When Jane and I started this blog, we were excited to connect with a community of 30’s bloggers. We thought we’d be able to get tons of advice about the 30’s decade, and find tons of research on the 30’s had already been done for us. However, 30-somethings truly have to search for this kind of community, because it doesn’t really exist in any kind of cohesive way. The 30’s decade seems to kind of be a hush-hush decade.

There are lots of opinions about why the 30’s are the least talked about decade, but none of them satisfy me. I was reading an article the other day called The 30-Something Female Experience- What Is It Really? and the author asked a lot of women (well, her friends) why they thought the 30’s weren’t talked about as much as the 20’s or 40’s and most of the friends’ answers went something like “the 30’s are a boring decade,” “the 30’s are the middle child decade between the cool 20’s and the amazing 40’s.”

“The 30s get the shaft by society because it is the middle child. The 20s are a time to experiment and experience, by your 40s you have it dialed in, but your 30s is that awkward adolescence of figuring out how to get your family and yourself out the door in the morning, kick ass at work, have a healthy dinner on the table that evening, connect with your partner but not skip story time for the kids and still find time to get in a run to recover your pre-baby body or maintain a healthy figure. It’s not pretty as you’re trying to figure this out.”

My theory on the dearth of 30’s information kind of comes down to: the 30’s aren’t a sexy decade in the eyes of society. I mean, I feel more empowered than ever (mainly because I feel like I know myself better than ever), and feel extremely sexy in my own body (though I felt sexy in my 20’s too, but in a different and more unhealthy way), but there’s no marketing buzz around the 30’s that catches the media eye… we are in a lost decade. The empowerment decade (complete even with it’s own magazine- More Magazine) seems to be the 40’s (thank god- I’m happy that the 40’s are empowered, don’t get me wrong), and the crazy, wild decade is known to be the 20’s. So the 30’s decade is the….?

I think the 30’s decade is the growth decade. So much happens here in our 30’s. So much is put together in our 30’s. But perhaps growth isn’t sexy- especially not in our mainstream society. Hint: 30’s growth definitely isn’t sexy to the media. What can we do to change that? Do we need to change the perception of the 30’s?