Today I Am a Ma'am: and Other Musings On Life, Beauty, and Growing Older
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Authors: Valerie Harper,Catherine Whitney
To my darlings
,
Tony and Cristina
,
and for women of a certain age
everywhere
If Life Imitated Television . . .
I hope you have as much fun reading this book as I had writing it. I want to thank my coauthor, Catherine Whitney, for her wonderful work, her invaluable guidance, and for all the laughter we shared. She not only took my words and crafted them beautifully but she also further enhanced the book by bringing two people of enormous humor and creativity into the project—her writing partner, Paul Krafin, who is a very funny man, and our extremely talented illustrator, Rick Tulka.
I’m very grateful to Jane Dystel, my crackerjack literary agent, for her tenacity, keen attention to detail, and for her belief in me.
Thank you to my editor, Diane Reverand, whose creativity, enthusiasm, and savvy have infused the process from the beginning. She has been a joy to work with. Diane’s associate, Janet Dery, saw the book’s production through with patience and great organizational skills, and we’d have been lost without her.
I want to acknowledge the dear, beautiful, brilliant women who for decades have been my “girlfriends.” Special thanks to Penny Almog, Nicole Barth, and Iva Rifkin for the insights you contributed to the book and for all you’ve shared over the years. I want to thank Charlotte Brown, Sue Cameron, Joanne Carson, Arlene Golonka, and Carol Kane, as well, for telling your stories and giving me so much loving support.
I treasure my relationships with each of you, and it looks like we got a book out of it.
PARDON ME, MA’AM
Little Old Ladies
I knew I had to write this book the day I found myself uttering a shocking statement. I was regaling my teenage daughter, Cristina, with a funny story about an encounter I’d had with a woman at the supermarket. “She was this little old lady of sixty,” I said. That’s as far as I got, because Cristina was doubled over with laughter.
“
What?
” I demanded, annoyed. “I didn’t get to the punch line yet.”
“Uh, Mom,” she said with a grin, “I hate to break it to you, but
you’re
sixty.”
“So?”
“You just said, ‘this little old lady of sixty’“
“Oh, my God!” It was a moment of truth. I certainly didn’t consider myself to be a little old lady, but if the phrase could slip off my tongue with such remarkable ease, that meant it was hardwired in my brain.
Shelf Life
I never thought I’d be sixty. It’s not that I didn’t expect to live this long. It’s just that—well, sixty! That’s almost old. I was afraid that by the time I reached fifty I wouldn’t be
myself
anymore. I guess that when you spend your life as a dancer and an actor you learn to view the passing of time like the ticking of a time bomb—
five more years until annihilation . . . four more years until annihilation . . . thirty minutes until annihilation
. I can still remember being a thirteen-year-old ballet dancer and thinking, oh, my God, if I don’t get into a ballet company by age sixteen, I’m sunk. Imagine feeling that pressure at thirteen!
That’s an extreme example, but the prevailing media wisdom is that women have shelf life. If you don’t believe it, just look at the movies. When was the last time you saw a leading man of a certain age (Sean Connery, Michael Douglas) paired with a leading lady (Meryl Streep, Faye Dunaway) of a similar certain age? What does it say about our society when our most popular romantic male leads are in their fifties, sixties, and even seventies, and our most popular female romantic leads are in their twenties and thirties? If I were to be cast in a Harrison Ford movie, I’d probably get the role of his mother. I’m not joking. Jane Fonda once made this observation: “What’s the worst thing about being a female movie star over forty? Watching each year as Robert Redford’s leading ladies get younger and younger.”
What a Greeting
For pure, unadulterated insults, nothing beats a trip down the greeting card aisle. Those warm, fuzzy greeting card moments are certainly not directed at women—especially past the age of thirty. I ask you, who writes these cards? A troll in the back room? Here’s a random selection. You be the judge.
Birthdays are like fine wine.
Once you find an age you like, stick to it!
Birthdays mean nothing to women like us.
Why, you and I are just a couple of teenagers stuck in middle-aged bodies . . .
And deep, deep denial.
Birthdays are like French fries.
The more we have, the bigger our butts get.
A birthday and big boobs.
Well, at least you’ve got one of those things today.
