Talk About Sweatin' to the Oldies...

6/8/2007

FRIDAY

1 PM

Frankly, I agree with Deb Caruana, quoted here.

Why hide it? the New York Times quoted Ms. Caruana saying, in a story headlined: Listen Up, Everybody. I m in Menopause.

Thirty-five years ago, television viewers were shocked by a landmark episode of All in the Family when the normally meek Edith Bunker wreaked havoc on everyone around her because of a condition then delicately referred to as the change of life. But these days, among people of a certain age, references to menopause are just as likely to be batted across a dinner table as comments about the bouquet of the merlot

More than that, though, many women are flaunting their menopausal symptoms. If they are not erupting in the literal heat of the moment, they are flinging wisecracks, adopting a single-sex argot comprised of wry, offhanded quips and punctuated by knowing winks and nudges.

Let the church say amen.

In my experience, all it takes is two women ages 50-plus, and the conversation ends up here sooner or later. (OK, sometimes all it takes is just one woman age 50-plus. God knows I have certainly been known to mutter to myself about this topic )

Like Ms. Caruana, I m not much inclined to either refrain from or apologize for saying the M word in public.

I m quite sure that if men underwent menopause, cable would offer The Menopause Channel. There d be federal subsidies to underwrite the dry-cleaning costs of all those sweat-stained silk blouses. There d be black cohosh sundaes at the McDonald s drive-through. There d be a revision to FMLA, renaming it the Family Medical Leave and Menopause Relief Act. And there'd definitely be bragging contests about whose hot flashes are bigger...