in france do grown ups have all the fun?

Many of my readers have asked me to post some information on baby boomers in Paris. I say again that I have found it most difficult to uncover any meaningful information on that portion of the population. But, every once in a while I do find a story that mentions France and baby boomers in the same article. Does that count?

Anyway enjoy

On Not Giving A Damn: Sex, Cougars, And A Few Cues From The French

By Debra Olivier

There's a common refrain I always hear among women forty-five to fifty-plus. Never mind if we're single, married with kids, or divorced with same. By the time we hit fifty most of us stop caring so much what so many people think of us. We flip our middle fingers at the shoulds and shouldn'ts that used to tyrannize us. We focus on the essential. In short, we finally feel we've earned the right not to give a damn. How very liberating.

How very unfortunate, on the other hand, that this freedom comes so late in life. Every time I speak with women my age about this, I can't help but wonder what life would be like if we grew up from the get-go not giving a damn about being all things to all people, or if we didn't wait half a century to question things that ultimately conspired against a sense of self or personal freedom.

I got agitated by this notion years ago when I lived in France, an older culture where grown-ups seem to have all the fun. Myths and misconceptions about the French abound, but the "sexy older French woman" endures partly because she's real. Even with the inevitable vagaries and tribulations of age, older French women are often unapologetically self-possessed and enjoy life with less guilt bogging them down (guilt: the American woman's evil step-sister). They also don't fret about so many things that tie us Anglo-Saxons in knots, sex being high on that list because, lucky them, they do grow up not giving a damn.

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