World Enough and Time: Conversations with Canadian Women at Midlife

Margaret Conrad is the Nancy Rowell Jackman Chair of Women’s Studies
at Mount Saint Vincent University, editor of Intimate Relations: Family
and Community in Planter Nova Scotia, 1759–1800, and co-author of The
Joy of Ginger.

The dramatic increase in women’s life expectancy, and changing social
roles in the 20th century, have meant that many women now approach
middle age as a new beginning. According to Andrea Mudry, who conducted
interviews with 20 Canadian women bordering on age 50, her subjects are
united by their belief that there is “still world enough and time for
them to achieve and enjoy.” They are also united by their middle-class
lifestyles. Most of the women interviewed are well educated and
economically well situated; some of them, such as Kim Campbell, Roberta
Bondar, Rita Devereau, and Nancy Green, are well-known public figures.
Spunky, centred, and articulate, these women confirm not only that is
there life after 40 but also that aging brings new inner resources for
dealing with midlife problems.

Together these women offer a variety of strategies for seeking
self-fulfilment in middle age. While some women are embracing new
challenges—including establishing farms, leading reform causes, or
learning new skills—others are cutting back on their commitments and
spending more time with their loved ones. The openness with which many
of these women discuss what were once termed “private”
matters—such as sex, substance abuse, menopause, and breast
cancer—suggests that this is indeed a new generation of women who,
notwithstanding their political differences, have been profoundly
influenced by the women’s movement. Nor is there much talk about the
so-called “empty nest syndrome.” Many of the women had no nests to
empty or had lives outside the home that brought continuity and
fulfilment when family obligations decreased or changed in some way.

The interviewees reflect cultural, political, and regional differences
across Canada—Newfoundland and the Northern Territories excepted.
While they offer thoughtful and lucid reflections on what aging has
meant for them, they do not reflect the experience of a great many
women—the working poor, welfare mothers, prison inmates, prostitutes,
for example—who perhaps have different perspectives on what it means
to reach middle age. A sequel might well be in order to flesh out the
full range of experience facing aging Canadian women.