S1: Nine podcasts.
S2: Welcome back to Prime Time. Today I'm talking about something
S2: other people seem to care about, sometimes more than the
S2: people going through it. Aging and the physical effects, and
S2: in particular going grey for women. Joining me to talk
S2: about graying is Katherine Greer. Katherine is an Australian Canadian
S2: author and copywriter, baker and mother. She's just written her
S2: first novel, The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe. And over the last
S2: few years, she's gone grey all by choice. Katherine, welcome
S2: to Prime Time.
S3: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
S2: I am really excited. You've written a story in the
S2: Sydney Morning Herald this week, along with the launch of
S2: your book, and it dives into the topic of going grey,
S2: which I think is really interesting for all of our
S2: listeners or, you know, so many of us in our
S2: 40s and 50s are taking that journey. And you talk
S2: about your choice to ditch the dye. I'd love you
S2: to take us on the journey. What motivated you?
S4: Yeah. So I was quite young.
S3: When I made the decision and it was pre-COVID. So
S3: that was interesting. When you think about it, I just
S3: got to this point where I had started to dye
S3: my hair when I was 28 years old, because I
S3: needed to. It wasn't because I wanted to. I was
S3: seriously going gray at 28. And yeah, and so I
S3: was dying every eight weeks, and then every six weeks
S3: and then every four weeks. And by the time I
S3: was in my mid to late 40s, it was starting
S3: to look like I'd have to dye my hair every
S3: two weeks to get rid of completely silver roots. And
S3: I was on a vacation down at Hyams Beach, which
S3: is a location in the inspiration for my new book
S3: and chatting with my family. And I was so irritated
S3: by the wind whipping around that I scraped all my
S3: hair back into a ponytail. And my teenage son. You
S3: have a son. So you know what.
S2: This.
S3: Is like. He ran up to me and he said,
S3: wait a second. Is is that your real hair color?
S3: I actually think it's kind of pretty. It's silver. And
S3: in that moment, I just thought, I am so tired
S3: of the time and the futile exercise of fighting this.
S3: What would it look like if I just sought authenticity
S3: from the outside in and let my gray roots uncover themselves? Like,
S3: how bad could it look? You know, I was. I
S3: was feeling very. I'd say I'm live in Sydney. I
S3: was feeling very mosman blonde in the sense that, you know,
S3: I had the blonde bob and I was a school
S3: mom and I was an older school mom. I had
S3: my second child when I was 37, and I felt
S3: like I didn't want to age myself, you know, and,
S3: and I think really, bec the truth is, I do
S3: look older than my peers who don't color their hair.
S3: It's absolutely true. I know everybody wants the good news story.
S3: Like I ditched the dye and I look so young.
S3: I don't think I do look young, but there's also
S3: something that looks good about your natural hair color coming
S3: through because it is natural, you know. And so it
S3: matches with your skin tone. The whole thing was very
S3: freeing for me, but I did it slowly with badger roots.
S2: I want to hear about that because I, you know,
S2: I think that the process and the, you know, I
S2: don't have much gray actually blessed right now. I'm actually
S2: going browner because I've I've bleached my hair all my life,
S2: and I've just hit that point where I think it
S2: looks a little bit weird and a little bit kind
S2: of canned, and I've sort of gone, actually, it's in
S2: fashion right now to go a bit browner. So I'm
S2: gonna lean into the fashion and maybe this normal route,
S2: they call it a route, drag their dyeing into my hair.
S2: but it's actually my natural color coming.
S3: The the question back is what if it's beautiful? Yeah,
S3: it's scary.
S2: To go darker.
S3: Yeah, but what if your natural color is actually beautiful
S3: and you've just been hoodwinked all this time by the
S3: massive marketing machine that says women need to spend thousands
S3: of dollars a year and hours in the salon chair
S3: just trying to keep on top of something that's going
S3: to happen anyway. So my decision was really like, right,
S3: I'm 49, I'm just going to get my aging over with.
S3: I'm just going to get it over with. And then
S3: I will roll on into those years as myself, and
S3: no one's going to be startled by me, you know,
S3: being 70 and black haired one day and then, you know,
S3: the next day deciding to go gray. So so that's
S3: what I did. And honestly, I would recommend doing it
S3: a bit younger. For the benefit of doing it younger,
S3: is that your face is still quite young when you're
S3: in your 40s, you know. Instead of doing the transition
S3: at 70 or 80, when you are your age everywhere,
S3: and then you slowly reveal your hair. But look, it's 100%
S3: a woman's choice. Not like I'm trying to tell anybody
S3: what to do.
S2: People want to know what it feels like and what
S2: the process feels like, because so many of us dye
S2: our hair. I mean, I started dying at 14, right?
S2: And yeah, and I don't think there has been a
S2: period of my life where I haven't had hair dye
S2: in my hair.
