Stories of middle-aged women

"As a woman of 50, I’m surrounded by my contemporaries and what women of that age go through: parental loss, cancer, dealing with Alzheimer’s, children growing up. All these issues that are here in our lives and they’re invisible."

thus spake Samantha Bond recently, here, when bemoaning the lack of stories of middle-aged women.

Such am I.  I and my peers are coping with aging relatives, taking on legal powers of attorney, mourning those we are losing alive to Alzheimer's, and vicariously taking on the troubles of our grown-up children.  Our children may be living the dreams we once had: emigrating, studying fantastic university courses.  Or they may be worrying us with troubled relationships, dangerous driving, failing exams, not working. 

Is there not drama in such lives?  Apparently not, and hence Bond's moan.  There are few theatre, film or stage productions of the lives of people like me.  Despite the bulk of theatre audiences being made up of middle-aged women, despite the novels written by and for us, there are not the productions, and hence there are not the roles for the actresses like Bond. 

Middle-aged women are like the main supporting wall of a house, central and sustaining, but hidden.