![\"<em>You](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/0c8c05a4-e7b6-4f18-bfa6-a5ea9a41e3a0.jpeg\" "\\"<em>You")
<\/a><\/p>\nSchaefer began talking about writing this book about seven years ago, she says, but things picked up after she appeared on Phoebe Judge\u2019s This Is Love podcast in 2024. At the end of her interview, Schaefer happened to mention that she wanted to write \u201ca slim little volume\u201d about perimenopause for women in their mid-thirties and older. Laura Tisdel, her now-editor at Penguin Random House, reached out after hearing the episode, hoping to make that a reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI struggled myself in the transitional years, especially in my forties, and I was chomping at the bit to get what I\u2019ve learned out of my head and onto the page,\u201d Schaefer, now 66, explains. \u201cI\u2019m so glad I finally get the chance to pass on lessons from my own experiences, guided by knowledgeable health care practitioners who\u2019ve put midlife care at the core of their practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
You Part Two is meant to be a straightforward \u201cquick-start guide to perimenopause\u201d rather than an \u201cexhaustive, encyclopedic manual that covers every facet of every topic,\u201d the author says. Many such resources already exist in the world. But it is meant to help normalize discussions of perimenopause at every age before women are in the thick of it. Schaefer wanted to help readers \u201cstart adopting practices that will help ease their way\u201d into midlife.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also meant to be comforting, as if to say, These changes you\u2019re experiencing, like the ones in puberty, are normal and human. \u201cI want women to feel empowered to talk openly with their community of family, friends, health care providers, and especially other women about what they\u2019re experiencing without shame or embarrassment so they can find the support they need,\u201d Schaefer says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that a woman in her twenties or thirties has almost a bone-deep remembrance of the preteen girl she used to be. That girl was so curious, so bright, so full of dreams!\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing for a new book felt right too. \u201cThe first generation of girls who grew up with The Care and Keeping of You are approaching their mid- to late thirties,\u201d she explains. \u201cIf you think of puberty and menopause as bookends, those readers are at the beginning of their middle chapter. Just as in puberty, midlife brings changes that affect us as whole people\u2014mentally, physically, emotionally, socially\u2014the whole deal. And just as in the run-up to puberty, information is our friend and preparation, or the lack of it, affects our experiences and outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book doesn\u2019t only focus on biology and hormones, but also on how all aspects of a woman\u2019s life are interconnected. One section of the book, for example, is \u201cdevoted to the importance of building and protecting our allyship with other women,\u201d which acts like \u201ca ribbon woven throughout the chapters,\u201d Schaefer points out. \u201cI will never shut up about the importance of building a supportive community, especially a community of other women.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schaefer would be open to writing more You installments in the future (\u201cResoundingly, yes!\u201d she says). But she\u2019s also still grateful for how readers remain so connected with the original\u2014her first book ever. \u201cI mean, what a crazy, wondrous, and deeply gratifying thing to have been a part of birthing! I don\u2019t think I could have predicted that the book would still hold such a special place in the lives of women who read it as a kid,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The idea for The Care and Keeping of You first came from Pleasant T. Rowland, founder and creator of The American Girls Collection. At the time, Schaefer had been working at American Girl for about five years. She remembers Rowland being concerned that young girls approaching puberty were \u201cfeeling unprepared and full of questions they were too embarrassed to ask.\u201d Sure enough, the young readers of the American Girl magazine were asking many of these questions via handwritten letters to the company. Schaefer was hesitant to write something herself, but Rowland encouraged her. \u201cShe said, \u2018You\u2019re the best person to do it, you can do it, and you will do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
As for why women still hold the book so close to their hearts today, she muses, \u201cI think that a woman in her twenties or thirties has almost a bone-deep remembrance of the preteen girl she used to be. That girl was so curious, so bright, so full of dreams! As grown women, I think that girl still lives inside our hearts somewhere, and we hold a deep affection for who she was at age 8, 9, 10. Maybe we even feel a little protective toward her. I really believe that this nostalgia, as much as anything, is what\u2019s made the book resonant for women all these years later.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 min read For most millennial women, reading The Care and Keeping of You is a core memory.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,1240,377116,874,88,982,265529,873,218423,377115,316394,358927],"class_list":["post-900003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-61917650-0e1c-4cd3-8d54-ec4809dbfe22","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-hasproduct-true","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-6","tag-shorttitle-meet-the-care-and-keeping-of-you-for-grown-ups","tag-sponsored-false","tag-subsection-what-to-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Estimated](\"https:\/\/www.elle.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/fre\/static\/icons\/clock-regular.4ddebeb.svg\")
5 min read<\/p>\n