S3: Um, no.
S2: I wouldn't know my natural color, to be honest. It's
S2: it's an illusion.
S3: And when you let your roots grow out just a
S3: bit like, here's my advice, right? Give yourself 3 or
S3: 4 weeks and then just pull all your hair back
S3: and and look at yourself in the mirror and see
S3: what it looks like. You might actually be really surprised
S3: at how pretty the brown is instead of all of
S3: the The other lovely thing about ditching the die is
S3: that your hair feels so good. It feels like it
S3: felt when you were a little girl. Do you remember
S3: all those silky braids and plats and ponytails and just
S3: the silky?
S2: Remember my.
S3: Daughters.
S2: Before they started bleaching? Yeah. And, you know, even they've
S2: joined the the the festival at 14, 15, you know, they,
S2: they can't resist doing what everybody does. And it is
S2: this interesting thing where breeding into our families and, and
S2: but it's interesting because going silver in our 50s, even
S2: our 40s is becoming a bit more cool.
S3: It is. And it's surprising for me. So you're a
S3: woman with crowning glory hair? I don't know, some people
S3: are listening to this. Some people are watching it. I'm
S3: a woman with okay hair. Hair has never been my
S3: crowning glory. But when I went gray or silver, my
S3: natural color came out. It was shocking to me how
S3: many people now routinely stop me to tell me they
S3: love my hair.
S2: I do love your hair. It's beautiful. Right?
S3: Thank you. It's actually pretty average. But if you saw
S3: me with a dyed blonde bob, you'd probably think it's
S3: not the greatest hair. But, um. I think the natural
S3: color actually looks quite pretty, right? It suits my skin
S3: tone and. And also, I have this feeling in in midlife.
S3: This is really important to me as a midlife woman
S3: to start to center our concerns. I wrote a bit
S3: in the Sydney Morning article about invisibility and how surprised
S3: I was by women's collective fear when I told them, Nana,
S3: I'm actually letting my hair go grey. They were afraid
S3: for me. And the reason they were afraid for me
S3: is that they thought I would age myself, which I have.
S3: And then they thought that aging myself would damage me somehow.
S3: And that's when you really think about the fact that
S3: that pressure is put on women. Like what? When we're
S3: in the middle of our lives, we're actually more intelligent,
S3: we are more aware. We're more responsible. We we have bigger, juicier,
S3: more interesting lives. And yet the the narrative in society
S3: is that we're somehow damaging ourselves by being older, that
S3: that self-directed.
S2: Ageism, right? That that is that is you saying to yourself,
S2: I'm afraid of getting older because I'm afraid of the
S2: judgment people are going to cast on me and or
S2: I'm afraid of how I'm going to be when I'm older.
S2: And you judging yourself that you'll be an inferior person
S2: as you get older, and therefore you can't do all
S2: the things that you used to be able to do,
S2: and I think the world is changing.
S3: It is you do different things now. So when I
S3: look at life expectancy, you know, if you think about
S3: drawing a line and you put 50 right in the middle,
S3: that's in the middle, because we're living my mother's 93
S3: and going strong, you know, so it's likely that I'll
S3: live into my 100. So I'm just in the middle
S3: of my life. And this is why whether it's, you know,
S3: you want to write your book or you want to
S3: start your own podcast, or you want to build a
S3: business like the character in my new novel. Does you
S3: really think that at 50 you're in the middle? You
S3: know you are. You are fully primed. You have all
S3: of this knowledge and awareness and ability to do something
S3: with your life. Why not do it? You know, and
S3: and it's so important for women to be centered in
S3: the middle of their lives, not just seen to be finished,
S3: because we no longer have youthful power.
S2: It's interesting you say that because I don't even see
S2: women seeing this as the middle of their lives. We
S2: have been preconditioned to think that we're going to die
S2: at 70, and that we have to have finished all
S2: the good bits by now. But but we haven't. Have we?
S3: Um, not at all. Not anymore. When you look at
S3: health and longevity and all of the science behind this,
S3: I've seen your podcast. You do amazing things, you speak
S3: to amazing people. There's a lot of, um, longevity hints
S3: and tips now. And we just are living longer like people.
S3: We need to keep our teeth and our hips and
S3: our everything else for longer. Now we need.
S2: And the doctors just out from December that that says that.
S2: I think a 50 year old today has a 1
S2: in 4 chance of making it to 97. I might
S2: have this slightly off, but 97 for a man, 98
S2: for a woman. Uh, or maybe not. Yeah, but but
S2: and then couples longer. I mean, it's phenomenal. The numbers.
S2: I might have those a little bit off, but the,
S2: the data on what our chances are at a 1
S2: in 4 basis, if we're wealthier than average or healthier
S2: than average, will outlive these medians. And and that's boggling
S2: for me.