Happy Birthday, Gal!
No need to panic yet . . .
Your whole butt still fits in the mirror.
To aid you on your birthday, here are some valuable lovemaking tips for people your age . . .
Set alarm clock for 2 minutes in case you doze off in the middle.
Make sure you put 911 on speed dial.
Keep extra Polygrip close by so your teeth don’t end up under the bed.
Have heating pads, Tylenol, splints, and crutches ready in case you actually complete the act.
We know we’re getting older when “Frosted Flakes” begins to refer to our peer group.
Here’s the real kicker. You don’t have to be over forty to be pronounced over the hill. I saw this card for a woman turning thirty:
Wow, 30! You know what
that
means!
Time to get a bad haircut and some real dowdy clothes.
If Life Imitated Television . . .
Teenagers would be twenty-five, Mom would be thirty, and Grandma would be thirty-three. Are there any real people left?
Two years ago, I shot an NBC television pilot for a wonderful show called
Thicker Than Water
. The plot centered around a family in New Jersey. Ron Leibman and I played a blue-collar couple whose two adult off-spring were suddenly returning to the nest. The script was funny and real, and we had a great response from the studio audience. Our hopes were high.
NBC tested the pilot. The marketing guy came back to us with the results. “It tested great in the demographic between ages eighteen and forty-nine,” he reported.
I was thrilled. “Wonderful!”
He held up a cautionary finger. “The problem is, it tested poorly in the thirteen to eighteen demographic.”
I didn’t get it. “Why is that a problem?”
He gave me a pitying look. “We can’t sell a program to advertisers without that demographic.”
Oh. Silly me. I guess I missed the memo that explained how fifteen-year-olds were the Gold Standard for all television viewing. Maybe
Thicker Than Water
would have had a better chance if the twenty-something kids had an actress of thirty playing Mom.
Ageism is practiced by the networks, because that’s what Madison Avenue dictates. But how do they explain away the decline in viewership? How does it make sense to say, “You’re over fifty. We don’t care what you watch?” Imagine a supermarket chain deciding they’re only going to count groceries sold to people under thirty. Youth obsession is killing us.
And yet . . . you and I know that we grown-up women are a powerful force. The youth-addled brains in Hollywood just don’t get it. It’s time for a call to arms, and I’m leading the charge. I figured I was the right one for the job, because women of a certain age often come up to me in restaurants and on the street and just start chatting, as if we were picking up a conversation that had been going on for a long time. There’s a comfort level there, an ability to be perfectly frank.
One woman told me, “When Rhoda and Mary talked about turning thirty in an epidode titled ‘Today I Am a Ma’am,’ it was extremely comforting.” It’s something I’ve heard a lot.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
was the first to feature women who were not only single and thirty but also on their own and enjoying themselves. Now it’s time to break another mold—to say, “Today I really
am
a ma’am!”
My goal is to give women a laugh, a bit of encouragement, a brighter view of themselves. Behind every joke is a truth. When we laugh at ourselves, we’re happier. When we poke fun at the bizarre standards by which we are judged, we gain confidence.
It’s Our Turn
It feels good to talk back to the outrageous youth obsession that afflicts our culture. I can’t stand how grim everyone is about aging, as if it were a shameful secret. Osteoporosis, liver spots, vaginal dryness—oh, please! But I hate the other side of it, too. All those phony “fabulous at fifty” books written by people who never met a cellulite pocket. Face it. We aren’t all jumping for joy at being older. You don’t hear women waxing poetic about their alligator skin or the way their breasts are heading south. The point is, we can still be great. We can still be happy. And we can figure out, with humor, what it means to be us at this age.
I’m enjoying this stage of my life. It doesn’t take me as much time to get going anymore. There was a point, not that long ago, when I wouldn’t leave the house without full makeup. Now you’re lucky if I bother to apply the line eraser makeup to the circles under my eyes.
There have been other surprising benefits. I’ve discovered the joy of crankiness. I no longer feel compelled to be such a pleaser. And, while no one would ever accuse me of being serene, I find that it’s easier for me to get over disappointments. The voice of experience speaks to me, reminding me that nothing is ever life or death—except, of course, life and death. What a wonderful freedom there is as we grow older.