An Open Love Letter to the Women Living It Loudly, Silently, and Everything In Between
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Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: midlife motherhood isn’t just hard—it’s a full-body, full-soul reckoning. Throw in addiction, mental health, or co-occurring issues, and forget about it. And the cruelest irony? No one really talks about it. Not in the real, gritty, hormone-fueled, emotionally-overloaded, “am I the only one?” kind of way. We’re going to take care of this today, though. Let’s talk.
We scroll social media and see filtered wins, but behind the curated feeds, there’s a wide array of issues that midlife moms are navigating: sleepless nights, warm bottles, early teens with middle school meltdowns, aging parents needing elder care, and bodies that are whispering (sometimes screaming) this is a new season. One most of us were never prepared for.
I Never Wanted Childen
I want to say that my kids are my world. They hands down saved my life. I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. The day I found out I was pregnant with my daughter at the ripe old age of thirty-five was the last day I used substances.
That was nine years ago. I never wanted children. I was a heroin dealer who had sold drugs to support my habit. I knew that a kid was the last thing I needed. I knew my addiction was selfish, and I managed to evade pregnancy for a very long time until I didn’t. Suddenly, it wasn’t about
me anymore. I had a purpose, and as it turns out, this was a really good thing for me.
Being Better, Doing Better
It’s no contest for pros to my having children. It pushed me to be better and do better. It pushed me to go from heroin addicted inmate to entrepreneurial homeowner with a crypto portfolio. I cherish every second with my kids because I know how fleeting their childhoods can be. They are the only things in this world that can make me soul smile.
I found out when my daughter was six months old how it feels to be away from them. I went to jail for going to Hampton Beach for the day and was sentenced to nine months. I did three, only seeing my daughter for four hours every other week.
Twenty years of going in and out of jail, and somehow I never cried. I cried every single day, all day, that I was away from my child. It was the worst, but it showed me that I won’t survive without them, and it made me truly appreciate all of my time with them.
Motherhood Is So Bittersweet
Watching so many women lose their children as a result of their addictions while I was in jail over those twenty years. The pain they endured was one of the reasons I hadn’t wanted children, and I have a feeling that if I had had my kids when I was younger, I would have lost them.
Being older had a more profound effect on me, and because of that, I genuinely cherish every second of raising my kids, even the ones where they are subtracting
years off my life. I never said it was easy. It’s not.
Being a mom is the most amazing yet bittersweet role in the world. I love being a mom more than I love anything on this earth, but it is the most thankless, unappreciated, and extremely taken-for-granted position a woman can have. It’s hard sometimes, especially when you have a partner that you refer to as “bare minimum guy.” Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. That’s why we need one another. I swear I am here for you, girlfriend. I truly am. I feel your pain.
This is for every older mom who found herself in the parking lot of Party City with balloons in one hand and a prescription for high blood pressure in the other. For the woman raising young children in her early 40s, while secretly wondering if this stage of life is going to flipping kill her. For the midlife mothers working a successful career, keeping a marriage alive (or not), checking off an endless to-do list, feeling like there is never enough time, and feeling as though they’re failing at everything.
The Untold Reality of Motherhood in Midlife
In the United States, the birth rate for women over 35 continues to rise. From first-time moms in their late 30s to those embarking on parenting after remarriage, this group is growing—but our society still hasn’t caught up with its realities.
The societal norm for mothers with small children is women in early adulthood, definitely not a woman experiencing the hormonal mayhem of perimenopause, dreaming of their younger years, but it’s looking like this will be the societal norm. Apparently, we were the smart ones. Can you believe that?
The toll on our mental health is real. We rarely talk about the silent panic attacks, the common fears of bad things happening, or the exhaustion that’s different from what younger moms feel—not necessarily deeper, just more layered. There’s parenting, yes. But there’s also a life course of accumulated grief, stress, pressure, and unmet expectations riding alongside.
