Gail Sheehy wrote a great book entitled 'Passages' which covered this very regularly traversed life journey in 1976. My father gave me the book in the 1990's. I think it still holds up well today. The modern western women always has to make that critical decision. To have a career before or after having a child. Having a child, is one of those things that gives a woman her feminine identity. If they get it wrong, then they have their mid-life crisis.

Men are the similar but their baby is their career. If they fail to balance career and family life, they too can have a mid life crisis. That realization that between their pursuit of career and dedication to family, they have never lived for themselves. Consequently they yearn for youthfulness again, seek young women out, and buy fancy sport cars.

'Passages' was a pretty insighful book. The part I like especially is the description of how men and women start out at polar opposites in terms of the psychological makeup. As the progress through life, the move closer together in temperament, until at age 40 -50 they cross over and begin to be opposite mirrors of there early years. Women become more aggressive and independent in the older years. Men become more mellow and easy going.

Everybody goes through a similar cycle for the most part.