《为什么我们睡不着》记录了X一代女性所面临的独特压力

《为什么我们睡不着》记录了X一代女性所面临的独特压力

The writer Ada Calhoun has talked to a lot of Generation X women about the angst they might be feeling as they hit midlife.

作家艾达·卡尔霍恩曾与许多X一代女性谈论过她们步入中年时可能感受到的焦虑。

"Being middle-aged in America right now as a middle-class American woman is different than it was for our mothers and grandmothers," she says, "and for a lot of women — not for all of them, but for a lot of them — it is incredibly hard."

她说：“在美国，作为一个中产阶级女性，现在的中年生活与我们的母亲和祖母不同，对很多女性来说--不是对她们所有人，而是对她们中的很多人--来说，这是非常困难的。”她说，“对于我们的母亲和祖母来说，现在的中年生活是不同的，对很多女性来说，这是非常困难的。”

She's not talking about poor women or rich women, but middle-class women. And in her new book, Why We Can't Sleep, Calhoun lays out what makes the burdens heavier on Gen X than other generations.

她说的不是穷女人或富女人，而是中产阶级的女人。在她的新书《为什么我们睡不着》中，卡尔霍恩列出了X一代比其他几代人负担更重的原因。

"What I tried to do is isolate women who grew up with a reasonable expectation of success," she says. "They were raised thinking that they could have it all and do it all. The world was their oyster. And then they kind of got to middle age and they found that it was actually quite difficult to have, you know, even some of it. Middle-class women, they often experience shame and disappointment at middle age that, you know, they had all these opportunities and they should have done better."

“我试图做的是孤立那些在成功的合理预期中长大的女性，”她说。“在他们成长的过程中，他们一直认为自己可以拥有一切，可以做到一切。整个世界都在他们的掌控之中。然后他们到了中年，他们发现其实很难拥有，你知道，即使是其中的一些。中产阶级女性在中年时经常感到羞耻和失望，你知道，她们有那么多机会，她们本应该做得更好。”

Interview Highlights

采访重点

On how these pressures are particular to these women

这些压力对这些女性来说是多么的特殊

I think we were raised with these expectations for ourselves that were different than women in the past. So I think I'm not the only one who heard, like, you can be anything — even president. And women I interviewed told me that, like, they would want to be a nurse and their mothers would say, "No, you should be a doctor." There was this real emphasis on achievement. But it wasn't really coupled with a lot of support.

我认为我们在成长过程中对自己的期望与过去的女性有所不同。所以我想我不是唯一一个听到“你可以做任何事——甚至总统”的人。我采访过的女性告诉我，她们想成为一名护士，她们的母亲会说，“不，你应该成为一名医生。”这是对成就的真正强调。但它并没有得到很多支持。

I think for our generation, it was a real mandate. So, you know, one boomer woman who'd been very successful who I talked to, she told me that she felt like our generation really invented stress. Like, when she got to the corner office and achieved all these things, everyone was surprised and proud of her. And she said her daughters are doing at least as well as she did. And they feel like, why haven't they done more?

我认为对我们这一代人来说，这是一个真正的使命。所以，你知道，一个婴儿潮时期的成功女性，我和她谈过，她告诉我，她觉得我们这一代人真的是在制造压力。比如，当她进入办公室，取得了所有这些成就时，每个人都为她感到惊讶和自豪。她说，她的女儿至少和她做得一样好。他们会想，为什么他们没有做得更多呢?

On the structural barriers to "having it all"

论“拥有一切”的结构性障碍

Well, I think we were taught that the American dream was real and that that was something that, if we worked hard enough, we could achieve. And I think Generation X women in particular have been really good at working incredibly hard. And yet the statistic that I heard from the Equality of Opportunity Project at Harvard said that only one in four Gen X women will outearn her father.

嗯，我认为我们被教导美国梦是真实的，这是一些事情，如果我们足够努力，我们可以实现。我认为X一代女性特别擅长努力工作。然而，我从哈佛大学机会平等项目了解到的数据显示，X世代女性中只有四分之一的人收入会超过她的父亲。

Housing prices are going up; health care costs are going up. The cost of being middle class in America is much higher than it was. And our mothers and grandmothers could afford often to stay home. That's not an option for most of the middle-class Gen X women.

房价在上涨;医疗费用正在上涨。在美国，成为中产阶级的成本比过去要高得多。我们的母亲和祖母可以经常呆在家里。对于X世代的大多数中产阶级女性来说，这不是一个选择。

On how to deal with the pressures of middle age

如何应对中年的压力

The main thing was reframing it, reframing what I'd been through in my life, and what it meant, and what I had to look forward to. And I just found it really helpful to know that this is a set period of time, that these years — middle age — have been rough, especially for women, for many, many generations. And that it's hard for us, but it's going to be over at some point. And also, just the expectations that we had were not, maybe, reasonable. Maybe we should have different expectations for ourselves.

最主要的事情是重新定义它，重新定义我在生活中经历了什么，它意味着什么，以及我必须期待什么。我发现这真的很有帮助，知道这是一段固定的时间，中年是艰难的，尤其是对女性来说，对很多很多代人来说。这对我们来说很难，但在某一时刻会结束的。而且，只是我们的期望可能是不合理的。也许我们应该对自己有不同的期望。

One thing that a sociologist who studies the generations told me is that our generation tends to judge ourselves based on everything. How nice is your home, or how good are you at your job? Are you a good parent? Are you good at work? Are you in shape? Are you recycling? It's every single factor in life you have to excel at. And I think that level of pressure is unsustainable.

一位研究几代人的社会学家告诉我，我们这一代人倾向于根据一切来判断自己。你的家有多好?你的工作有多好?你是个好家长吗?你工作做得好吗?你身体好吗?你回收物品吗?这是生活中你必须擅长的每一个因素。我认为这种压力是不可持续的。