Midlife Crisis on a Budget

After jokingly using the term "midlife crisis" yesterday on Facebook (I was wondering if rearranging the furniture was the extent to mine) an interesting discussion ensued about hot convertibles and steaming twenty-three-year-old toy boys. And as I pondered the madness of middle-aged people losing themselves in conspicuous consumption and meaningless sex in order to escape the inevitable decline that comes with aging, I decided that I'm just not having it.

According to that fount of all human knowledge, Wikipedia, I am not alone.

There is a fair amount of skepticism associated with the idea of a midlife crisis. As typically defined, however, it is a period of transition, let's call it, for people who are between thirty and sixty and experiencing "self-doubt . . . as a result of sensing the passing of youth and the imminence of old age." Okay, the lower figure strikes me as a bit silly . . . as does the upper one, but I'm not going to judge anybody. Hey, if you're thirty and experiencing the imminence of old age, my condolences. And if you're sixty and just catching on that your youth is passing, my respect. More interesting though, is that according to Wikipedia, only 10 percent of middle-aged adults actually go through midlife crises.

Really?

As I considered how it's possible that only 10 percent go through it, but EVERYBODY accepts it as a normal passage, it occurred to me that its relative "fame" is related to the segment of the population that has overwhelmingly come to define the 10 percent. In other words, if the general association with midlife crisis is fancy cars and much younger sex partners then clearly a bunch of affluent men have convinced us that midlife crisis-ing is as much a part of our experience as human beings as puberty.

Right.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia piece also acknowledges the extent to which midlife crises are cultural constructs, offering that this phenomenon is not apparent all over the world:

Some studies indicate that some cultures may be more sensitive to this phenomenon than others. One study found that there is little evidence that people undergo midlife crises in Japanese and Indian cultures, raising the question of whether a midlife crises is mainly a cultural construct. The authors hypothesized that the "culture of youth" in Western societies accounts for the popularity of the midlife crisis concept there.

Now I don't mean to suggest that there aren't serious issues involved with aging. My own head is full of questions, doubts, and fears . . . mostly related to menopause and when the hell will it finally get here. So it's important to point out that midlife crises in women are generally different than those in men. Whether or not there are also differences based on race was not discussed, nor was the issue of social class, but I am inclined to think that a broke black woman is going to have a different midlife crisis than an affluent white male.

Is that even fair?

Yes and hallelujah!

It is probably a good thing that I don't have money or else I might be rolling through Berlin in something like this:

With something like this in the passenger seat:


So yeah, I'm like totally happy that my midlife crisis will consist primarily in reading up on hot flashes and screaming at people for no apparent reason.

*sigh*

And to the affluent guys out there, I just stopped judging you.