Last week, my best friend, Angela, was in town from Atlanta. She had just written a beautiful article on what it’s like being single and childless in your 30’s. We started talking about how, no matter what age or stage of life you are at, people seem to want to project onto others their own ideals around living life and societies expectations. She wrote about how friends often say things like “You’ll find your special someone soon” or suggest that she’s not trying hard enough to get hitched, which is both unkind and unhelpful, and belittles the very fulfilling life she does have. It seems almost impossible, when obeying societies rules, that some women might actually not be actively seeking a partner at all, or that even if they are, that they can still be completely happy and contented being single, and also have no desire to have children.
What’s with all this pity?
Some questions single or childless get confronted with are from people that maybe don’t even realise how derogatory they are being. Rather than asking :
- Are you single?
- Do you have any children?
And upon answering, they may somewhat innocently follow up with :
- Wow. I’m sure you will find one soon.
- No children. Why not?
It’s almost an attack just because you don’t fit society’s mold. As women, we are raised to believe that one of the main purposes in life is to have children and become mothers. This may seem old-fashioned but it is still sadly very relevant. We have simply got to stop stop assuming that everyone in their 30s has to conform to certain society standards. Thankfully, in most modern cultures and communities, people are free to decide their own education and career path, embrace their own personal identity and sexual orientation, and pursue their own ambitions. Yet despite this progress, there are still so many unwritten rules and norms, in society, that are projected onto people who are seen as misfits just because they are not conforming.
For women, societies rules can include :
- How we should look (Usually younger and thinner).
- What our relationships should be (Best friends who feel like family. Family who feel like best friends. Having the perfect loving partner),
- How many children we look after whilst the partner works.
- What our careers should be (Thriving, but not so successful that you ‘forget’ to have children. Thriving, but your man should still be seen as the bread-winner).
- How we should act (Clever but not too opinionated. Clever but not too clever as to show up your man).
Subsequently, many women can be left feeling inadequate when they aren’t achieving societies milestones for life. It all can feel very hard to manage the weight of societies rules and expectations, yet still be true to yourself.
Education and understanding is key to ending this shaming. People need to be informed that it is not helpful to impose such society pressures onto others. Stop asking others if they have a partner, or when they’re planning on getting married, or when they’re planning on having children. Stop suggesting that we need to ‘have it all’ in order to achieve success and fulfilment in life. That we’re selfish if we choose our careers over having children, or that we should be pitied if we don’t confirm to societies expectations. And maybe we should all stop allowing the media to feed this pressure, when we clicking on those ridiculous clickbait articles about supposed perfect lives, another woman’s potential pregnancy or divorce, or believing we must look and act like the women we see in all the magazines, movies, and social media posts. Maybe, just maybe, we should use better and more diverse role models for the next generation of women. and men, to look up to. Maybe some role models could be be some of the brave people that have actually achieved something by stepping out of societies rules and living by the beat of their own drum.
Most of all, we need to reframe the expectations we place on ourselves to do all of societies requirements by a certain age, in a certain order, to achieve a full and happy life. Instead, how about we all try writing our own story; one where we’re the heroine of our own lives, and we live exactly as we choose. Your happiness is determined by you, and should never be defined by anyone else. Equally no one owes anyone else an explanation as to why they choose to be single, child-free, or whatever.
Do you recognise some of the celebrities in the article’s feature image. Here are some their responses to why they have chosen not to have children :
Taylor Swift :
Dolly Parton : “I grew up in a big old family with eight kids younger than me and several of my brothers and sisters came to live with me early on in my life. I’ve loved their kids just like they’re my grandkids, and now I’ve got great-grand-kids! Now I’m GeeGee, which is great-granny. I often think, it just wasn’t meant for me to have kids so everybody’s kids can be mine.”
Jennifer Anniston : “I don’t like [the pressure] that people put on me, on women—that you’ve failed yourself as a female because you haven’t procreated. I don’t think it’s fair. You may not have a child come out of your vagina, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t mothering—dogs, friends, friends’ children. This continually is said about me: that I was so career-driven and focused on myself; that I don’t want to be a mother, and how selfish that is.”
Keanu Reeves : “It’s too late. It’s over…I’m 52. I’m not going to have any kids.”
Oprah Winfrey : “If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”
Ricky Gervais : “I didn’t have a work ethic for such a long time. Imagine if I had a child like me? I didn’t start earning until I was 36. I’m the sort of person who has to check three times that I’ve shut the door, so I’d probably stare at a kid all day to check it was breathing.”
Stevie Nicks : “It’s like, ‘Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover?’ With kids, your focus changes. I don’t want to go to PTA meetings.”
Kylie Minogue : “Of course I wonder what that would be like but, your destiny is your destiny and I can’t imagine, if by some miracle I got pregnant…at this point in my life, I wonder, could I even manage that? It would be a lie to say there’s not a bit of sadness there, but I don’t get caught up in it.”
and my favourite from Winona Ryder : “This is a little personal but I’m 42 and… Well, I was talking to my dad last year and saying, ‘What if I can’t have a kid?’ and he said, ‘There are other ways to have children in your life’. That’s true—and I get these amazing doses with my brother’s kids. But I’ve got to stop listening to other people. It’s crazy the stuff women will tell you.”
