The Princess of Wales is celebrating her 44th birthday today — but while many of us still think of Princess Kate as the figurehead of a whole generation of young royals, the truth is… she’s now officially middle-aged.
While midlife might often feel more like a stage than an age, on a scientific level it starts in the mid-forties for both men and women. Yes, according to some startling 2024 research from Stanford University, ageing happens in two big bursts — and the first begins at exactly 44, heralding the start of midlife.
When these findings were first released, they were shared with horror in my group chats of women approaching their mid-40s. 44 was described as a period of “dramatic change” which sounded ominous, unsettling and, frankly, exhausting, when we all had plenty to be getting on with already.
Reframing midlife
So, how about we reframe it? Kate is in her second act — and, as someone just a few months ahead of her, I’m here to reassure the princess, and anyone else staring down the barrel at middle age (probably in reading glasses), that it can be a wonderful thing. It’s fair to say that I prefer this study, which found that 44 is also when we become more content and stable — and, after everything she’s been through over the past few years, this sentiment feels just as relevant to the Princess of Wales as it is to the average person.
While the royal and I lead very different lives (I am typing this from my cluttered terraced house in Catford…), I’ve always felt an affinity with the princess; for a good decade now, she has been my life stage buddy and imaginary mum friend. Twice, we were pregnant at exactly the same time — my son and daughter were both born within a few weeks of Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven — and I remember feeling grateful that my pregnancies didn’t involve battling hyperemesis gravidarum while looking elegant and glowing in front of the global media.
Now both of us are officially in our second acts, and our baby days are long behind us, bringing a little more freedom to everything from our wardrobes to our careers. Princess Kate knows better than most that growing older is truly a privilege and her recent experiences have reminded a whole generation that health problems don’t discriminate. As Ateh Jewel is constantly discovering when she chats to high-profile guests on our Second Act podcast, the brilliant thing about a “second act” is that it means something different for everyone — from fitness epiphanies to new relationships. In the Princess of Wales' case, she’s heading into midlife feeling grateful for her health and with a renewed energy for the demands of royal life.
Thriving in midlife
Those of us who, like the future queen, were born between 1980 and 1985 are considered “geriatric millennials” (or, sometimes, the more flattering “Xennials”) and while the title might sound bleak, it’s an excellent gang to be part of. As well as Kate, some of the biggest stars in the world are among our flock — from multi-hyphenate powerhouses like Meghan Markle, Kim Kardashian and Beyonce, to the pop icons we grew up with, like Britney and Christina. Yes, this is a generation with staying power and first name recognition. Its biggest success stories were thriving in their twenties, and are thriving even more in their forties, despite — or perhaps in spite of — some inevitable setbacks along the way. Many of these figures will inevitably still be iconic in their eighties too — which will be helpful inspiration to us less than A-list geriatric millennials who probably won’t have retired yet, either.
Gen X (the eternally cool gang born between 1965 and 1980) is the group more typically thought of as middle-aged, so they may feel unsettled that elder millennials, a generation they often think of as a little lightweight, are hot on their heels — even if we don’t wear actual heels too often these days. But, unlike those before us, how lucky are we that trainers became universally acceptable just as we entered our plantar fasciitis era?
The truth is, from Britpop to Topshop, we actually have a lot in common with Gen X, it’s just that our coming-of-age years looked a little different. Most geriatric millennials had mobile phones at university — even if they were only good for playing Snake and sending long texts that took hours to type and then truncated (we wonder if Kate sent Prince William any of those!). By the time we entered the world of work, email was a thing, but we still had to learn how to use the fax machine, too.
This key difference means that, as adults, we’ve always had access to diverse communities and new ways to communicate. This, coupled with huge names like Princess Kate working hard to remove stigmas around mental health, means that we’re a generation who aren’t afraid to be a little more emotionally open than those who came before us, and do things differently. Our Gen X sisters and friends have helped shatter taboos around everything from sex and menopause to Botox and divorce, and so now we’re running with it. The trailblazers of Gen X were brave in ways us 40-somethings take for granted — we can put ourselves out there, champion causes, voice our views and, yes, shamelessly share selfies as much as we fancy.
Princess Kate knows that you can be in your mid-40s and beyond and still be trendy. You can shop where you want (and you might even bump into Gen Z at M&S these days), experiment with different jeans cuts, get multiple ear piercings, use dating apps, dye your hair pink, juggle multiple careers and hobbies… the sky’s the limit! While we doubt the Princess of Wales will be rocking a Helix piercing at her next formal engagement, she is one of many big names giving midlife the lively, aspirational rebrand it’s been crying out for.
For a long time, if you happened to google “middle-aged woman”, the results didn’t reflect the truth: the fact that many of the biggest stars in the world, stars the world thinks of as pretty youthful, are now middle-aged and proud. Many, like Jennifer Aniston, J-Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow, have been flying this flag for a while, and now Princess Kate is part of the gang too. None of these women look how we pictured middle age when we were growing up — and that’s brilliant news for those of us on the cusp of our second acts, wondering what the future holds. We’re rapidly learning that second acts bring freedom — if we want to get aesthetic tweakments, that’s cool; if we prefer to keep it natural, that can be celebrated too. Anything goes, and we can carry ourselves with a confidence and sense of self that we lacked in our younger years.
Yes, it’s fair to say that the beginning of midlife looks nothing like it did in this harrowing advert from 1971, which recently went viral among women of a certain age.
Naturally, as Kate is culturally way more Instagram than Facebook, she has casually defied royal tradition on her birthday too. A simple portrait is so last century — she has, of course, made a beautiful video to celebrate her 44th, instead; the ultimate midlife millennial move.