There is no such thing as a perfect parent. I know this, and yet I still spend countless hours worrying that I’m doing something wrong—or worse, that I’m causing some kind of irreversible harm no […]
Author: The Forty Files
The Blog is back
The internet is overflowing with empowering messages for women in midlife. Scroll for two minutes and you’ll find slogans about “owning your feelings,” memes that insist you shouldn’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion, […]
The Forty Files: Doing It All at 43
The strangest thing about getting older? It’s how everyone else around me seems to be aging, while I’m still suspended in this feeling—one I can’t quite name. It’s not an age. It’s not a phase. […]
When the waters turn dark
My two years in Texas were deeply formative—there’s something enduring about the Lone Star State. The people. The pride. The resilience. I’m praying hard for everyone affected by the devastating flooding, including the families in […]
More than the carpool line
As a middle-aged mama, I hear it all the time—women saying things like, “I can’t do this,” or “That’s not what people our age do.” Somewhere along the way, we started believing that new dreams […]
The Forty Files 