Parallel Transitions

Mothering an Adolescent While Aging

Abstract

Mothering in the menopause transition is a significant experience in the life course. Using autoethnography through a feminist standpoint framework, the author places her mothering experiences under the exploration of performing motherhood, intensive mothering, and mothering and aging. The author details how being an older mother going through the physical and emotional changes of perimenopause parallels the developmental changes of her adolescent son. Because dominant discourses define menopause as a sense of loss and motherhood as a youthful endeavour, the author aims to make sense of her role as an aging mother. Through empathy, the author finds a space to mother authentically.