S3: It was partially why I chose to write about a
S3: midlife character, um, in the Bittersweet Bakery Cafe, because I
S3: was really tired of reading about 30 year olds. I've
S3: been 30, you've been 30. I've got the guy. I've
S3: had the babies. I don't want to keep reading about
S3: that for the rest of my life, you know? And
S3: that's why, for women's creativity in the middle of their lives,
S3: like you write about retirement and you, you write about
S3: important things that impact us now. If all we could
S3: ever focus on was our experience in our 20s and 30s,
S3: you know, we we knew so little compared to what
S3: we know now and we're so much more interesting. I mean,
S3: we are in this generation. We are the glue. We
S3: are sandwiched between teenagers. Often aging parents were still working
S3: and were in the highest pressure point of our careers
S3: because we're actually advanced in our careers. So we are
S3: just a pressure cooker and then you add menopause into
S3: that mix.
S2: It's a beautiful celebration of life, isn't it?
S3: One more thing. And still and still, Beck. This is
S3: what women do, right? We're in the middle of our lives.
S3: We have a backpack full of rocks that we're carrying.
S3: We see another woman, we sling that backpack over our shoulder,
S3: and we look at her and we say, how can
S3: I help you? Like, what can I do for you?
S3: What do you need, my friend? And that's why we're
S3: the glue for everything. Because we just. We know how
S3: to operate. We. We make this world go round. You know,
S3: we're not all. Thank goodness. And peace be to the
S3: women who are 20 and 30. Look, I was a
S3: very careless and frivolous young woman. Like we all can be, right?
S3: And yet now I think I'm holding a lot together.
S3: And it's the iceberg. We sit here, I look into
S3: your eyes, you look into mine. And we see this
S3: tiny little tip. You see my beautiful painting behind me
S3: in my home in Sydney. But you don't know the
S3: seven eights that are under. That's under the water lurking
S3: that I'm carrying. And I don't know what you're carrying,
S3: and we don't know what the readers or listeners are carrying,
S3: but we do know that we're here to provide some
S3: encouragement for each other. And midlife women know how to
S3: do that.
S2: It's beautiful the way you're thinking about it, and you've
S2: taken that on a bit of a journey. It hasn't
S2: just been your hair, has it? It's been it's been
S2: a midlife journey for you of discovering some of your passions.
S2: Tell us about it.
S3: Yeah. So basically, I always wanted to write books, but
S3: I wasn't sure I was capable. And so I just
S3: told myself stories inside my own head, and I didn't
S3: even realize I was doing it. I was a copywriter
S3: at work. So I told you earlier, Bonnie Garmus lessons
S3: in chemistry. She's also a copywriter. So I'm really good
S3: at writing and getting to the point in my full
S3: time work. And I just decided one day and it
S3: really coincided with going gray. I just thought, if not now, when?
S3: There is not a person in the world who's going
S3: to come and knock on my door and say, Katherine,
S3: you deserve a book deal. How about I hold your
S3: hand while you sit down and write one, and we'll
S3: see how this goes. And it looks like with Bittersweet
S3: Bakery Cafe and with everything else, it looks like all
S3: roses and success. But you know, it's here. Yeah, I've
S3: got one too. It's been a huge journey to get here.
S3: And there's, you know, pitfalls and learning. And it's not linear.
S3: It's hard to find your readers one by one, the
S3: women who resonate with you and your message. Um, but
S3: having said that, I'd just say to everybody, start it.
S3: Whatever that dream is in your heart, you know, no
S3: one is going to come and open the door for you.
S3: You have to kick that door down yourself. Sometimes, you know,
S3: you have to push it open by whatever means and
S3: just start working.
S2: So talk to me about that, because I think people
S2: need to see perspective on how you've pushed the door.
S2: Open yourself. You know, often we think, oh, we've got
S2: to leave something to open another door. But you haven't
S2: done that, have you? You've you've been on your own
S2: journey balancing or juggling, maybe. And I'd love to hear
S2: that story, because I think it makes it a bit
S2: more real. If we recognize that we have to be
S2: keeping a few balls in the air as we pursue
S2: our dream.
S3: We do. And I think part of it is everybody says, oh,
S3: you know, it's being organized and focused. And miracle mornings,
S3: I think there's a bunch of different ways you can
S3: do it. If you want to start a new project,
S3: you can try the boot camp approach, which is I'm
S3: going to take the first weekend of this month, and
S3: for Saturday and Sunday, I am going to really focus
S3: on this project, whether it's starting my business or starting
S3: a book or whatever it is. I'm going to take
S3: two days. I'm going to go hardcore. I was going
S3: to say pizza and beer, you know, and late nights,
S3: but whatever.
S2: Not that generation. We don't need to do it like that. No.
S5: Whatever floats your boat.
