Olivia: One in four middle-aged American women is on antidepressants. Nearly 60 percent of those in Generation X describe themselves as stressed—that’s thirteen points higher than Millennials. Jackson: Wow. So this isn't just a case of the Monday blues or feeling a bit overwhelmed. This is a quiet, simmering crisis. Olivia: It's a full-blown crisis. And today, we're turning up the volume. We're diving into Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun. Jackson: And what's fascinating is that Calhoun, a Gen Xer herself, started this whole project with a viral essay for Oprah.com. She was basically writing about her own life—and the lives of her friends—and it just exploded. It clearly hit a nerve. Olivia: It really did. And the core of that nerve, which Calhoun unpacks so brilliantly, is this promise that Gen X women grew up with: the idea that they could 'have it all.'

Jackson: Right, the classic feminist promise. A great career, a fulfilling family life. But that sounds like a good thing. Why is it causing a crisis? Olivia: Because for Gen X, it wasn't an exciting new option like it was for many Boomers. Calhoun argues it was presented as a mandatory social condition. They were the first generation expected to have thriving careers and rich home lives, but without any of the systemic support to actually make that possible. Jackson: That’s a great way to put it. It’s like being handed a recipe for a gourmet meal but with half the ingredients missing and an oven that doesn't work. You’re just set up to fail. Olivia: Exactly. And that sense of personal failure is the ghost that haunts this entire generation. Calhoun tells this powerful story about a woman named Kelly. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, Kelly was a product of Title IX and feminist moms. She was told she could be anything—a doctor, a CEO. Her role models were women like Mary Tyler Moore and Murphy Brown. She dreamed of that life: the fulfilling career, the family, the whole package. Jackson: The classic dream. So what happened? Olivia: Life happened. She went to college and was hit with the reality of student debt. She graduated into a bad economy and settled for an administrative job. Then she got married, had kids, and a car accident left her daughter with a traumatic brain injury, forcing her to become a stay-at-home mom. Now, in her forties, she feels completely unfulfilled, resentful of her husband's freedom, and trapped. She looks back at her dreams and just feels this profound sense of loss. Jackson: That is heartbreaking. And it’s the perfect example of how individual circumstances can collide with these massive, unforgiving societal expectations. She did everything she was supposed to do. Olivia: She did. And now she feels like she's failed. This is a theme that got the book some mixed reviews. Some readers felt it focused too much on the struggles of middle-class, privileged women. But Calhoun counters this by pointing out the immense pressure across the board. Jackson: How so? Olivia: She cites data from economist Isabel Sawhill, who found that a typical forty-year-old woman in America makes about $36,000 a year working full-time. After childcare, rent, food, and taxes, that leaves maybe a thousand dollars for everything else. So whether you're Kelly, who had a certain level of comfort, or someone barely scraping by, the pressure is immense. The promise of 'having it all' feels like a cruel joke when you can't even afford a new set of tires. Jackson: Okay, that puts it in perspective. The pressure is universal, but the consequences of failing to meet it are just far more dire without a safety net. It’s a recipe for constant, gnawing anxiety. Olivia: Precisely. And that anxiety isn't just abstract. It shows up in very real, day-to-day pressures that Calhoun describes as a kind of modern-day torture device.

Jackson: A torture device? That sounds intense. Olivia: It is. She calls it 'The Caregiving Rack.' Gen X women are the quintessential sandwich generation, but on steroids. They're squeezed between raising their own kids and caring for aging parents. Jackson: I've heard the term 'sandwich generation' before, but what makes it so much worse for Gen X? Olivia: Two things. First, parenting itself has become what sociologist Sharon Hays calls an "intensive" project. Jennifer Senior, in her book All Joy and No Fun, puts it perfectly: "Children went from being our employees to our bosses." Gen X parents are expected to be deeply, actively involved in every facet of their child's life, from homework to extracurriculars. One woman in the book quotes her Boomer mom, who was mystified watching her play with her kids, saying, "We never played with you." Jackson: Wow, that one line says it all. The standards have completely changed. So that's one side of the rack. What's the other? Olivia: The other side is their aging parents. And while men are doing more housework and childcare than ever before—about ten hours a week of housework, up from four in the 60s—women still bear the overwhelming mental and physical load. They're the ones scheduling the doctor's appointments, managing the emotional labor, and often, taking time off work. Jackson: And all of this is happening while they're supposed to be at the peak of their careers. Olivia: If they even have one. The book is filled with stories of women whose careers have stalled or who are underemployed. And the societal judgment is just relentless. There’s this one story that is just brutal. A new mother, a lawyer, is going stir-crazy at home. Her doctor tells her it's fine to take the baby out. So she goes to Target. Jackson: A classic new-parent outing. Seems harmless enough. Olivia: You'd think. But the baby starts wailing in the beauty aisle, and suddenly she's surrounded by strangers giving her these looks of intense disapproval. She gets to the checkout, completely overwhelmed, drops her credit card, and just bursts into tears. One kind person helps her, but the rest just stare. She feels utterly alone and judged. Jackson: That is just awful. It’s this feeling of being constantly watched and graded on your performance as a mother, with zero support. It’s not just that you have to do everything; you have to do it perfectly, in public, with a smile. Olivia: Exactly. And that’s where the financial panic really kicks in. You're squeezed for time, you're squeezed by these impossible expectations, and you're squeezed for money. Calhoun points out that Gen X has more debt than any other generation—a staggering 82 percent more than Boomers. They were hit by multiple recessions, the housing bust, and skyrocketing education costs. Jackson: It’s a perfect storm. No wonder they can't sleep. It feels like there’s no escape. Olivia: It does. And that pressure cooker environment is where the physical body starts to rebel. This is where the book gets really personal and, surprisingly, where it starts to offer a glimmer of hope.

