Why You Should Read: There Are No Grown-Ups
A Hilarious Account on Adulting and Becoming 40-Somethings
I immediately picked up There Are No Grown-Ups by Pamela Druckerman when I saw it at a bookstore. I know it’ll be witty and wildly hilarious like her earlier book, French Children Don’t Throw Food (read my review here) that I wasted no time reading it when I got home, haha.
Happy to share that the book doesn’t disappoint. While it is not as thoroughly researched and well-written as her previous book, There Are No Grown-Ups still delivers on the funny front. I love that Druckerman finds inspiration from various parts of her life in France; from friendships, romance, and motherhood, to physical appearances, fashion, and working life 😍
There Are No Grown-Ups is a book about ways to navigate life when you are in your 40s, which is technically the middle age assuming you live up to 80. The author is in her 40s when she wrote this book and she dwells upon the conundrum of societal expectations when we turn 40.
Wherever you are, forty looks old from below. I hear Americans in their 20s describe the 40s as a mythic, far-off decade of too-late, when they’ll regret things that they haven’t done. And yet for many senior citizens I met, the 40s are the decade they want to time travel back to.
And there is still something undeniably transitional about age 40. You’ve only ever known yourself as a young person, and now you have left one stage of life, but you haven’t quite entered the next.
The modern 40s are confusing because we have reached the age that’s strangely lacking in milestones. Children and adolescents are nothing but milestones of growing up, people in the 20s and 30s are busy finding partners, jobs, promotions, babies, etc. In your 40s you might still acquire new degrees, jobs, homes, and spouses, but they elicit less wonder now.
(edited for clarity and simplicity ✨)
This book is divided into 25 “How-To” themes - ways to guide clueless 40-something women on how to live the supposedly the best decade of their life. Each theme usually starts with a background story on a topic that the Druckerman is curious about. Then, she expands and adds with her own experiences. There are a lot of interesting themes in this book but a few that I really enjoyed are:
💕 How To Be Mortal
In this chapter, Druckerman shares with us her harrowing experience of dealing with cancer. She lost weight, a ton of hair, and also the energy to write. She felt terrified and overwhelmed by the possibility of not living to see her children grow up.
The thing is, she finally feels like an adult when she is faced with cancer. Not saying that we have to be inflicted with a terrible disease to finally wo/man up as adults, but facing a consequential experience does potentially change our outlook on life in certain ways.
You have to read the book to know what happened to Druckerman and her cancer, but her determination to live another day is respectable. It’s funny that after this experience her only parenting advice (after writing tons of good, practical ones in French Children Don’t Throw Food) boils down to: don’t die.
👩⚕️ How To Be An Expert
The author didn’t expect her parenting book, French Children Don’t Throw Food, to become a global bestseller. A lot of mothers across the world get in touch with her to express their gratitude for the tips given in the book.
Druckerman gets invited to many talk shows and her book is reviewed by various publications. She is amazed that these talk shows involve esteemed professors and graduate students; these people consider her an expert in the parenting field after the major success of French Children Don’t Throw Food.
She admits that she suffers from imposter syndrome, surrounded by “true” experts in the field around her. At one point believes that the experts she looks up to are only entertaining and honoring her. She later realizes that “experts” are not reserved for people in academia, but rather when you have thoughtful, layered opinions that rely on a broad understanding of the field. Experts are people who can get to the heart of a complicated topic and pull the strands apart.
👍 In this sense, it’s refreshing to know that all of us can be experts when we put our heart and soul into the things we love learning about. It is not a title reserved for the professors only. We can be experts in our field without becoming academia. (Well, in the same thread, you can argue that a ton of people on Reddit are experts on the topics they are discussing passionately, haha.)
👗 How To Get Dressed
I love clothes so this is easily my favorite How-To in There Are No Grown-Ups.
After her cancer experience, Druckerman lost a lot of weight so a lot of her clothes do not fit her well anymore. However, she notes that even without cancer, her body changes substantially in her 40s. Wearing the wrong clothes can, at best make her look weird and at worst, age her dramatically 😕
Luckily for Druckerman, she lives in Paris, so she learns how to dress from observing all the chic Parisians around her. For Parisians, it is important to dress in a way that suits their body type, emphasizing the best features. Parisians never strive to look unique; the women of Paris always say they want to look elegant and chic. Also, it is impossible to find Parisians wearing sweatshirts to the grocery store because the social code demands them to look decent.
She learns that for 40-something women, the most reliable choice is modern, structured clothes with clean lines and a few unexpected details.
👍 Interesting fact: In France, returns are technically permitted but actively discouraged! How wonderfully sustainable. This kind of societal pressure will make shoppers choose their clothes more thoughtfully. Plus, this also reduces waste because believe it or not, most returns are discarded in the trash (read more: Your brand new returns end up in landfill)
👵 How To Age Gracefully
As an American, the author states that her fellow Americans loath getting older and a lot of them will spend their precious money on anti-aging skincare, Botox, facial lifts, etc. All in the concentrated effort to “combat” aging.
Meanwhile the French has a more interesting opinion on getting older, despite common knowledge that they highly value appearances. For French women, instead of worrying about signs of aging, they aspire to wear their age well and be comfortable in their bodies. Trying to look young is the quickest way to look old so they try to embrace their age and the imperfections that come with it.
Yes, the French do spend energy to maintain their bodies in good health but they do not fret about every little wrinkle or skin sag that comes along the way. Accepting your body and knowing that you have a place in this world no matter what your age is a very deliberate, adult act.
👍 I love this. Old age is unavoidable and we should embrace it when the time comes. For a very long time, women have been manipulated by greedy corporations and clever marketing. They earn billions of dollars through the beauty industry by selling us the “youth dream” 🙄
👎 How To Say No
For some, the 40s is a busy decade. Work and child-rearing peaks collide and some would have to care for aging parents, forcing us to balance these acts all at once.
It’s important to manage your time well and one of the best ways to do so is to learn how to say no. For Druckerman, she learns a few key lessons to edit her time and her life, in both leisure and work. Some of my favorites are:
Prioritize your own projects. People will come and go with their problems but you need to focus on your projects. Unless it’s life-threatening, don’t volunteer to do favors out of guilt.
Do small things immediately whenever possible. They’ll grow in importance and urgency if you let them linger.
People are usually flexible, you only have to ask. There is always much more room for negotiations than you think. If you don’t like someone’s proposal, propose something else that you can do with less stress.
Don’t let the Internet eat your life: Rules help. For example, you can choose to only reply to emails on Thursdays, or be offline after 8 p.m.
Just do what you want more often: Enjoy your life and you’ll be much happier if you do what you like more often.
There is a slightly weird tangent at the end of the book about the author trying to find her ancestors and discovering her family tree 🤔 That chapter alone feels very much detached from her previous stories and I feel it should be edited out of the book. Nevertheless, I still think that There Are No Grown-Ups is worth the time spent reading it.
Even if you are not in your forties, I encourage you to pick up this book if you are looking for a funny yet profoundly insightful read for your next read.
Till next time, thank you for reading!
Ristina xx
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