Here I am. No bra, rat hair, Coco Pops for lunch. I do not care

I’m tired of constantly performing, smiling, affirming, brightening, showing up, battening down, sacrificing, giving up and holding myself in. And I’m not the only one.

Nikki Gemmell

Later, writes Nikki Gemmell, I’ll walk the dog, braless and quite possibly wearing the jumper I slept in with two pairs of glasses attached to my head. Picture: istock

3 min read

8:09PMJuly 18, 2025

The Weekend Australian Magazine

I have just walked the dog while wearing two pairs of glasses. One pair on top of my head and another over the eyes. This was because when it came to walking the dog, I couldn’t find my glasses.

So I put my spare pair on without realising the others were pushed to the top of my head and I walked in this state, for quite some time, and none of the lovely regulars in the ’hood said anything. As if this picture of neighbourly eccentricity was merely my normal, everyday existence. Send help.

Actually, don’t. Because I do not care. For I’ve recently signed up to the We Do Not Care Club, a rescuing new movement for the peri-menopausal and menopausal woman, instigated by a deadpan and self-assured 46-year-old from Florida called Melani Sanders. Who no longer cares. About quite a lot.

Like whether her bra, underwear or socks match. Or if her family’s hungry: “We did not lock the kitchen.” Or if she’s sporting leg or chin hair: “If we cut it, we cut it. If we don’t, we don’t.” Or if her partner has had a long day: “So did we. Our day included brain fog, night sweats, insomnia, frozen shoulder and rage.” Or if she turns “the music off to back into the parking spot”.

Sanders often presents her Insta reels wearing several pairs of glasses, an eye mask around her neck and an airplane pillow for support. She does not care.

Neither do I as I write this column at midday on a Sunday, propped up in bed by four pillows and warmed by an electric blanket on two because my dog has decided my sun-splashed writing desk is the best sleeping spot in the house, and will not be budged.

Here I am. No bra, rat hair, Coco Pops for lunch. I do not care.

This movement is about acceptance. Way beyond trying to frantically, tightly and stressfully present a perfect image of accomplishment and order to the wider world.

It’s about being gloriously unapologetic in terms of the reality of a woman’s over-40s life. About loosening and letting go, with chuff.

“I want to fulfill the needs of everybody around me and be sure everyone else is happy, but I don’t have the capacity to do it the way I used to,” Sanders explained in a recent interview.

“(And) I have to learn to be OK with that … It’s giving us permission to just be like, ‘It is what it is.’” She added, “It’s very freeing. I want all women to feel heard.”

Hear us roar. With the Not Caring. So, to the friend who recently visited and ran her finger along the dust on a pile of books in my loungeroom, then held out said finger with a raised eyebrow: I do not care. And you will not be invited back. Because something has happened.

It’s called Slippage and who cares if my home is spotless or not. I do not care that I no longer iron. I do not care that I’m not going out for the third time in a week, because going out too much kills me and I like to withdraw to bed at about, oh, nine pm.

I’m tired of constantly performing, smiling, affirming, brightening, showing up, battening down, sacrificing, giving up and holding myself in. Do not care anymore. About so much. And boy is it liberating.

The WDNC Club has gone viral, worldwide. The only thing required of members? Honesty. Later I’ll walk the dog, braless and quite possibly wearing the jumper I slept in with two pairs of glasses attached to my head. Do not care. That carefully curated image of myself, presented to the world for so long? Out the window. Because the best thing about the Do Not Care years is that you’re released from the prison of what others might think of you.

And ladies, I suspect that the blokes have discovered the bliss of the WDNC Club way sooner than us.