Jackson: Hope? After all that, I'm ready for some hope. Where does it come from? Olivia: It comes from a place most people don't want to talk about: perimenopause. Calhoun argues that for many women, the physical and emotional chaos of perimenopause—the hot flashes, the mood swings, the rage—is the breaking point. It’s the moment the carefully constructed facade of 'having it all' finally shatters. Jackson: So the body basically calls timeout. Olivia: It screams timeout. There's this hilarious but deeply poignant story the author tells about her own mother. As a teenager, she found her mom furious, slamming the phone down. The reason? She was enraged by a roll of paper towels that had little teddy bears on them. She’d actually called the company to complain that they were "infantilizing women." Jackson: [Laughs] Okay, that is amazing. The paper towel rage. I think we've all had a version of that, where some tiny, insignificant thing becomes the target for all our pent-up frustration. Olivia: We have! And years later, the author realizes her own 'paper towel teddy bear' is her son's pet turtle, who she becomes convinced is bored and unfulfilled. The point is, this rage and anxiety has to go somewhere. Perimenopause often turns up the volume on those feelings until you can't ignore them anymore. Jackson: So it forces a reckoning. You can't pretend everything is fine when you're having hot flashes in a boardroom or, you know, yelling at paper towels. Olivia: Exactly. And in that reckoning, there's an opportunity. The book suggests that this is the moment when women can finally stop trying to live up to the impossible script they were handed and start writing a new one. It’s about reframing the narrative. Jackson: What does that look like in practice? Olivia: It looks like the author's friend in Florida. She'd been through a messy divorce, a career change, she had less money than she wanted—by all the old metrics, she was 'failing.' But when she and the author are talking, the friend describes her life as a "terrible fun" adventure. Jackson: Oh, I love that. 'Terrible fun.' It's not pretending the hard parts aren't hard, but it's seeing them as part of a compelling story, not just a series of disasters. Olivia: That's it exactly. She knew she could feel bad, but she still felt strangely hopeful. She was interested in her own story, in how it was evolving. The bad things were part of the plot. This is the core of the book's hope: what if this crisis isn't a prison, but a school? A place to learn what you actually want, not what you were told you should want. Jackson: So the way out isn't some magic pill or a five-step plan to 'get your life back.' It's a fundamental shift in perspective. It's about learning to see your own story differently. Olivia: It is. It’s about accepting that you can't control everything, that your body will change, that your career might not be a straight line, and that none of that is a personal failure. It’s just… life.

Jackson: It’s really a powerful reframing. The crisis isn't the problem; the expectation of a life without crisis was the problem all along. Olivia: That's the heart of it. The book argues the tragedy isn't that Gen X women's lives are uniquely terrible, but that they were sold a story of perfection that was never attainable. The real, difficult, and ultimately liberating work of midlife is letting go of that story and all the shame that comes with it. Jackson: There's a fantastic quote from the book that really stuck with me: "Life doesn’t have to get easier to be good." It’s about finding the good in the mess, not trying to eliminate the mess entirely. Olivia: It’s a beautiful and realistic sentiment. It’s about finding those moments of 'terrible fun.' And that's a conversation we want to continue with all of you. What parts of this story resonated? What are your 'paper towel rage' moments? We'd love to hear your 'terrible fun' adventures. Let us know on our social channels. Jackson: Because as the book makes clear, the way through this is together, by sharing our real stories, not the filtered versions. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.