Family

Family issues for women in midlife are distinct from the earlier challenges. Parenting teens brings a host of concerns, ranging from wrangling your almost-adult into doing chores to more serious problems like eating disorders and self-harming. And we often care for older family members as well. You’ll find stories and advice here that relate to the real problems we experience now.

'My Mother Saw Parenthood as an Affliction'

When she was eight years old, Leah McLaren’s mother left family life for a glamorous job in the city. In this extract from her memoir, Leah reflects on her mother's ambivalent feelings towards parenthood now that she herself is a mother.

How Parents Can Support Their Child Through an Eating Disorder

Throughout her late teen years, Megan Ravenhall found herself in the grip of an eating disorder. Though she feels she has still not fully recovered, Megan reflects on how her parents' support led her to ultimately choose life.

How to avoid a toxic man in midlife

Sometimes the most charming men are actually the ones you want to avoid like the plague writes Mairi Macleod

Picture: ITV/Shutterstock

Love Island, porn and Generation XXX

ITV's Love Island glorifies a culture of sex without feelings. But there is a very dark side to all this and it's time we addressed it writes Eleanor Mills.

'I left my husband for a woman'

VG Lee married her first boyfriend at 18, and though she could sense something was wrong, it wouldn't be until nearly 20 years after that that she could explore her true identity.

My mum, the hopeless alcoholic

It's hard enough when your mother dies -- but what if you have always had to look after her? That is a whole other story.

How I gave up school gate politics

The actress Salima Saxton lost her way on the children's playground...until she ditched the Instagram mum lifestyle.

Adopting in midlife: It wasn't what I thought

Margaret Reynolds thought embarking on parenting in midlife would be a personal journey. It was so much more than that...

'I was the victim of financial abuse'

Louise was getting her life together after her divorce. Then her new partner needed a loan....

Join us: Catherine Mayer on bereavement and re-embracing life

Journalist Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird, her mother and co-author, discuss the loss of their husbands and coping with bereavement with Eleanor Mills.

Catherine Mayer on the physicality of grief

Catherine Mayer’s beloved husband Andy died at the beginning of the pandemic, only weeks after her stepfather. Since then she and her mother have been sharing their bereavement journey together, culminating in writing Good Grief, a book which is searing about loss but optimistic on how to re-embrace life. Here is an edited extract of a brand-new chapter about how grief affects body as well as soul.

Poems for midlife

Allie Esiri's collection A Poet for Every Day of the Year features poems for life's big and little moments. We excerpt ones for empty nest, hope, love and more

Join us