" "The Breaking Point"] suggests that the national conversation is about to have a hot flash. The passage through middle age of so large a clump of women . . . guarantees that some rules may have to be rewritten and boundaries moved to accommodate them." --"Time" magazine
From the cover of "Time" to" Desperate Housewives," the phenomenon of women in midlife experiencing a period of tumultuous personal upheaval--a breaking point--has reached a peak in our culture. Today, more than 15 million baby boomer women report having a midlife crisis compared to 14 million men. In "The Breaking Point," "Wall Street Journal" columnist Sue Shellenbarger looks beyond the numbers to discover the root of all this angst and examine the ways, both successful and not, that women are navigating this crucial transition period.
Drawing on original research data and interviews with more than fifty women, "The Breaking Point" uses real-life stories to illustrate the different archetypes and modes the course of reinvention follows. The book also shows women how to avoid the pitfalls of a midlife meltdown--ruined relationships and jettisoned careers--and instead transform this turbulent time into a period of personal growth that will enrich the rest of their lives.
Once every decade or so a book comes along that defines the collective experience of an entire generation. Provocative, insightful, and resonant, "The Breaking Point" is just such a book.
"Every once in a while you read a book that transforms you. Like the shift of a kaleidoscope, it reconfigures your view of life's journey. This is such a book. It may stimulate you to change directions, perhaps even enable you to find life's greatest joy: fulfillment. An invigorating read."
--Helen Fisher, author of "Why We Love"
"This catchy work is tailor-made for the 36 percent of women who will eventually have what they regard as midlife crises' . . . an illuminating guide." --"Publishers Weekly
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Sue Shellenbarger is the creator and writer of the "Wall Street Journal"'s Work & Family column. The former chief of the "Journal"'s Chicago news bureau, Shellenbarger started the column in 1991 to provide the nation's first regular coverage of the growing conflict between work and family, and its implications for the workplace and society.
Provocative, insightful, and resonant, "The Breaking Point" is an important, unique, and controversial work in the tradition of "The Second Shift." Indeed, this groundbreaking study both identifies and explains a phenomenon poised to redefine our culture--namely, the generation of middle-aged women now radically changing their lives in search of greater fulfillment.
In an extension of her award-winning "Wall Street Journal" Work & Family column, Shellenbarger here charts and captures this trend by combining original research data and interviews with more than fifty women who have navigated their own midlife crises. Long stereotyped as the province of men, today the midlife crisis is actually reported with greater frequency by "women." What brought this paradigm shift about? Emboldened by the financial independence to act on midlife desires, exhausted by decades of playing super-mom and repressing the feminine sides of themselves to succeed at work, women are now shedding the age roles of the past--as "The Breaking Point" accessibly explains--in favor of new pursuits in adventure, sports, sex, romance, education, and spirituality.
This study goes beyond defining a new phenomenon to show how and why the various options women use to cope with the turmoil of midlife--from playing it safe to dynamiting their lives--profoundly affect their families, careers, and our culture at large. "Every once in a while you read a book that transforms you. Like the shift of a kaleidoscope, it reconfigures your view of life's journey. This is such a book. It may stimulate you to change directions, perhaps even enable you to find life's greatest joy: fulfillment. An invigorating read."--Helen Fisher, Author of "Why We Love"
" "The Breaking Point"] suggests that the national conversation is about to have a hot flash."--"Time" "Every once in a while you read a book that transforms you. Like the shift of a kaleidoscope, it reconfigures your view of life's journey. This is such a book. It may stimulate you to change directions, perhaps even enable you to find life's greatest joy: fulfillment. An invigorating read."--Helen Fisher, author of "Why We Love" "When Shellenbarger wrote about her midlife crisis in one of her "Wall Street Journal" 'Work & Family' columns, reader response was overwhelming. So she decided to investigate those 'psychological and spiritual upheavals that] have been mistaken for menopause symptoms and reduced to a biological phenomenon.' Relying on interviews with 50 women between their late 30s and mid-50s and four studies of aging--and heavily indebted to a Jungian perspective--this catchy work is tailor-made for the '36% of women who will eventually have what they regard as midlife crises' (and it's right up the "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil" alley, too). Shellenbarger delineates six archetypes: the Adventurer, the Lover, the Leader, the Artist, the Gardener and the Seeker, who meet the crisis through six modes of transition (Sonic Boom, Moderate, Slow Burn, Flameout, Meltdown and Non-Starter). Contrary to popular wisdom, Shellenbarger says, 'the vital juices of joy, sexuality, and self-discovery are bubbling within, more powerfully and compellingly than ever' at midlife. The Artist might rediscover her creativity; the Gardener, who 'focuses deeply on the elements of the life she already has, ' might look for ways to revitalize old interests. The road to personal growth can be bumpy, Shellenbarger writes (and sometimes it's hard to distinguish it from 'the path to perdition'), but her book offers an illuminating guide."--"Publishers Weekly"