S3: But maybe you want a boot camp it. And if
S3: you're going to write a book, for example, it can
S3: be as simple as I love to show people this
S3: because I forget it all the time. Oh, do I
S3: not have them in my desk drawer? I'm looking for
S3: sticky notes.
S5: Oh yeah.
S2: So in my pile of sticky notes here.
S5: I love it. Okay, girlfriend, if you want to write
S5: a book, really.
S3: The thing that you need for the book is the title. Now,
S3: often a publisher will change that title, but a good
S3: title really encapsulates the heartbeat of your book. And you
S3: can write that on a sticky note and stick it
S3: on your desk or on your fridge, and you can
S3: write a sticky note chapter heading for every chapter you
S3: think you might want to write, and the benefit of
S3: organizing your ideas and organizing your thoughts. This way, whether
S3: it's a book or a project or a business, is
S3: you can get up above it somehow and then visually
S3: see what you've got in front of you and start
S3: to move things around a little bit. And you're not
S3: wasting all this time doing fancy stuff in Canva or
S3: business plans, or trying to figure it out. You know,
S3: you just got to get a move on execution.
S2: I teach it to female founders all the time who
S2: are in university learning how to grow startups, and it's
S2: something I do to give back now. And the the
S2: process of helping women founders get from A to B
S2: when they're juggling kids at home and obligations and running
S2: the house and doing all that while they're trying to
S2: live their dream at any age is teaching them how
S2: to get to the first execution. Because in fact, if
S2: you never talk to a customer, you never understand whether
S2: the market needs what you've outlined because you've never outlined it.
S2: You can't then adapt it, right?
S5: Yeah.
S3: So for me, it was a double whammy really thinking
S3: about I want to I want to write books. Let's
S3: just see how I go. So I did all the
S3: usual channels. There's so much help online. But also what
S3: I really wanted to do more than that was center
S3: the midlife experience. So in the Bittersweet Bakery Cafe, what
S3: I really focused on was the story of a woman
S3: in the middle of her life, and what would happen
S3: if everything was taken away from her, everything that she
S3: relied on, what would she build with what's in her
S3: own two hands? And I love that idea. You know,
S3: if you wiped out your home, your podcast, your publishing career,
S3: everything you've built back, why would you do to start over?
S3: And then I threw her in because I'm a Canadian
S3: and I truly have. I'm also an Australian now, and
S3: I have a love of this country that is so deep.
S3: I put her in a little Australian village with all
S3: of these crazy Australian characters who I loved, diverse and interesting,
S3: and just let that book go in the Bittersweet Bakery
S3: Cafe to sort of see what would happen. Um, and,
S3: and I love the story. I don't think we all
S3: need to be writing about 20 and 30 year olds.
S3: I think there is a place for midlife women to
S3: read about themselves, read books about themselves, where we're not
S3: the crazy secondary character with purple hair and pink glasses,
S3: because I'm not like that. And and I'm never going
S3: to be like that. I'm just myself. But more in
S3: midlife and we're not some cartoon or caricature of ourselves either.
S2: I think that's actually a really interesting conversation, because I
S2: know a lot of women who've taken on a more
S2: eccentric look as they've got older, maybe, and particularly in
S2: the media industry, you see a lot of it. And
S2: I guess I don't have the whole big jewels, big glasses,
S2: you know, I try to do bright colors.
S5: But aesthetic.
S2: It's a, it's a it doesn't work on me as
S2: much as I look at it and go, wow, you
S2: can pull that off. Um.
S5: Yeah.
S2: But I, I wonder if it's somewhere less invisible. Do
S2: you feel that that's those people are, are trying to
S2: to to find something that they are have lost.
S3: Maybe claim some space in the world. But I would
S3: say that our authenticity should really shine through and that
S3: we shouldn't have to. We can, but we shouldn't have
S3: to jump up and down and shout, right? We should
S3: just be in a society where there is space for
S3: us and where we are seeing because of what we contribute,
S3: not necessarily because we look like, you know, Nicole Kidman
S3: and I are the same age. And when I look
S3: at Nicole, she probably looks like my the girlfriends of
S3: my sons, my young adult sons. You know, she's beautiful
S3: and she's lovely. She makes a living from her body
S3: and her face and her acting. And I don't I
S3: make a living from my my head, my words.
S2: Yeah, I'm the same.
S3: My hands and my words.
S2: Yeah, yeah it is. It's from how we can and
S2: help people and and help them enjoy their time too.
S3: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say to anybody wondering, do
S3: I have to are my only two options complete invisibility
S3: or becoming really out there with my sense of style?
S3: I think no, I think can we age as ourselves
S3: and just be more of ourselves? I use this image
S3: in the opening of the Bittersweet Bakery Cafe, and it's
S3: the image of a matryoshka doll. A Russian doll. And
S3: I argue personally to everyone I know that we don't
S3: peel layers back like an onion to get to the
S3: center of ourselves. As we age, we actually add layers
S3: on and become more of who we were. So you
S3: know that that's what we want. We want to grow.
