Why be a WAG when you can be a WOW?

Not because one is better. But because one is a chapter — and the other is the whole story.

Image created by author using AI

It is World Cup season, which means the acronym WAG is back in the spotlight.

The Wives and Girlfriends. The women standing on the side-lines, cheering from the stands, often photographed as symbols of glamour, youth, beauty and the exciting beginning of a story

And I have been thinking…

Why be a WAG when you can be a WOW?

(WOW is my own acronym for Wiser, Older Woman*)

Not because there is anything wrong with being young. Not because one generation of women should ever stand in judgement of another. We were all once the woman with the fresh face, the big dreams, the belief that life was something that happened somewhere ahead of us.

The magic of being a woman is that we are never just one version of ourselves.

We are more like those Russian Matryoshka dolls — the ones that open to reveal another version inside.

Inside the woman I am today is the girl I once was.

And in the layers between, lies the learning, the joy and sadness, the essence of who we become.

· The young woman who lived optimistically, or perhaps too cautiously

· But who made mistakes anyway.

· The woman who tried to hold everything together.

· The woman who cared for others.

· The woman who learned, often the hard way, what mattered and what didn’t.

None of those women disappear. They remain within us, layer upon layer, each one teaching the next something important.

Every version is still there.

When we are young, life often looks outward. What will I become? How can I fit in? What do people think of me?

As the years pass, the questions change. We transfer the gaze from outside of ourselves to inside. We go deeper and ask questions like: what really matters? Not only to me but to the world? How can I help? What price can I put on my creativity? Who am I becoming? What do I want to leave behind?

A WOW is not a woman who has left youth behind.

She is a woman who has gathered all her selves along the way.

Age does not automatically bring wisdom, of course. We all know older people who have managed to repeat the same mistakes for decades with remarkable consistency and who pride themselves on ‘never changing.’

But if we are paying attention, life teaches us.

· It teaches us that appearance matters less than inner knowing.

· That perfection is overrated.

· That family is complicated and precious at the same time.

· That happiness is rarely found where advertisers tell us it will be; it is rarely found in the ‘stuff’ we acquire along the way.

· That getting rid of ‘stuff’ — letting go — leaves space for our own spark of truth to ignite.

· That time is our most valuable currency.

And perhaps that is what makes a WOW.

Not wrinkles, age or retirement, but the willingness to keep learning and the courage to keep growing. The ability to see the bigger picture because we have lived enough life to recognise what is important and what is merely noise.

The WOW carries the confidence of experience, the tenderness of survival, and the humour that comes from knowing life rarely follows the plan. There is a wisdom in understanding that the things we chased when we were younger are often not the things that bring us back to our true selves, but were necessary to help us along the way to get to where we are now.

A WOW understands that success is not always visible. Sometimes it looks like surviving. Sometimes it looks like starting again. Increasingly, it looks like sitting quietly in a garden with a cup of tea, finally comfortable in your own skin.

Those younger dolls are still inside us. We haven’t lost them.

We have grown around them.

Perhaps that is the real magic of getting older. Not becoming someone completely new — but becoming the fullest version of who we always were.

So yes, celebrate the WAGs. Because when I see those young women in the football stands, I don’t see a different tribe from my own. I see the smallest doll inside the largest one. I see possibility and lessons yet to be learned; adventures yet to be lived.

And I smile. Because one day, if they are open to the possibility, they too will become WOWs. Wiser Older Women.

Not despite everything they have lived through.

But because of it. And this is where the real story begins.

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I write layered tales and reflections for wiser, older women — WOWs, exploring love, loss, and the quiet magic of becoming. Through Ruby Sixpence novels, I seek the truths that transform our lives into a Glorious Third Age.