20 Things Women Should Stop Wearing After 30

This sparked a little rage.

I bet you’ve seen the meme that says, ‘20 things women should stop wearing after 30. 1-20: the weight of other people’s expectations and judgments.’ It’s an oldie but a goodie.

The first time I saw it, I was like, ‘Amen, sister!’ But yesterday, as I scrolled past it, this seemingly empowering meme was pissing me off.

My reaction was, ‘That’s (yet another) impossible expectation pushed on young women.

We all have our baggage.

We all have our stuff, making it hard to stop reacting to the world around us. Women and other marginalized communities carry the added weight of constant expectations and disapproval around pushing against those.

To shed those clothes is hard. To truly let go of other people’s judgments and expectations in your thirties is a big ask. It’s unrealistic in my mind.

Where do we give women some grace to become… to figure themselves out?

Did you know your brain doesn’t fully mature until you’re twenty-five?

That’s when your pre-frontal cortex finally gets it together — the part of your brain that helps regulate thoughts, actions, and emotions.

So when you’re thirty, you’ve only had five good years of practice! I think it’s a bit too much to expect to have your life together enough to drop those expectations and judgments.

That doesn’t mean you can’t claim your power, but women in their thirties have expectations piled on them from every direction. As we claim who we are, we get the most pushback.

There’s stuff to work through in this decade. You’ll win some, and then something else will show up. Cut yourself some slack if you’re still reacting and responding to other people, especially in your thirties. You’re not broken if you’re not meme-perfect.

And then there are your hormones.

We can’t talk about women coming into their own without talking about hormones. Not to say that our hormones rule us, but when we pay attention to our bodies, we do recognize that our cycles impact how we move through our lives.

I know some folks who have periods and go through menopause don’t identify as women. But I think we all evolve in our relationship with our hormones. And through the decades, that changes.

In our twenties, we’re just getting used to the hormone roller coaster. In our thirties, we know the lay of the land more. We’ve established a sense of what to expect, how and when our energy shifts through a given month, and how our hormones impact us emotionally. Our forties come, and things begin to change; we’re back to not knowing what to expect fully. And in our fifties, most of us will see menopause… and that’s when it gets interesting.

I know; most of what we hear about menopause are the hot flashes. But the best secret is that you find yourself anew when you get through that. You get to a place where you can begin to let go of other people’s expectations and judgment.

If we change the meme’s age to sixty, we might be telling ourselves the truth.

I’ve had many conversations with women in their late fifties, sixties, and beyond, and just about every one of those women tells her story of finding her true sense of self only after menopause.

I’m sure there are many reasons as to why. Life experience is a huge factor, and as we age, we have more emotional space to give to ourselves.

But the transformation that comes with menopause is vast. And when we can embrace that and not see it as an ending but the beginning of something even more powerful, we can emerge from that experience more balanced, clear-headed, creative, and empowered.

I love the conversations I have with older women. There is always much to say about how our post-menopause experience is one of not putting our energy into what other people think. There’s often anger under that, but a reclaiming as well.

And the more I think about it, the anger that often comes out through menopause — the patriarchal rage so many women feel — is the healing fire we need to truly let go of what the outside world is constantly thinking and expecting. There needs to be some kind of cellular combustion to release it from our bodies.

After the fire, we begin the journey of swapping out our emotional closet and finally stop wearing everyone’s expectations and judgments. It’s not thirty, but sixty when we have the physical and emotional capacity to fully choose our truth.

Yep, 30 years later than that meme touts. And even then, it’s a process.

Your empowerment is a journey.

Give yourself some grace at every decade. And know that, at thirty, you have time to keep evolving into your own.