Hot flashes, menopause and educating men
I spend most of my waking hours sharing a room with two twenty-something men. One is single, the other newly married. They are young enough, and I am old enough, that they could be my sons. I don’t think of them that way, but I find that I want to nurture them…no, that’s not exactly right…I want to disabuse them of their youthful, gender-based ignorance. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
My initials could be T.M.I; I share too much and have a tendency to over-explain, but these guys, bless their hearts, seem so unaware of women’s lives, that whether they like it or not, their education has become a sort of mission for me.
Today we talked about hot flashes. (Actually, I talk about--whine, moan and complain about—hot flashes on an almost daily basis.) Today I complained that strong coffee triggers mine to the point that I’ve had to cut my coffee consumption dramatically—a change that is HUGE for me because my hot flashes also deprive me of sleep. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
I’m not sure whether I was being poked at or not, but questions ensued about what exactly a hot flash feels like, how long does each last, how long is a woman plagued with them. Me being me, I was only too happy to teach.
As part of the conversation, they told me about how nuts their peri-menopausal moms are. Show a little compassion, Guys. But they can’t yet. To have compassion they need to know and understand the intricacies of a woman’s mind, brain and body. Someday it’ll be their wives and daughters (or daughters-in-law) who are “nuts,” but if they follow my tutelage carefully, the women in their lives won’t someday choke the living daylights out of them or their sons.
It amazes and saddens me that so many men still think of “male” as the norm, and “female” as a slightly damaged, less-than-perfect--though still charming--product. We are, in fact, far more specialized products, miraculously designed to withstand dramatic bodily adaptations within a single life span.
And so, in an act of kindness, and with the (almost selfless) intent to further their educations, I recommend they buy AND READ The Female Brain, by neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine. In fact, not only should they read it, when they finish, they should pass the book along to their mothers and wives to ease the difficult journey.
One more tip, Fellas: Passing along the book with scribbled margin notes will win you big points.