What You Learn in Your 40s

Few writers capture a life stage quite like Pamela Druckerman captured the 40s. In a much-shared 2014 New York Times column, the author of Bringing Up Bébé set out to do what she said she never managed in earlier decades: figure out the decade's main point while still in it.

Her premise is charmingly modest. In her 20s, she says, she was supposed to be building a career instead of husband-hunting; in her 30s she was busy nursing grievances from her 20s. The 40s, by contrast, are a "rush hour of life" — career peaks and child-rearing peaks colliding — which is exactly what makes them hard to see clearly from inside.

What the essay delivers is a wry inventory of small, earned insights: that worrying less about what people think of you makes you far better at reading them; that the adults you once imagined running the world were improvising all along; that eight hours of unbroken sleep is one of life's great pleasures; that "soul mate" isn't a pre-existing condition but a title people earn over time; that youthful quirks harden into adult pathologies — and that by 40 you can already see who your peers will be at 70.

Some of her lessons are pure comedy: don't buy the too-small jeans on the expectation of future weight loss; if you like the outfit on the mannequin, buy exactly that; it's fine not to like jazz. Others are quietly profound: there are no grown-ups; forgive your exes, they were winging it too; when you meet someone extremely charming, be cautious rather than dazzled; find your people instead of the cool people.

Her conclusion lands gently: the 40s teach you that you're 95 percent cohort and 5 percent unique — a bit of a disappointment, and a bit of a relief. And in ten years, she admits, all these revelations will look adorably naive. Which is rather the point: learning keeps going.

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Summary of Pamela Druckerman's column "What You Learn in Your 40s," The New York Times, March 1, 2014.