I got a call from the New York Times.
And I was excited.
Not because I need the validation, but because it felt like a moment.
My article on empty nesting had gone viral and crossed 260,000 reads. That told me something important; this conversation we’ve been having together about midlife, parenting, marriage, raising and releasing our kids and what comes next? It matters. It’s resonating.
So when the Times said they wanted to talk about midlife and empty nesting and family and marriage, I thought, great… Maybe this is the moment a mainstream outlet finally tells the story the way it actually is.
Not the joke and woke version.
Not the crisis version.
Not the sad-dad version.
The real version.
But no. That didn’t happen because The New York Times wasn’t interested in the real version. They had their agenda and they stuck to it, ignoring 99% of what I said that was almost all positive and aspirational to fit their opposite narrative.
There’s no sugarcoating this piece and most I come across from “mainstream” media on the topic:
The article paints midlife terribly for men because the people who cover the topic, mostly miserable women who clearly dislike men, paint us in the worst light imaginable and bait and switch their interview subjects.
They didn’t want the truth, my truth, our truth, from the beginning.
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They lumped me in with a bunch of typecasted 50 and 60 year olds who don’t have any other life experience, all have boring, terrible jobs with unattractive spouses, and they cherry-pick words and showcase it. And that’s kind of what they do for most everything.
I almost didn’t even see the article at first. The writer didn’t send it to me like she had promised. And of course she didn’t send it to me because it was a fucking terrible article overall. She lied to me. I only got it because a buddy of mine who lives in Santa Fe said, “Hey, you’re in the Santa Fe Gazette.” They syndicated it from the Times or something. Then I traced it back. I was like, wait a minute, this isn’t a Santa Fe Gazette article. I’ve never spoken to the Santa Fe Gazette. The New York title was buried in the arts section or whatever.
And here’s what really pisses me off.
I gave this writer 40 minutes of my time and we talked about all of the things I value most and I was honest:
I talked about our 6Fs. I talked about how important fitness is to both me and my wife, how we travel together, how we go on these adventures, how our kids are happy, how we have the best times visiting them. How we do events like 29029 together. How we both take pride in our appearance and each other’s fulfilment and accomplishments. I also talked about how empty nesting isn’t easy, like I mentioned in the column I wrote for us, here at Midlife Male. How empty nesting isn’t some tragedy, it’s proof you did your job. How our house is quieter, yes, but also kind of exciting. How we’re rediscovering each other again. How we’re training, traveling, adventuring, investing, building, and planning our next chapter instead of mourning the last one.
I also told her that we’ve tried some pro-active therapy to get ahead of any issues in our adjustment together with both kids out of the house. Again, total honesty on my part.
And what did this writer choose to use?
She took about thirty seconds of what I said about therapy and that’s it. I’m guessing she only used that because it fit her preconceived notions: midlife men are sad sacks…. Greg and his wife are in therapy… Happens all the time… Boo hoo… The end.
No mention of the other 39 minutes of what we talked about. No mention of what we’re building at Midlife Male for midlife men, by midlife men. No mention of the joy my wife and I are discovering from empty nesting. Nothing.
It was just completely disingenuous.
When I mentioned the therapy part, this is what I said:
I told her that Kate and I spend an hour a month with a counselor.
And I explained it exactly the way I always do.
Not because something is broken.
Because things are good.
We treat it like proactive maintenance. Like hiring a coach. A place to slow down and say, “Where do we want to live? How do we want to spend our time and money? What do we want the next 20–30 years to look like? How do we stay connected as a couple and as parents?
It’s proactive. Intentional. Healthy.
Honestly, it’s one of the most mature, adult things we’ve ever done for our relationship.
I remember thinking during the interview, “this is going to be a great piece. This is the kind of story people need to see. A positive, grounded version of midlife.”
Then the article came out.
And when I read it, I was like, WTF?
Because it wasn’t the story we talked about at all.
They took this really full, optimistic, energized conversation about building a great second half of life and somehow squeezed it into the same tired narrative we’ve all seen a hundred times. Midlife equals loss. An empty nest equals sadness. Marriage work equals therapy. Midlife man equals struggling.
The part that really got me was how they handled the counseling. What I described as intentional, proactive, healthy maintenance somehow turned into “the kids left… so they went into therapy.” Like something had gone wrong. Like we were trying to fix damage.
And I just kept thinking:
Since when did working on your marriage become a red flag?
Since when did raising kids who are confident and independent enough to leave home become a sad story?
Since when did aging well, staying fit, planning your life, and actually liking your spouse turn into some kind of quiet crisis?
It felt like they already had the story written before they ever called me. They just needed a few (mis)quotes to drop into it.
And honestly, the more I sat with it, the clearer I got.
When unchecked, this is how the mainstream media (often hiring female writers who have no idea what it’s like to be, you know, a midlife man) depicts midlife men: either losers who are miserable and it’s their fault, or the midlife crisis, sports car, young-wife stereotype.
When the vast majority of midlife men are not that.
They’re just trying to be good husbands and good dads and take care of themselves. They had no interest in hearing that story or writing that story. And that’s why we here at Midlife Male exist.
Someone has to write a real, honest, entertaining, aspirational, awesome publication FOR MIDLIFE MEN, BY MIDLIFE MEN and that’s us.
So is the lesson that not all press is good press, especially some woke-ass paper like the New York Times that has a terrible history?
No.
I’d say bad press from bad people is good press.
Because when I get to share what we actually talked about and what we’re actually doing, we can be our own champions for midlife men and call out the hypocrisy and the bullshit spin when we’re not portrayed that way.
And honestly, I’d rather have this conversation with you guys anyway.
In Health,
Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
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