Barbie at forty ...

‘Nobody told me being forty was going to be like this.

Like most of my sorority, I wasn’t looking too far in the future at that Hollywood High School graduation in 1978. Of course, I had always been quite mature for my years and people (I think we mean men here and unfortunately some feminists who should have known better) have often treated me as a sexual stereotype. People who know me would vouch that I was just an ordinary young Californian woman who had read Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch and realised she didn’t have much to worry about in that department.

But having graduated in Tennis Party Studies with Double Honours, like many of my peers I was faced with a plethora of choices about what I should be doing with the rest of my life. These included:

* Coffee morning hostess
* Ballerina
* Doctor
* McDonald’s worker
* Pilot
* Circus star
* Rock star
* Cheer leader
* Dinner party hostess
* Yoga instructor
* Astronaut
* Fashion model
* President
* Shopper
* Movie star

What was I supposed to do? It’s not really surprising that I decided to sample every one of them in my attempts to Have It All. This made it specially tough as, back then in the eighties, we were being told by Shirley ‘Superwoman’ Conran that life was too short to stuff a mushroom but, on the other hand, stuffing seemed to be the order of the day at all of the soignée dinner parties I was supposed to hold. At least being a famous astronaut enabled me to get away from this at times.

My boyfriend Ken and I had an on–off relationship for a number of years. He had asked me to marry him on several occasions, but the time had never felt right. Besides I was doing well in my chosen multiple careers and didn’t wish to be primarily known as The Person Who Washes Ken’s Lumberjack Shirt and Chinos. To be perfectly honest, as an extra in Dynasty (he was a waiter at Blake Carrington’s parties and once got to touch Joan Collins’ shoulder pad), Ken wasn’t earning a lot, and all my various salaries did create a certain imbalance in our relationship. We parted in 1996 when Ken went off into the Sierra Nevada to explore his ‘crisis of masculinity’ and discover his ‘inner stetson’, only slightly marred by his claim that I had lesbian tendencies.

I’d always been close to my nieces and nephews and, although I hadn’t discounted the idea of having children, with my extensive career portfolio and the long hours worked, having a child would have been a disaster. I think I just followed the zeitgeist and it didn’t seem to want to lead anywhere involving strawberry Calpol. But then it slowly dawned on me that my heroine Madonna – we’re nearly the same age – already had two children and a new one recently flown in from Africa and there was something in my life that wasn’t being satisfied even by one of my most recent careers as US ambassador. I began dating again.

I am currently three months pregnant at the age of forty-eight and dreading telling my boss, who I just know will say that I’m the person who had to go and have sex and screw the whole company. I forgot to tell you that the father is Ken – we had a rapprochement. I did some speed dating and guess who was the first person who didn’t hide in the toilet because he couldn’t take the pressure of being a celebrity’s boring partner as soon as he saw who I was? He is dreaming of organising a neighbourhood soccer team and owning a shed for the first time in his life. I am happy, I think, although worried that I won’t have an outfit for ‘Child Vomiting at Frequent Intervals That Will Also Have To Be Worn in Business Meeting’, but Ken thinks he may have an old fleece I can wear.’