Nobody tells you about menopause.
Sure, you hear about hot flashes from time to time, maybe from a relative or in a joke on a TV show. But the sex-ed classes that teach tweens and teens about periods rarely mention the day those periods will end. Even doctors rarely bring up menopause with their patients, and too often dismiss the symptoms when they occur.
“We get the puberty talk, but we don’t get the menopause talk,” Pauline Maki, a professor of psychiatry, psychology, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told Vox.
But now, the American population is getting older: By 2030, the median age in America will rise to 40, up from 37 today. And millennials, a generation beloved by marketers, have started entering their 40s, a decade when menopause symptoms can begin.