S3: And it's okay to age. Yeah. It's okay to get.
S2: A beautiful metaphor. And and for me, in the middle
S2: of my life, I'm 49. You know, I look into
S2: the future, and I think every thing that I've done
S2: now and maybe two years ago, I stepped away from
S2: almost everything that I did as a purpose in life and,
S2: and did rebuild. So it's interesting to to contemplate the
S2: journey of that. And to have the choice to be
S2: authentic is an amazing thing. And I'm not sure a
S2: lot of women feel like they have the choice to
S2: be authentic. And, you know, I'm blessed that hopefully people
S2: listen because I am so honest. Um, yeah. But but it.
S2: And I can't help but be honest. That's just who
S2: I am. But you know, when you're in a commercial
S2: role or you're you're expected to be something, it's sometimes
S2: very hard to be authentic, isn't it?
S3: It can be. And I love the fact that we
S3: act as stepping stones for each other. So you're reaching
S3: back to a bunch of younger women in university and
S3: whatever and helping them. And you're reaching forward to me,
S3: and I'm ten years ahead of you so you can
S3: look at me and think, ah, that's what Katherine's doing
S3: in ten years. Maybe. Maybe that's what I'll be doing
S3: in ten years time. You know, she's still working full
S3: time for a major corporation and doing a lot of
S3: great work in the world. She's still writing her books.
S3: She's got her family that she's loving. And, um, yeah,
S3: I run an age positive lifestyle site. Like, I have
S3: a Sunday newsletter at our age, and I write to
S3: people every week. I'm not selling anything. I'm not on
S3: Substack or any of that, but I just love to
S3: put some good out into the world, you know, and
S3: encourage all of us women who are acting as glue
S3: to say, hey, you can make it through and keep going.
S3: You know, that's really my message.
S2: With me is Katherine Greer, author and age positive advocate.
S2: She's just released her first novel, The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe.
S2: So we talked about the hair. We talked about the book.
S2: What else has been in your journey of this sort
S2: of midlife transition? It sounds like you've been on quite
S2: a self-discovery journey.
S3: Yeah, absolutely. So really, I think what it was for
S3: me is deciding what I wanted to do with the
S3: time that I have left on the planet. You know,
S3: what do I want to leave as a legacy? Part
S3: of that for me is really family. I absolutely value
S3: and love my family and this sounds so small. I
S3: love Sunday dinner. We don't eat together for most of
S3: the week. Everybody's got crazy schedules and whatever else. But
S3: I do love, you know, just that warmth. And for me,
S3: food and baking and family dinners and all of that.
S3: That's love, right? In my world, it's not that way
S3: for everybody. But I really like to explore how to
S3: have hospitality for one another, how to open up our
S3: doors and welcome people into our homes. You know? And
S3: the fact is, nobody expects perfection. Nobody wants perfection.
S2: In my next book, which. Yeah, which isn't out yet. Um,
S2: I talk about creating new rhythms with your kids as
S2: they get older and starting to, and mine are just
S2: at the point I've got a 20, nearly 22, nearly 20,
S2: nearly 17. Um, and you start to see the need
S2: to have rhythms that bring them back, right? That they,
S2: they can, um, kind of become rhythmic in because otherwise
S2: they do just go off and, and float and come
S2: back when they need something.
S3: Yeah.
S2: Sounds cheeky of me, but I'm a little selfish that
S2: I love hanging out with them. So do you have
S2: any rhythms?
S6: Yeah, well, it would be the same.
S3: So our our kids are essentially the same age, which
S3: is really lovely. And you know what that's like. So
S3: we always have been the open door house where everybody's welcome.
S3: And I really do like to focus on Sunday dinner,
S3: just because I feel like it's that one touch point
S3: during the week where we can kick back and relax.
S3: I always bake a delicious dessert. Um, one of the.
S3: That's one of the things I did in the book.
S3: I added my family recipes, so they're in there, 25
S3: of them. So good. I'm a good baker. I was
S3: a baker from the time I was a little girl
S3: in Canada, growing up on the farm with five older
S3: brothers and sisters. I learned to bake when I was
S3: about eight years old. Um, and I just think those
S3: rhythms of home and heart and whether you're with a
S3: family or you've got friends in your lives or it's
S3: found family. And again, when I wrote the book, I
S3: realized a lot of midlife women don't have families anymore,
S3: or something could have happened either with, you know, marital
S3: issues or kids being away in other countries or.
S6: Whatever.
S2: Living in Canada right now, or she'll be home in May. But,
S2: you know, I'm counting down. It's been it's been a
S2: year without a rhythm.
