My strategy for beating middle age: I just had my first kid at 40 and my next one is due just after I'll turn 42. I don't think I'm going to have time for midlife navel-gazing. "What is the point of all this?" is a question that stopped having meaning when my son was born.

Historically, people entered this difficult stage of life at just the moment they were finishing raising their kids. I have to wonder how that changes things, now that older parents are much more common (or, on the other hand, now that so many more people don't have kids at all).