Throw in the rising risk of gestational diabetes, hormonal changes, and a growing list of health screenings, and you’ve got a balancing act between motherhood and mortality.
What should be the most joyous moments often come wrapped in emotional complexity. And unlike younger moms who tend to find instant community, midlife moms often feel like they’re parenting in a vacuum. I personally don’t have any friends.
My recovery aside, the non-addicted friends I had already raised their kids, and they were struggling with empty nest syndrome, so the last thing they want is to be around a bustling home full of small children.
Jessi Klein, Cultural Myths, and the Missing Narrative
Jessi Klein, the Emmy award-winning writer, cracked open the conversation around motherhood with her eagerly anticipated second essay collection, I’ll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood (which I highly recommend), where she captured the tension between loving your child and mourning your old life. Her writing underscores the cultural myths around motherhood—that it should feel like purpose incarnate. For many midlife moms, the truth is a blend of cruel ironies: deep love, constant
exhaustion, and an invisible sense of isolation.
We’re expected to have it all figured out by this point in our lives. We’re supposed to be “grateful.” But gratitude doesn’t cancel out the overwhelm. We’re climbing the corporate ladder, dealing with the rising risk of physical health issues, trying to keep a support system intact, trying to revive dead relationships with significant others, navigating short or long-term recoveries, and doing it all while society offers very little empathy for older women raising kids.
The Invisible Stats Behind Midlife Moms
Previous research shows a strong association between delayed motherhood and higher educational attainment, home ownership, and stable marital status. But behind that “success” lies another truth: we’re dealing with more responsibilities, higher levels of stress, much less time, fewer resources, and zero support.
Midlife moms often lack proximity to peer support. Younger moms may question our choices, and older women may judge our timing. When we turn to our primary care doctor due to being overwhelmed and exhausted, we are told it’s just a midlife crisis.
We are focused on continuing or building successful careers, all while waking up in the night to soothe toddlers—while simultaneously managing the impossible expectations of full-time employment. Some struggle with poor health, finding dependable childcare, and in some cases, elder care for their own aging parents, and don’t forget the rising prices and the financial burden for all of the above.
The Truth About Friendship, Marriage & Identity
Many midlife moms, such as myself, quietly experience a death of identity. The friends we had in our 20s and 30s may now be free from childcare demands, while we’re navigating the complexities of our first birth and toddler tantrums. Those who had children young may not relate to our exhaustion or our deeper fears about health and mortality.
Your marital status might look fine on paper, but the intimacy has shifted. Some couples become roommates, bonded only by a shared Google calendar. Others become strangers, slowly losing themselves to the whirlpool of stress. My kid’s father and I have become like ships in the night. Any intimacy we once had has long fizzled, but I will be covering that in a future post. And if you’re a solo midlife mother, society can be especially harsh—still questioning your choices, your worth, your capabilities.
In this final model of womanhood, what once felt like a path to freedom is now filled with unspoken resentments and loneliness like we have never known.
Everyone in my household is in bed by 8:30 PM every night. That leaves me alone. Often, whenever something needs to be deep cleaned, painted, or fixed, it’s my sleep hours that are sacrificed. No matter what I do or how hard I try, there just isn’t enough time in the day. My bedtime somehow has become 3 am, and then up at 6:45 AM to get the kids up and ready for school.
Laundry has to be done every single night, or it builds up and becomes impossible. It is the cycle that never ends after all. The only things I do for myself these days are a Supernatural VR workout on Oculus Quest 2 and a long shower every night before bed. It’s funny how quickly our needs fall to the wayside when our family has needs.
A Deep Dive Into What Need
What’s the first step to staying grounded in all of this? Accountability partners. Emotional regulation. It’s time to reconnect with ourselves—even in ten-minute windows between snacks, Zoom meetings, and soccer practice.
We need to recognize that time management at this age isn’t about being more productive—it’s about being more present. It’s about naming our common fears, honoring our real life over the highlight reel, and letting ourselves off the hook for being everything to everyone.
