Big Mouth , a Cartoon, Has Taught Me More About Menopause Than Any Other Show on TV

A cartoon has somehow taught me more about the female experience than any other show I’ve watched. I’m talking about Netflix’s adult animated comedy Big Mouth, which centers on three teens, Nick, Jessi, and Andrew, going through puberty. Interestingly, the show is doing some serious heavy lifting for feminism—educating both women and men, in hilarious ways, about the realities of the female body. I admit, as a 41-year-old woman, I felt embarrassed at first about watching a cartoon until I realized that Big Mouth covers topics relevant to women’s lives—including, much to my surprise, menopause.

This specifically happens in the fifth episode of season three, when a hormone monster dressed as a witch approaches Andrew’s mom, Barb, who’s sweating for no reason. “The change is coming,” the witch says to her in a maniacal tone. At first Barb has no idea what the witch is talking about, but soon it hits her: menopause. She’s initially terrified of the concept, but the witch, in her own bizarre way, eases Barb’s concerns. I’ll reveal how she does this in a second, but first I should explain why this episode means so much to me: I’m currently experiencing changes in my own menstrual cycle. And like Barb, I was originally freaked out.

For months now I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. Last winter my periods went from being exactly seven days a month to, now, only three. But when I went to the doctor (a female one, mind you) and asked why this might be happening, she said, “Well, our bodies are not machines. Nothing is perfect.” OK, sure, but my periods have always been machine-like in predictability. So what was the deal?

It wasn’t until I spoke to my older sister that I found out what was going on. “Night sweats, weird periods—you’re in perimenopause,” she told me. “Nobody warned me about this crap either.” This was the worst thing she could’ve told me—or so I thought. You see, thanks to TV and movies—and a complete lack of sex education, but that’s a rant for later—I’ve dreaded menopause for as long as I can remember. The general consensus seems to be that menopause turns women into perpetually angry monsters who are always hot. Think back to the episode of Sex and the City where Samantha receives an unsolicited magazine in the mail about approaching menopause. She views this as a death sentence, and relief comes only at the end, when she gets her period.

My ingrained, internalized misogyny has convinced me to fear menopause as the time when women become “dried-up,” “unfuckable” hags who can’t have babies. But Barb’s story in Big Mouth makes me see it in whole new light, as something I should maybe look forward to.

This, essentially, is what the witch tells Barb—just with more outlandish language. “I’m not ready to be old! For your information, last night I made love to my husband,” Barb says. The witch then replies, “Yes, I watched! Raw-dog and all! No fear of pregnancy!” This, the witch explains, is one of the perks of menopause: “This next chapter is yours to live, and now you have no fucks to give,” she says, cackling.

With every new woman I meet in her 50s, I’m starting to believe this is absolutely the case. They truly give zero fucks and are living their best lives. In fact, just recently one of my coworkers sold me on the menopause phase. In your 50s, she assured me, women stop putting up with the shit they tolerated for decades. A lot of them leave their husbands entirely or at least renegotiate the terms of their marriage. With the kids grown and out of the house, these women are finally putting themselves first instead of everyone else. I guess it takes a good 50 years to unlearn what society has taught us so well: that our existence revolves around making and keeping men comfortable, even at our own expense.

Thanks to Big Mouth, I now see that menopause isn’t something I should dread at all. Rather, I should see it as a rite of passage that will help me give even fewer fucks than I do now, at 41. We absolutely need to see more storylines like this in entertainment. I mean, if a cartoon show about teenagers can illuminate something about women over 50, it’s time for literally every other TV series to follow suit.

Melanie Hamlett is a comedian, writer, and storyteller from New York City who’s now living in Europe.

Originally Appeared on Glamour