Jean Kittson: "During my 40's I never felt the age thing".

During my forties I never felt the age thing. Not one bit. Not at all. Not even slightly.

Well, OK, maybe at the hairdressers. Occasionally.

It’s not the grey hair thing – I have never associated grey hair with age. It’s never been a problem because it’s so easy and painless to cover it up. I have been covering it up with Agent Orange since my thirties. No, it is the eyes-mouth-jaw-neck wattle ritual you do when you sit for any length of time in front of a mirror with nothing to distract except magazines full of women with no neck bloody wattles and no crinkles around the eyes and no scowl lines between the eyebrows and no saggy jowly bits and bloody hell, What’s that on the side of my face? Please God, let it be a dribble of Brunette Bombshell and not an AGE SPOT! Out, damn age spot!

And that is when the devil and I make eye contact. To prick or not to prick? To nip or not to tuck?

To the casual observer I may look like any other woman, waiting serenely for the chemical sludge on her head to finish cooking, but inside I am engaged in a deep Platonic debate, employing the Socratic method (arguing with myself without moving my lips, except when I get heated and mutter).

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The intense moral Q & A generally goes something like this:

If you want Botox, get Botox, what’s the problem? That’s what feminism is all about, empowering women to make their own choices, get their faces pricked with botulism as much as they damn well like. It’s a woman’s right.

But why do we feel the need to hide our age and be as ageless as possible? Why is it getting more common for women to be judged negatively for not fixing themselves up? For not getting rid of those ugly signs of ageing! Why do we think they should be fixed up? Why do we think they are ugly? Perhaps we should bring back the full birdcage fascinator for all women over the age of 40?

You hypocrite. Don’t you dye your hair? Don’t you sometimes look at women who don’t dye their hair and think, Why don’t you dye your hair? You would look so much younger.Well, I might have once, true. I think I may have even suggested that to a friend in my early forties, much to my shame, I was merely concerned about my friend’s daily grooming. But aren’t expensive unctions and a little lift when you need it, aren’t they a part of grooming? Of keeping yourself nice? Not letting yourself go, like some sturdy peasant woman from the middle ages, who is too busy ploughing to groom, and who spends her time staring at a horse’s rump rather than a mirror?

Why wouldn’t you smooth your skin like you would your hair or your skirt? Why wouldn’t you get rid of the lines around your mouth when you can? Why is it such a big deal to you? Because that’s not same. I can have a face like someone has sat on it (which they might have, on occasion) and still be well groomed).But wouldn’t you secretly love to look younger? 46 or 50 or 55? No.

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Have you SEEN The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? And another thing; I have spent a great deal of time and effort as a mother instilling in my daughters a higher level of values. That how you look is not as important as who you are. Your height, your body shape, whether your thighs meet in the middle, whether your eyebrows meet in the middle – these really and truly don’t matter.

It is how you feel and how you behave and how you relate to others that is important. True they look at me and think: ‘Yeah, sure. Get a life and read some magazines. Watch America’s Next Top Model’, but I am supposed to be a role model to my kids and I really would be a hypocrite if I suddenly went and got my wrinkles erased and my neck tucked because I am worried about looking my age. Especially if they asked the name of my surgeon and/or some time off school.

But, back to me, isn’t that my choice because I am a free woman? And, anyway you use makeup, isn’t Botox just like makeup, except under the skin? You may be thinking, at this point, This woman has far too much time on her hands and she may have been drinking. You may also be wondering, at this point, What is her point?

Well my point is that, yes, we alI like to feel attractive (to ourselves), so do whatever rings your bell. It only becomes pathetic or delusional if we yearn to be an attractive 30-something when we are an attractive 40-something or 50-something or 60-something. We need to ignore the constant message to look younger and thinner and have cheeks like a squirrel storing tennis balls for summer.

Besides, pump your facial parts like a self-basting chicken, reconstruct your face around artfully placed Botox blisters, and people will not stand amazed in the street and say: ‘That fortunate woman has inherited the genes of eternally youthful appearance.’

People will not come to the door and say, ‘Hello, young woman, is your mother home?’ Most women just think, Yep. She’s had work. (Most men don’t even notice. With most men you’d have to grow a full set of cavalry whiskers before they noticed any difference and even then they’d wonder if it was OK to mention your new haircut.)I don’t judge, much. Well, I really try not to judge and I am getting pretty good at it.

But I think this yearning to look younger is disempowering. It is a woman’s Achilles heel. And also a woman’s Achilles cheeks, forehead, chin, neck, teeth, lips, elbows and knees. We should be enjoying and celebrating diversity. Our own diversity. And there’s nothing quite so diversified as the stages of our lives.

We are growing up, not old. What we may lose in skin texture, we gain in wisdom and experience and empathy and understanding and heightened rat cunning. It is so easy to say and so very hard to do but in my humble opinion it really is better to act our age and try to feel a fabulous version of it.

This is an extract from Jean Kittson's book 'You're still hot to me - the joys of menopause.'

You can find out more about it (and buy a copy!) here.