Turning 40 - It’s All About the Journey

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Are You Turning 40 and Looking for a Profound Life Change?

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Turning 40 is one of the key psychological milestones in a person’s life when they evaluate who they are and where they want to be going.

GEORGE NEGUS: Now, something just a little trickier and much harder to define - the psychological impact of hitting the four-score mark. It used to be summed up by the simple term ‘midlife crisis’. According to some of the experts, there’s no such thing - at least not in a quantifiable medical sense. On the other hand, there are self-styled geniuses out there who’ll tell you that psychologically, turning 40 is a major milestone. Confused? Well, here’s Dr Caroline West with some very thoughtful people who might be able to sort this out for us.

DR CAROLINE WEST: According to some psychological research, you’ll face two events that will change your life forever. The first crisis is adolescence and the second is, you guessed it, turning 40. So, what’s the psychology of a typical 40-year-old? Well, given that there are a few hundred thousand of us in this country, there are probably a few hundred thousand different answers to that very complex question. And if it helps any, I’m 40 - well, just - and if I think about it, I don’t know if my psyche’s changed that much from when I was 30…or has it?

JULIE McCROSSIN, RADIO NATIONAL: 40 was good for me. I was full of that Sophie Tucker ‘Life Begins At 40′ and it felt like that for me. I felt physically fit and intellectually confident.

DR CAROLINE WEST: You’ll know Rebecca Wilson from ABC TV’s ‘The Fat’. She’s just turned 40. She’s a single mum and she’s a highly motivated, extremely successful sports commentator.

REBECCA WILSON, ‘THE FAT’: I felt fantastic when I turned 40. Plus I’ve got young children, but they’re now getting to an age where they’re great mates rather than being a chore. So, through my 30s, you go through that really, really difficult time of being a new mum and juggling work commitments and all those things. And now, in your 40s, you can sit back and enjoy the…the rewards of all the hard work you did in your 20s and 30s - from a professional and personal viewpoint.

DR CAROLINE WEST: Many of us 40-year-olds grew up surrounded by second-wave feminist ideas of managing a family and a career at the same time. But even those of us lucky enough to have healthy kids and a good job still wonder if we’re successful.

REBECCA WILSON: One woman said to me years ago, “It’s the truth serum decade.” And I think that’s right, that you feel that you have a…a great responsibility to yourself to be true to yourself that you don’t really understand through your 20s and 30s, and that the most important person in terms of that integrity is yourself.

DR CAROLINE WEST: In fact, an Australian survey of women in their 20s, 40s and 60s found that forty-somethings were well ahead of twenty-somethings when it came to emotional health. The majority were balancing a job and having kids at home, but were happy in spite of being hectic. For Rebecca, resignation to the fact of 40 only goes so far.

REBECCA WILSON: People start talking about Botox. (Laughs) And they say to you, “Are you thinking about Botox?” and you go, “Why?!”, because you always think of yourself as being 25, even in the face, and then you see things start sagging. And I think, physically, that’s a real issue.

DR CAROLINE WEST: For men, though, the mythology about turning 40 seems to be very different. Forget the idea of independence plus responsibility. The popular assumption is that 40-year-old men become utterly irresponsible as they battle to recapture their lost youth - the classic recipe for the midlife crisis.

JAMES O’LOGHLIN, ABC RADIO: It’s time to think, “Well, where am I really? “Am I…am I happy?” Um…and it’s got to be about me, really. I don’t want to do things because I’ve been doing them for the last 10 years and because it’s the right and appropriate thing to do.

DR CAROLINE WEST: For columnist, author and sports commentator Peter Fitzsimons, the issue is about more than appropriate behaviour. For him, the real psychological turning point was the balance between death and happiness.

PETER FITZSIMONS, AUTHOR: I suppose, you know, there are friends of mine who are in their 40s that suddenly… (Clicks) ..gone. Suicides, heart attacks, you know? Not a lot, but…in that area where now I’m conscious of my mortality.

DR CAROLINE WEST: And when it comes to blokey blokes, there are few blokier than Peter. A former Wallabies second rower, he played seven tests for Australia. He became an admired sportsman and media celebrity, and it all happened in his 20s and 30s.

PETER FITZSIMONS: In one of Bob Dylan’s less-known works, there’s a phrase he comes up with which is, “This ocean of hours I’m all the time drinking,” and when you’re 20, it is an ocean of hours ahead of you, it just doesn’t matter. And when you’re 30, it’s this huge, huge lake. And when you’re 40, it’s a very, very big-sized dam.

DR CAROLINE WEST: In other words, the older you get, the smaller the world becomes. Suddenly no unlimited horizon or future. And today, with wife Lisa away on business, even the luxury of contemplating mortality is out of the question.

PETER FITZSIMONS: It’s far more complicated in terms of where I was at 23 or 24, which was playing football and writing and no…not committed to one partner and no children. Uh…life then was far simpler, but not better. I mean, now - it sounds like a Hallmark greeting card - but I do ‘love my life’. I do love my life at 40, and long may it continue.

DR CAROLINE WEST: So what’s new about the psychology of turning 40 today? Well, I think one of the most interesting observations is that people are having children later. In our grandmothers’ day, you were most likely to have small children in your early 20s. These days, many people in their 40s have young families, and as we’ve just seen, the big 4-0 can be the beginning of contentment, independence and emotional maturity. So surely for our kids that must be a good thing.