. And that makes me feel proud.

It’s okay to be applauded. And if no one else is clapping, then for god’s sakes give yourself your own standing ovation.

I wanted to slap them across the face with my peed-in pants!

Advocating for myself is something I’ve had to learn the hard way, a couple of times over.

Aging is empowering, but it isn’t always easy. It takes resilience.

women’s reproductive value has been the source of mockery and attacks for at least a century, probably longer.

Parenting—it can really mess with your head.

could have laughed off his comment—You really shouldn’t have told me that—but I’m tired of getting my hand slapped for no reason. Especially when the thing I’ve done “wrong” is to simply have the audacity to survive and exist and get older and admit it.

I’m still trying to unpack what it was in my upbringing that made me feel unworthy of enjoying the fancy (read: expensive) items I own.

I had worked hard for everything I owned. I was going to die one day, whether I enjoyed my fancy handbags or not.

My mom always billed herself as someone who was nonjudgmental—she really hung her hat on that—but that’s not how she came across to me. I always felt like I was going to be in trouble for something, or I would be wrong, and I was often waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She was the expert, even when she wasn’t, and I assumed that however I was doing something, I could be doing it better.

My mother changed the energy in every room she entered, but that just wasn’t the way people talked back then.

I do believe that if more people understood those physiological and biological shifts in mature women, maybe we wouldn’t be blamed for so much.

I’m still pretty prudish about sex talk even to my therapist because it’s hard-coded in my cells to be ashamed, but I don’t want that for my daughters.

Other search committees declined to hire women in their fifties because they have ‘menopause-related issues and could be challenging to manage.’

Fuck these easy excuses for the patriarchy to count us as irrelevant or unnecessary.

Do I want to do this? If I had to boil down the joy and freedom of aging to one question, that would be it.

Fuck that. There’s probably a more eloquent way to say that, but another thing age has taught me is not to use five words when two will do.