Melissa Gilbert began playing Laura Ingalls on ‘Little House on the Prairie’ in 1974, when she was nine years old. 50 years after her initial TV success, Gilbert, like so many others, has been forced to embrace the impact of aging. She created a lifestyle website called Modern Prairie, which acts as a community for older women to connect online. “As mature women, we’re all going through a lot of the same things. We’re losing our parents, our spouses, and our jobs. We’re getting divorced. We have these transitions that require us to grieve, push through, and persevere,” said Gilbert. Having spent decades conscious of her appearance in LA, Gilbert found how to embrace herself and “not wish I was something else.” She no longer wanted to spend hours in the gym or color her hair; she stopped getting Botox and fillers and had her breast implants removed. Gilbert said, “These things were a life changer; we’re all aging from the moment we’re born, but fighting something inevitable is a losing battle.” “The freedom that comes with, ‘I’m not giving a damn anymore.’ I mean, I care what I look like. I put on lipstick, and I do my hair. I love to wear nice things, but it’s enhancing what I have, not changing it for someone else,” Gilbert concluded.