S3: It's hard. And we find family where we are.
S2: I think we've found family. I think that's a concept
S2: we might stretch out here. I think we we do
S2: have to build the connections around us. If our family
S2: is not local.
S3: We do. And for us, it was always being immigrants
S3: to Australia and so appreciating being welcomed here by this
S3: beautiful country and honestly being a bit afraid about Canada. Now,
S3: I'm saying that quite sincerely, it's not great there with
S3: what's happening in the world. Um, I feel like we
S3: have had to build this sort of wider, broader family
S3: out of found family, and that's the best way to
S3: do it. I think we need each other in general.
S3: We all need each other.
S2: I love that sentiment that that we can. And I
S2: think it's something a lot of people write to me about.
S2: They they read the book and it does talk a
S2: lot about family. Both my books do, and the reality
S2: for people who have fractured families and kids overseas and,
S2: and that is that they do have to find family
S2: around them. And I think that's beautiful. So what other
S2: rhythms have you created in your life since you've been
S2: through this adaptive stage?
S6: I think I've recognized, like.
S3: We all have, how important our health journey is, and
S3: that that doesn't need to look like hours at the
S3: gym or whatever, but it needs to be, um, practical
S3: in terms of doable steps that we can all do
S3: just to make sure that we're, you know, sleeping as
S3: much as we can. That's such a big one for women,
S3: isn't it? Um, just being able to sleep is so important,
S3: and it's a tough thing to do. So that's been
S3: great as well. And I live a creative life wherever
S3: I can. I like to write a lot. I love
S3: my girlfriends. I'm one of four sisters. So to me,
S3: not having my sisters here means I really do rely
S3: on girlfriends and spend a lot of time with them.
S3: And then, of course, by the time you finish a
S3: full time job and a bit of a writing career
S3: and family and all of those things, it's very it's
S3: full life and it's big days and yeah, so let's.
S2: Take a full circle back to the grey hair, because
S2: I know people will still be fascinated and they'll want
S2: to hear the rest of the story because because I
S2: think it it it's a beautiful article that you wrote,
S2: and I will link it into the show notes for
S2: people as well as your book. Um, talk to me
S2: about how long it took.
S3: Oh, my hair is so slow growing. So you guys are.
S2: Probably know mine is very slow. It doesn't do anything
S2: nice except get fuzzy and like straw. So you know
S2: it's not. Yeah, well.
S3: You know, that would change if you stopped coloring, so.
S2: Yeah. That's why I'm going down. The journey is I
S2: feel like the the menopausal hair loss at the front
S2: is real. Yeah. From bleaching. So.
S3: I know. It's so funny. So it took me. You
S3: can see my hair length. It's like a chin length bob.
S3: It took me 18 months to grow out my hair
S3: and I decided to do it. Like I said laughingly
S3: at the start of the show with Badger Roots. And
S3: that is what I did. I wanted to allow my
S3: authenticity to come out slowly. I wanted to get used
S3: to myself as this unfolded. Now there's so many.
S2: The brownie yellow at the bottom and the the white
S2: at the top.
S7: I did, yeah, I did.
S2: I've seen.
S7: It around.
S3: I know, and I just kept going. I think till
S3: you get to a certain point, if you kind of
S3: like brush it back and tuck your hair behind your
S3: ears and you do that sort of thing, you know,
S3: you can't see. It's it's easier because then you start
S3: to get a lot of silver at the front, and
S3: whatever's going on back there, you don't see it quite
S3: as much. But I did that. And then one quite
S3: short haircut near the end. And then then I was finished.
S3: So it took time, but I needed the time to
S3: get used to myself looking this way. The compliments really
S3: helped though, and you might find this too. You'll be surprised.
S3: I think people can kind of intuit what looks natural.
S3: Really looks beautiful, you know? It's like looking at a
S3: a leaf on a rose from Ikea, from all of
S3: the false flowers, versus looking at a leaf on a
S3: rose outside in your garden. You know, the the garden rose.
S3: There's something is just beautiful because it's natural. You really
S3: do get an inherent beauty in that. And I'm not
S3: saying that women with colored hair aren't beautiful. Of course
S3: they are. And yes, they do definitely, definitely do look
S3: younger than I do. But there's a beauty in the naturalness,
S3: so I'd be keen to see what your brown hair
S3: looks like.
S7: Maybe after last.
S3: Night. Maybe. It's beautiful.
S2: You have to laugh. I texted my hairdresser with a
S2: couple of pictures because I've been getting the same bleached
S2: foils for. I don't know how long. Um, and I
S2: texted her a photograph and I said, can you can
S2: we do this next time? And she texted me back, nope.
