Do you feel like you're barely treading water, struggling to stay afloat? Every day, women are under the pressure pressure to parent, run the household, and succeed professionally — all at the same time. Plus, we're expected to work out regularly and get eight hours of sleep and make sure we're going to the doctor and keep up with beauty treatments and... even just thinking about it warrants a nap. Then when you throw in dealing with perimenopause or menopause symptoms on top of everything? Forget about a nap: You may want to crawl into a hole and never come out.
But there's a new social media phenomenon addressing this feeling of overwhelm, and its ethos can be summed up just four words. Back in May, creator Melani Sanders posted about her "look" for the grocery store: sports bra, sweatshirt, undone hair, and all. While she might not have been camera-ready to some, Sanders said, simply: "I do not care." Her attitude became a mantra and morphed into the viral We Do Not Care Club, a movement for women in perimenopause and beyond who are ready to let go of society's expectations.
If you're ready to join the club, Sanders' new book, The Official We Do Not Care Handbook, will give you the push you need — and we've got a taste of her fresh perspective. Read on for an exclusive excerpt:
We used to be able to do it all. Do the job, be the mom, be the wife, the daughter, the friend. We don’t have that energy level anymore. We are at capacity. So every day becomes a climb up this decision tree: Do I work? Do I take care of my family? Or do I take care of me? We know we can’t do it all, so we have to decide. On days that I choose my family, I know I’m going to have to let some of my work slide. But sometimes I have to be a mom first. And by choosing to do that one thing semi-well, instead of three things poorly, I get the fuel I need to push through to the following day.
It never ceases to surprise me that my body used to be able to handle so much more, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Getting older is ghetto. It’s like we’re starting puberty all over again, thirty-some years later. When I hit perimenopause, my body broke down. I got sore. I’m tired all the time. I'd love to walk up a flight of stairs and not be out of breath. Now I have to compartmentalize more and prioritize differently, and be OK with that.
Picking and choosing is hard. There are a lot of days when I tell myself, “Melani, let it go. It’ll still be there tomorrow.” If I have an obligation, like someone coming over, I’ll clean the house or I’ll get dinner on the table. But when it’s just me and my immediate family, I feel like one more day of French fries isn’t gonna kill anyone.
So the challenge becomes less about actually getting everything done, and more about being OK with the fact that we won’t. After years of checking things off our to-do list, in peri/menopause we have to start normalizing the fact that our lives will be different. Our output will be different. That’s especially difficult for women in the workplace who are cruising into the top of their professions by the time they hit their late forties and early fifties. You work so hard to get where you are, walking this tightrope of killing it in your career and still taking care of your loved ones. Then all of a sudden you’re on your shift or in the middle of a meeting when a hot flash hits, and you realize that you’re about to be completely drenched. You try to take deep breaths, slow it down, but that doesn’t work. You know what’s happening, but to everyone else it can look like you're out of control. We've tried so hard to control the chaos in our lives that it’s a shock when this new menopause storm starts to form on the horizon, and we don’t necessarily know what to do about it.
As for me, I’ve realized that I can’t be every woman anymore. I don’t want to be every woman anymore. It used to be wash, dry, fold. Now it’s wash or dry or fold. I’ve stopped asking myself, Can I have it all? and started wondering, Can I do it all? The answer to both is yes, but we might have to change our take on what “all” means. Career and children and home and partner and creativity and friendships and pleasure and a little time for ourselves? In the bigger scheme of things, I do have it all, but not all at the same time. Never did. Is it wrapped up in a pretty bow like the people we see on TV and in social media? Nope, never was.
Our energy is precious, and it’s limited. So at this stage, it’s important to pay attention to the vibes of the people around us. We don’t need anything artificial. No facades, no deep dark secrets. One rule I have for relationships is: Don’t make me think. When you make me think, that means you are work. And I get paid when I work.
I will happily release a friendship that exhausts me. Once it’s a task to talk to you, forget it. We’re in peri/ menopause, we got our own sh*t to deal with. So you gotta check yourself — and know that the friends you trust the most will keep you honest.
For too many of us, all-or-nothing has been our way of life. But with so much changing right now, we can also learn new habits. We can teach this old dog new tricks. Instead of telling ourselves, That’s just the way I am, we can look at this time as an opportunity to evolve.
I do believe we walk around a lot lighter when we take off our superwoman capes. And we get extra power knowing that we have sisters walking beside us.
Excerpted from the book The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook by Melani Sanders. Copyright © 2026 by Melani Sanders. From Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