We also need real, tangible support. A renewal of what was once a 50/50 partnership, maybe? This may help to quell the growing resentments we feel for our partner’s lack of involvement. Since we are no longer younger women, their interest in coming to our rescue had faded long ago.
I don’t know about the rest of you midlife mamas, but my partner’s lack has truly empowered me in ways I never imagined. He stopped helping me shortly after we bought our house and took up watching videos as a full-time second job.
I guess I automatically have to do all the hard work around this house since he chose a career in roofing, and I sit at a desk all day trying to build my blog, help people struggling, and saving lives working for the overdose prevention hotline as a second job. Working harder than I have ever worked with no pay, so we don’t have to work hard later, hopefully.
Apparently, this gives him the honor of watching his children’s mom, who has a mass of nine hernias that she can’t get taken care of because her house would get burned to the ground during the twelve weeks of recovery in bed after the surgery, carry stuff to the attic, paint the deck, blow leaves, fix my own car usintg a YouTube Video, cut wood, use my awesome pink power tools, blow leaves, blow snow, and you get the idea. He will watch be roll by struggling, sweating, and turning purple. Funny how they can do that, isn’t it?
We Flipping Rock!
Must be nice to be younger women in their trendy cafés with swaddled infants and perfect makeup and hair, but cheers to the midlife moms managing ice cream stains on their blouses, power tools in their hands, and resentments on their minds while our partners are Googling Nate Berkus’ for a deep dive on interior design and listening to BIlly Joel. (They may as well. The pu##ies.)
We flipping rock. No matter how awful you feel, I am here to tell you that as ’90s chicks (women born in the 80s who were teens in the 90s), we are the only of our kind, and soon we will age out, and we will never be recognized for our strength and awesomeness again. (Not that we were much to begin with, but WE know.)
I know I’m a bad ass and no matter how exhausted I become or how much frustratration or resentments I feel NOBODY can take away my bad assery, and NOBODY can take away your bad assery. That ish comes from within. So, there.
We need books that speak our truth. We need platforms that don’t reduce us to jokes about MILFs, memory loss, and midlife ADHD. We need a deep dive into what it means to parent now—not 20 years ago.
One thing I will say is as much as I rock, my kids rock so much more. They might not listen to me, but they are amazing kids and they saved my life. If not for them I wouldnt be here trying to help other midlife moms. Midlife motherhood might not be easy, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world. My kids are keeping me youthful. There is nothing in the world like snuggling up on the couch with my two little’s with there little arms around me. I feel more love in those snuggles than I ever have in my life by far.
Midlife Motherhood Is Not a Failure—It's a Revolution
Despite everything, midlife motherhood is also a portal. It forces us to reckon with what matters. It invites us to burn down everything that doesn’t feel like our truth. And maybe, for the first time, we can build a life around what we want—not just what society says we should want at 25.
This is the possibility of midlife: that you’re not done. This new season will be your most important one yet. You might not be the gold standard of parenting. You might lose your cool once in a while. Kids might be spoiled rotten. You might show up late to daycare or high school pickup in your pajamas. But you’re showing up. Again and again.
Let someone try to mess with your child(ren). We deeply love our children and would die for them, but we really messed up trying to give them everything that we never had because man, are these spoiled ass kids driving us nuts. We will get through this, and we will raise exceptional children who are not pu##ies because that is what the world needs.
Kids today are the furthest thing from tough, but we are bringing the next generation of kids, and these kids grew up with 90s moms. Oh, yeah. They sure did. They will be on a whole other level of badassery, and you know it, too.
For today, for now, I need you to know that you are not behind. You are not broken. You are not failing.
You’re just a midlife mom—and that makes you damn near unstoppable. You just needed to find your tribe, and now you have.
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-Lailah Gifty Akita
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Written by Samantha Bushika
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