S2: I'm sorry. I can't do darker on you. If you
S2: want to do that, you've got to go to another
S2: salon and get it done and come back to me
S2: when you want to be blonde again, because I saw
S2: so many people come once. Get it brown. I desperately
S2: unhappy with it and then don't want to be brown
S2: after a couple of weeks who've been perpetually blonde all
S2: their lives. And and so I did. I went off
S2: to another hairdresser and she texted me a few weeks later.
S2: Did you go to get Brown? I think she thought
S2: she would scare me out of it. And, um, because
S2: I've been going to her for 20 years. And I
S2: texted her back a photograph and she said, oh, it's
S2: not that brown. Um, but to me, this is my natural.
S2: It's close. Closing in on my natural color. It's probably
S2: not natural yet, but at least I can see line two.
S2: It's not just being solid bleach and damage and and
S2: that's that's sort of where I figure I'll go over
S2: the journey, but I don't know. They keep telling me
S2: there's not a lot of gray.
S3: That's interesting too, because I felt like when my hair
S3: was blonde, it felt when it was wet. Kind of
S3: like soft candy floss.
S7: Fairy floss. Is that what you call it here?
S3: Yeah. Just really damaged. And now it doesn't. Now it
S3: literally feels like it felt when I was eight.
S7: It's just gray hair.
S2: Silky or thick or coarse.
S7: It's yours.
S3: It's a it's a bit thicker, maybe, or. But I
S3: wouldn't know. I definitely don't have coarse hair. I'm sure
S3: some people do, but those are the women. You see
S3: them with gray hair on Instagram. They look fabulous. Oh
S3: my gosh.
S7: They're they're.
S3: Gorgeous.
S7: They're just.
S3: Gorgeous.
S2: And you've done a bit of modeling with it as well.
S7: Yeah. Yeah.
S3: So that ended up happening really because I went gray
S3: early and that was interesting. So when I was doing
S3: that work in the world, I kind of fell into it.
S3: And when I would show up for shoots, I was
S3: the granny of a of a child, like a 7
S3: or 8 year old child, which was fine, like in
S3: real life I could have been. But the mother cast
S3: of that child was invariably like 40 years old, but
S3: looked about 30 because, you know, colored her hair or
S3: whatever else. So I was arriving. I was would be
S3: ten years older than these women. I would be cast
S3: as their mother, the granny. And they were.
S7: They.
S3: Were like the young mom. Yeah. And I kept talking
S3: to them, thinking it felt so well, it would be
S3: like you and me exactly right, being on a shoot together.
S3: And you'd be the mom of the seven year old,
S3: and I'd be your mother nine years older than you are.
S7: And yet we feel like peers. Absolutely. And it made.
S3: Me think, you know, and the industry, that industry. And industry.
S3: And that's another thing. When I wrote the Bittersweet Bakery Cafe,
S3: it it opens with this scene of the main characters,
S3: an advertising exec in Sydney. And I really used some
S3: of my experiences there around classic models and whatever else.
S3: I think it's super interesting to see the way that
S3: society wants to ignore midlife women. But now there's this
S3: whole resurgence of people like Andie MacDowell who say, I
S3: don't want to be young. I've been young, I'm actually old,
S3: and I like it. And we used to think in advertising, too.
S3: It's so interesting. We think of featuring older women as
S3: like Helen Mirren. Well, Helen Mirren is in her 80s
S3: and Jennifer Lopez's My Age, and she looks 25 and
S3: she pole dances at the Super Bowl. So where are
S3: the women who are really like me? And that's that's
S3: why I wrote about a midlife character in my book,
S3: because I thought, where are we? Why are we having
S3: to disappear? Or why are we having to be 30?
S3: Look as if we're 30. Do things to our faces
S3: and whatever to to appear to be 30 when we're not.
S7: Well, it used to be the.
S2: 40 year old woman who had to then act young
S2: to get a job, to get an opportunity to. But
S2: but I think very much now we are seeing the
S2: 50 and 60 year old woman possibly even steal the
S2: limelight from younger stars. And it's beautiful to see because
S2: in in my early days in media, we used to hear, oh,
S2: once you're 40, 45, you won't get a gig. And
S2: and now you're seeing, um, older models on the runways,
S2: older models featuring in the campaign ads for the major retailers. Um,
S2: it is like the retailers have woken up and, and
S2: recognized that their, their shopper is.
S7: Because.
S3: We have so much purchasing power. Like you'd know this
S3: from all your work in the finance world, right? We
S3: have we spend something midlife women spend something like $70
S3: trillion a year on this planet. We're the shoppers. We're
S3: the ones who have the money to spend, too, because
S3: we're later in our lives. And so it's time that
S3: retailers really woke up and saw that that was the case.
S3: And that aspirational advertising doesn't have to mean that everybody
S3: looks 30. You know what? What does aspirational 50 look like?
S3: What does aspirational 60 or 70 look like? Looks vibrant. Loved. Healthy.
S3: You know that's what it looks like.
