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This time in history probably has the most burnt out, exhausted generation of mid-life women…ever.
If you ask a midlife woman how she’s experiencing menopause, she’ll often pause before answering. Not because she doesn’t know—but because she doesn’t know where to begin.
Menopause today feels louder, heavier, harder, more relentless, and far more draining than it was for previous generations. And while our hormones haven’t changed, almost everything else has.
My own menopause journey has been hellish. My own mother delights in telling me that she “breezed through menopause” and that she “didn’t even notice it,” as if her ease was a badge of honour and my menopause distress means I am weak, over-dramatising, or not “doing it properly.” But there are stark differences between her life then and my life now.
She never worked, she had family close by, she didn’t have any financial worries, and by the time she was experiencing menopause my sister and I had flown the nest. Her time and energy were totally her own. There were minimal demands or pressures on her. She had the luxury of being able to take an afternoon nap if she felt tired.
She was also a “hands off” parent whilst I was growing up, which meant she had more time for herself. Her reserves were overflowing when the time came to dip into them.
Fifty years ago, most women weren’t hustling through full-time careers while managing a household. Their days didn’t include daily commutes, performance reviews, inboxes, commutes, office politics, or the pressure to constantly “level up.”
Today’s woman often faces an unrelenting load: building a career, proving her worth, staying competitive, while simultaneously managing a home and caring for her family. She is doing two full-time jobs—the paid one and the unpaid one at home.
Menopause isn’t landing on a rested body; it’s landing on a body already stretched thin. She is stepping into it from a place of depletion, not rest.
And then there’s parenting. A generation ago, children played in the street until dusk while neighbours casually kept watch. Family often lived nearby, stepping in with support when life became overwhelming. There was a village.
Now, motherhood requires 24/7 emotional vigilance: cyberbullying, social media anxiety, online and offline safety, academic and peer pressures, mental health concerns, constant chauffeuring, extracurricular overload. Today’s mother is in a constant state of vigilance and high alert. Many women are navigating menopause while managing tween or teenage emotions—a collision of hormones on both sides of the household.
Women are also having children later in life. That means a menopausal woman today might be dealing with her own sleep disturbances and mood fluctuations while coordinating carpools, organising sleepovers, checking homework, and being the emotional anchor for growing kids. It’s not just tiring. It’s draining at a soul level.
Even in more egalitarian relationships, research continues to show that women carry the majority of emotional labour and mental load. The soothing, remembering, planning, scheduling, managing the barrage of e-mails from school, topping up lunch accounts, remembering school “book day” where fancy dress is required, birthday presents, dentist appointments, school trips….it goes on and on.
Fifty years ago, parenting was more hands-off: “let them cry,” “children will figure it out,” “don’t pander to them,” “children should be seen and not heard” was the norm. Today’s mothers are expected to be endlessly attuned, emotionally available, and consciously parenting at every turn.
And let’s not forget life in this modern world. It has become louder, faster, and far more demanding and always “on.” With smartphones and 24/7 connectivity, women never truly switch off. There is always another message to reply to, another task to track, another crisis to manage.
Social media can push mums into constant comparison, viewing carefully curated posts that make other mums look effortlessly fit, organised, and thriving. This creates a false sense of perfection, turning motherhood into a competitive performance and leaving those who are exhausted or struggling feeling inadequate, unseen, and even more overwhelmed.
Rising costs of living, global uncertainty, relentless news cycles, and hormone-disrupting chemicals in our food, environment, and beauty products all add layers of stress the menopausal body must navigate.
When women say menopause feels harder now, they’re telling the truth. Women are entering this transition more depleted, stressed, anxious, and more stretched than generations before them. They are moving through a profound biological transition in a world that gives them less rest, less support, and fewer pauses than generations before them. They’re carrying more than their bodies were built for.
The solution isn’t to “toughen up.”
It’s to recognise that modern women deserve more compassion and understanding, more community, and more space to breathe through this transition.
Menopause isn’t the end of vitality—it’s an invitation to finally lay down everything that was never meant to be carried alone.
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