‘GETTING OLDER IS LIBERATING’
Despite the challenges of midlife, Caitlin Moran is feeling happier than ever
Caitlin Moran assumed her 40s were going to be easy. A decade ago, basking in her success as an award-winning columnist for The Times followed by a game-changing book on feminism in 2011, How To Be A Woman, she thought she had life figured out and that middle age was going to be a doddle. ‘I even thought I’d have time to learn French,’ she laughs.
What she hadn’t accounted for – aside from ‘the physical stuff’ that arrives with midlife – was the demanding juggle of raising two teenage girls and looking after ageing parents. ‘In your 40s, people start to really need you, so you feel like you’re in service,’ she says. ‘It’s exhausting. All my friends are sandwich age, so we’re in the same boat – but it’s as though we’re on a lifeboat together, pulling people out of the water.’
A HOMAGE TO MIDLIFE
Caitlin, who is 45, is talking to GH on a Zoom video call from her home in north London. She has an infectious energy, answering every question with warmth and enthusiasm. Her hair is tied into two plaits with her signature blonde streak sitting faintly in her fringe. It’s a swelteringly hot day and she’s stripped down to a beige bra. (‘Sorry, I’m melting today,’ she says, by way of explanation.)
Around her are piles of books and her shelves are filled with framed photos of family and friends. Among them is one of her with Dame Emma Thompson and others from the cast and crew of the film How To Build A Girl, which was adapted from Caitlin’s semi-autobiographical novel about leaving her Midlands council home behind to become a music journalist in London. ‘This is my most prized possession,’ she says, holding the picture up to the camera.
How To Build A Girl was due to premiere at Glastonbury in June, and would have been the first film ever to do so. ‘It
would have been amazing,’ she sighs. Instead, the film has been released for streaming on Amazon Prime.
Caitlin might have been disappointed, but she has other things to focus on with the publication of her latest book, More Than A Woman. Covering everything from the difficulties of raising teenagers to why you can, actually, get a facelift while also being a feminist, it’s a memoir, a manifesto, and an all-round homage to midlife women.
‘Middle-aged women hold up society and yet we don’t tend to tell their stories,’ she says. ‘So with this book, I wanted to blow open all the doors of their houses and say: “I see you.”’
Being in her 40s has taught Caitlin how to be ‘incredibly organised’, and she’s generally happy with extra responsibility. ‘Every human wants to be helpful,’ she says. ‘It is just so noticeable how the burden of care is often dumped on women.’
Luckily for Caitlin, she’s able to share that care with her seven siblings. While her parents are now divorced, the family is still close and her mum and dad are ‘independently pootling around at the seaside’.
As for her own parenting, Caitlin wanted to replicate the ‘sense of freedom and creativity’ from her own childhood for her two girls, Lizzie, 19, and Nancy, 17. Married to music journalist Pete Paphides, she says the family had great fun during lockdown ‘hanging out’ and ‘laughing our heads off at our cockapoo Luna, who’s a classic clown’. Lizzie had already finished education while Nancy, who’s a musician studying at The BRIT School, spent the time making her first album.
Caitlin describes herself as the kind of mum who is ‘always around’, although that’s not ideal when she’s writing. ‘They’re blind to the fact I work,’ she says. ‘I’ll be in the middle of trying to write a masterpiece and they’ll come in and go, “Mum, look at my lunch,” or “Where are my pants?”’
But there have been some dark times, too. In More Than A Woman, Caitlin writes movingly about Nancy’s struggles with mental illness and eating disorders, which culminated in a number of attempted overdoses. Seeing your child suffer is every mother’s worst nightmare. So how did Caitlin cope? ‘At first, very badly,’ she admits. ‘As a parent, you feel like it’s your fault. That’s why I wanted to write about it: to give a parent’s point of view.’ Both her daughters usually refuse to read her work, but she says Nancy encouraged her to put it in the book, in the hope of helping others.
At family therapy, she and Pete questioned whether they were to blame. ‘There are points where you think: maybe we’ve got this all wrong,’ she says. ‘And when you’re dealing with that level of guilt, it gets in the way of being able to help your kid.’
What was she guilty about? ‘I think the big fault I saw in my parenting – which is one of the reasons she was struggling so much – was I came from a family where if you had a problem, you made a joke about it,’ explains Caitlin. ‘I’m of a generation that thinks you can overcome anything if you’re cheerful, or just work hard enough. And that’s not the case with mental illness.’
When you get to 40, you suddenly realise: if I just sit here for 10 minutes and look out the window, I’m content
Over time, Caitlin realised that blaming herself was neither fair nor helpful. ‘It’s like thinking that your child has broken a leg because you’ve been bad parents,’ she says. The biggest breakthrough was ‘realising I needed to let her talk about how sad she was. It was saying to her: “I’m not going to be dismissive of the sadness. I’m not going to jolly you out of it. Just be sad with me.” Once we did that, her progress was extraordinary’.
FINDING HAPPINESS AND HOPE
For some, this could have put a strain on their marriage. For Caitlin and Pete, it went the other way: ‘It’s not the bonding experience you want, but it definitely brought us closer together.’
The pair have been together for 25 years, since they met while working for music magazine Melody Maker when Caitlin was 17. She was drawn to him from the start because the office was full of ‘cool kids in leather jackets’, while Pete ‘turned up from Birmingham in a cardigan and just wanted to write about Abba’.
Caitlin says she remains a positive person even in the face of a pandemic. ‘I’m an unfailing optimist,’ she says. ‘I know everything has been terrible this year, but my feeling is that it’s going to make way for more happiness and calmness.’
She thinks young people today are ‘incredible’, and feels hopeful about the future in their hands. ‘This generation is self-questioning, well-informed, aware of injustices and supportive of one another,’ she says. ‘That gives me enormous hope.’
As for Nancy, she’s made a remarkable recovery. ‘She’s batting around the world on her bicycle being just incredible,’ says Caitlin. ‘Once you’ve gone through something so awful and come out the other side of it, you just seem brighter and stronger than you would have been.’
Meanwhile, Caitlin is keeping busy. ‘I have the next 10 years worked out,’ she says, reeling off six different projects she’s currently working on (including the next book, another film and a musical). ‘I’m never going to retire. I don’t have a pension, I spent it all on the dog, so I can’t! But when I’m sitting with my cup of tea writing, that’s my happy place.’
She’s also learned a lot about herself in the past decade:
‘I feel younger now than I did in my early 30s. That’s because I’m taking care of myself better and I know what makes me happy.’
So she’s content with ageing? ‘It’s incredibly liberating,’ she says. ‘You finally see the world for what it is. The world is constantly trying to make you happy. It’s giving you sunrises and sunsets. It’s pumping out blossom. It’s making the smell of mowed lawns.’ She pauses: ‘I think when we’re younger women, we tend to think that happiness is something you have to buy or wear or go to. Then, when you get to 40, you suddenly realise: if I just sit here for 10 minutes and look out the window, I’m content. I don’t need as much as I thought
I did. I am comfortable and replete in who I am.’
More Than A Woman (Ebury Press) by Caitlin Moran is out now