Please (please!) read (and share, if you're into doing that) this wonderful piece ("Your Own Harriet") by Anne Helen Petersen about the importance of childless/free role models, and the importance of representation in life choices generally. The "Harriet" of the title was a childless/free friend of Petersen's parents, who fascinated her as a child. Petersen is childfree by choice herself, but those of us who didn't actively choose this life will also recognize ourselves here.
Sample passage (which really resonated with me):
...there were lots of women — on Twitter and on Facebook — who also told me how much they wished they would’ve had that sort of representation in their own lives. For them, women who didn’t have kids (or, even worse, didn’t have partners) were always objects of scorn — framed by their own mothers and others in their life as failures whose lives were in continual collapse...
When you equate a lack of kids with “failure,” it helps solidify the societal understanding that the only way for a woman to “succeed,” or at the very least find happiness, is to have children. That conception is slightly less rigid today, but it endures — and if you think otherwise, you haven’t had a frank conversation with a woman who doesn’t have kids.
That conception endures in part because the patriarchy endures, but it also endures because there’s a general lack of exposure to people like Harriet or the Root Beer Lady. So many people said that women they knew without kids were Aunts or Great-Aunts — people who were part of their life through familial relation. When it comes to friends, people with kids have just generally gravitated towards other people with kids. I get it: the schedules, the frameworks, the rhythms of the day, all of it’s easier when everyone has kids. But there’s something missing there, too.
(Petersen posted this article on Twitter, saying "MORE HARRIETS FOR EVERYONE! HARRIETS ALL AROUND!" and someone commented with the hashtag #moreharriets... hence my choice of title, lol.)
Interesting, I can think of so many women without children (men too, for that matter) who were positive role models for me. My ballet teacher, Judith, Wendy, a friend 20 years older I met in my 20s, Bob and Eileen, a couple whom I also met in my 20s, Barbara, who I played drums with for a while, my first mentor teacher, Angie….I could name more. I don’t know the personal histories of all these people (Barbara excepted) but they all had a bountiful, unique energy to share with the world….never did it cross my mind to think of them scornfully or as failures. Hopefully this is something that has changed/is changing for most people.
ReplyDeleteI know you mentioned nephew having your old record player and just saw this on FB and thought you may want to grab it for great-newphew to start building his collection :-) https://towerrecords.com/products/sandra-boynton-hog-wild?variant=32077645316167¤cy=USD&utm_medium=smart_campaign&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=gs-2020-11-06&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrJnpncWr8gIV_2xvBB3Dow4-EAQYASABEgK_GPD_BwE&fbclid=IwAR0LGxwUEZTW7AKzVZC_4dFHy50VzpxXDmlF_ITvxPh08ClRuAyve10SAX8
ReplyDeleteI was trying to think of how many child less/free friends I have, and it took me a while because I don't really think of my friends in that way. But I do have a friend who is unmarried, has no children, and is fully enjoying her life. She lives in another city, and when we visit my family there, she always wants to see me and my daughter. I had two wonderful unmarried, child less/free aunts to show me that life takes many twists and turns. I'm glad my child has at least one example - there may be more, but I'd have to think about it longer. (My sister also has no children, but that's a different dynamic because she's a lesbian who got married when she was in her late 40s. If she had found the right person earlier, she probably would have tried to have kids because she adores her nieces and nephews. But she's also...difficult, and so my daughter wouldn't really ever look at her as a role model so much as a cautionary tale.)
ReplyDeleteOooh, I love this! I especially love the comment ... "... if you think otherwise, you haven’t had a frank conversation with a woman who doesn’t have kids."
ReplyDeleteAnd I haven't even read the article yet. Off to do so now.
Thanks for sharing this article. It's great!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line is, "She modeled something different, vibrant, and fulfilled." My whole personal process since stopping fertility treatments has been driven by seeking fulfillment. But I really love the idea of living a vibrant life!
Great article, thank you. More Harriets please!