The Hummus has Expired

“The truth is,” he said, “historically, women weren’t supposed to live past a certain age.”

He meant it as a joke, unless, of course, you agreed with this hot anthropological/ misogynistic take, which some of the men in our lawn circle concurred to varying degrees. You could see by the way their mouth corners smirked and they furtively met one another’s eyes, acknowledging this great truth universally held.

The philosopher noted my scowl. “Kidding, Jen.” He got up to hug me as he mouthed “Not kidding” to the group.

We were working in sleep away camp that summer, as we had many summers before and would continue to until our children aged out. By “we” I mean the women, the wives, the future ex-wives, the powerhouse moms who juggled whatever their demanding summer position living the woods, usually followed by a September-June job, and child rearing. The men were there for their weekend conjugal vacations after a week of bachelorhood.

Sometimes we looked forward to seeing them but you didn’t have to dig too deep to learn, during any of our endless late night confessionals, that we resented seeing the toilet seat up, our meager shelf space occupied by His toiletries, and things not exactly the way we’d organized them to be.

No, no, no! Things are not the way we’d organized them to be.

It is years past those camp days and we’re still here.

I’m sorry we didn’t die in childbirth or after reaching peak sexual attractiveness.

I’m sorry we’ve outlived our utility to the world. Maybe our kids hope we’ll stick around for babysitting or because they truly love us. Maybe those aging men are grateful for the advances in female mortality because they anticipate their nursing needs.

But there is a sector that still DOES NOT see us.

The workforce.

We may have stayed in it juggling parenthood and an outside profession or two.

We may have taken time off to raise our kids.

And now that our kids are off the table and we are on it – we are treated like disposable dishes when we are precious antiques.

Name one promising young Ivy League graduate who has the proven gets it done record that many of us older women do.

I’ll wait.

And I’m not going to list the gazillion positions we hold as moms, because there aren’t enough words. Some skills are ineffable. We just get the job done – 24/7 – year after year after fiscal, never take a riskle, year.

We may not have the latest tech skills, but we’re quick learners. We’ve literally pulled all nighters trying to jump the learning curve.

There is this adorable name for us: returners. As if we left for the Bahamas and sipped Pina Coladas for 20 years. Or maybe we were on that Cocoon voyage.

Or did we leave the cult of valued humanity and now beg for re-admittance?

The truth is, historically, men have fucked up this world big time. Move over boys. It’s time for the old ladies to take the wheel.