S2: Yeah, I love it I. You certainly are enthusiastically, uh,
S2: in the right place for me. It fits for me
S2: and for me. I think we've got to represent 50
S2: and well, for me, 47 up has been the period
S2: where I think we lose our way as a society.
S2: We don't represent the needs of people in that age group.
S2: We don't talk about the issues of people in that
S2: age group all the way up into retirement. I find
S2: the The invisibility of these issues. When we when I
S2: do things for the newspaper, often I'll talk about issues
S2: for the retired generation, and younger journalists aren't even registering
S2: that these are issues, you know, and and so I
S2: sort of find this gap in this space where lots
S2: of smart people know the gaps there, but they aren't in.
S7: The.
S2: Field where they might fill the space. So, um, it's
S2: it's possibly a cost structure problem in the media. People
S2: leave the media because they don't pay much. Um, you know,
S2: things like that become real. And so you've got to
S2: be be able to sustain yourself if you are working
S2: or you go the corporate side, I guess.
S7: So why why.
S3: Do you think that people aren't interested, since there are
S3: so many of us and there's such a need for
S3: education and exploration around these life stages? Like why is
S3: it not there? Why is it not being provided?
S7: Well, I.
S2: Suspect it's just unsexy, right? There's there's other appealing areas.
S2: And when you have a limited pool of activity that
S2: you've got to do. I mean, the reality of the
S2: advertising dollar in this segment is that it will always
S2: push younger, um, simply. And advertising is a shrinking market.
S2: So it's a tough model to be in media, but
S2: to be able to understand this market and serve it
S2: with products and services is a is a beautiful thing.
S2: I've been working for older Australians for what, 15 years
S2: in my career with my previous businesses starts at 60
S2: and then stepping away from that one and and doing
S2: epic from from nothing. And I feel like epic is
S2: a a journey I'm on to understand all the problems.
S2: And now we move into prime time and we talk
S2: about 50 year olds and 47 to 65, the period
S2: before we end up at the end of our employment.
S2: Because I don't even think there's a specific line that
S2: we're going to end up crossing into retirement anymore. It's
S2: not a it's not a finish line anymore.
S7: It's a very has been.
S2: Right.
S7: You know, we.
S2: Want to keep being purposeful in the next phase of
S2: our lives. And that might have us keep working by choice.
S3: And why not? When you think about it, if you
S3: think we need to finance ourselves into our 90s or beyond,
S3: we need a lot of like ability to keep working.
S3: We do. We need.
S7: The capital.
S2: Brain stimulated.
S7: Yeah. For those who.
S2: That's important too.
S7: Yeah. And we're we're.
S3: So valuable because we know so much. We just have
S3: that depth of experience. And I think that, you know,
S3: working longer lives is actually a very positive thing. I
S3: agree with you. I think it's admirable what you're doing.
S3: I also think it makes good business sense, because there
S3: are a lot of us in the middle of our
S3: lives right now looking for inspiration, looking for next steps,
S3: how to and how to make the most of things now.
S3: I love that about the work that you're doing. I'm
S3: doing it in novels. You're doing it in. It's a blessing. Books? Yeah.
S2: It's a blessing to combine passion with purpose, isn't it?
S2: And and make a living being able to do it.
S2: I think that, you know. And so so to wrap
S2: up today, I'd love to put this beautiful book up
S2: and have you tell us how it came about.
S3: Oh, so really, the Bittersweet Bakery Cafe came about because
S3: I was frustrated with all of the books out there
S3: featuring 30 year olds, and I.
S7: Thought.
S3: Where are the books for women like us who actually,
S3: you know, characterize us and center on us and are
S3: about our juicy, huge and interesting lives and struggles and challenges?
S3: So that's why I wrote the novel. So it's been
S3: a great journey. I've really loved it. It is so
S3: resonating with women, which is great, and I think it's
S3: very suitable for that midlife audience who's thinking about reinvention,
S3: maybe even feeling a bit flat and wondering what's next
S3: To have some inspiration from a woman who just has
S3: so much grit and determination and will not give up,
S3: will not stop.
S2: Oh, that's so inspiring. I only received my coffee today,
S2: so I am going to be spending the weekend with it.
S2: Kathryn Greer, thank you so much for joining me on
S2: the show.
S3: Thank you for having me back.
S7: Thank you.
S2: Thank you for listening to Prime Time. I would love
S2: to get some more input from you, our listeners, about
S2: what questions you have and what you want me to
S2: explore on the Prime Time podcast. Please email me at
S2: Beck at Prime Timers. Net. And as always, please rate review.
S2: And of course, make sure you tap the follow or
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S2: sign up for our weekly newsletter at Prime Timers. Net.
S2: My name is Beck Wilson. Stay tuned for our next
S2: episode and in the meantime, make your prime time count.