missing adults
by rantywoman
http://wwno.org/post/working-moms-key-balance-may-lie-elusive-leisure-time
What really struck me was that for women, particularly in the United States, particularly now, they spend almost all of their leisure time with their children. And that led to this other crazy finding that has since really helped to alleviate a lot of my guilt: that working mothers today, even when they work full time, the time studies are showing that they spend more time with their children than stay-at-home mothers did in the 1960s and ’70s … because they’ve given up personal leisure time and time with adults.
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Most women want a relationship and children. Let’s not try to tell ourselves and others otherwise by looking for posts about how relationships and children are overrated. Let’s let the younger generation know what they can do to avoid the mistakes we’ve made. That’s part of what we do as the older generation, right? Pass on wisdom. Believe me, I’m bitter, too, that I’m now part of the older generation that already had my chance and can’t go back.
Hi Rachel — I think Ranty is pretty good about posting articles on all sides of this issue, and makes no bones about the fact that she would have liked to have had a husband/children. I myself Never. Ever. Not Once. wanted children, which I suppose is fortunate, given that it spared me the angst of a ticking biological clock on top of the profound grief I feel over having fetched up on on the far side of 50 without a committed relationship. I for one make sure to counsel young women that they can’t focus on career OR relationships to the exclusion of the other — they have to both make sure they can be financially self-sufficient (given the 50% divorce rate), AND not wait until they’re pushing 40 to try and find a husband and have a baby (if that’s also part of their dream). In any event, I appreciate the pieces Ranty posts about ALL facets of the midlife conundrum — including the ones that don’t pretend that motherhood is the Holy Grail.
thank you!
I agree with MB, Rachel. Never wanted children either. Don’t regret not having them. Can’t say I never wanted a committed relationship. But good men have wanted a committed relationship with me, and in the event I have always chosen a different path. Although I have got to know better the true costs of those choices as I have got older, given the chance again I would make the same choices all over. Our responsibility to the younger generation is not to teach them how “to avoid the mistakes we’ve made” but to show them how to take responsibility for their own
actions.