7 Things I Feared About Menopause that Didn’t Happen (and One that Did!)

The groundbreaking All in the Family episode about Edith Bunker going through “the change” aired in 1972. I was a tender 13 at the time, yet “Edith’s Problem” really struck me—and came back to me four decades later when menopause loomed.

I wondered if my experience would be similar to that of my own mother.

I wondered if my experience would be similar to that of my own mother, who had been virtually symptom-free, insisting this was her due because she “prepaid” with years of painful period cramps. Would I follow in her footsteps, breezily bidding ta-ta to tampons and the heating pad? Or would I be more like the unhinged, overheated and hysterical Edith? I was filled with trepidation—much of which, I can, in retrospect, report was unfounded.