Shriver Report: Get Married, Have Kids, Then We'll Speak to Your Issues

The Shriver Report Serves Up Compulsory Marriage and Mothering. That was the claim I made in my previous post. The report, I argued, seemed simply to assume that just about every woman wants to marry and have children and just about every woman does. It then puts those women at the center of its report, marginalizing - or not even recognizing the existence of - women who neither marry nor have children.

I ended Part 1 with this:

It is the year 2009. It is past time to accord single women and women who do not have children a place of recognition and respect in our society, our universities, our policies, our politics, our workplaces, our marketplaces, our media, and in reports with the title, "A Woman's Nation." We should do this not just for the women (and men) who are single and do not have children. We should do it because until staying single, or deciding not to have children, are valued options, then marriage and parenting are not options, either - they are compulsory.

In this post, I will back up my claim with reams of quotes and survey questions drawn directly from the Shriver Report. I'll also point to the implications of all that we miss in women's (and men's) lives when we focus too myopically on marriage and family. I'll highlight some remarkable and conventional-wisdom-defying findings from the report that were published but never headlined. Along the way, but especially at the end, I will also credit many of the strengths in the report, and the authors here and there who were not so taken by the Ideology of Marriage and Family.

In addition to a preface by John Podesta, an introduction by Maria Shriver, an executive summary, and an epilogue by Oprah Winfrey, the Shriver Report includes 13 more chapters. Scattered throughout are 20 brief essays (typically just two pages). It is in some of the essays, and a few of the chapters, that some enlightenment shines through.

Because this post is longer than usual, I'll begin with an outline of what is to come:

I. Oops, We Never Even Thought to Include You! Actually, We Didn't Even Realize You Exist!

A. The Survey Questions
B. The Writings

II. It's Hard Out Here for a Couple. Then Isn't It Hard for a Single Person, Too?

III. What We Miss When We Maroon Women on a Nuclear Family Island

A. A Marooned Mentality Misses Out on Friends and on Three Degrees of Connection
B. A Marooned Mentality Misses Out on Work that Is Passionate

IV. Ring the Doorbell and Run Away:
The Remarkable Findings that Did Not Make Any Headlines

V. Saving the Best for Last

VI. Final Word

Don't stop reading before you get to the section, "Ring the doorbell and run away." There are some amazing survey findings described there. Click here to keep reading this post, and here to read the one that preceded it.

Comments

[pennywhite]

I am a happily single woman with a 10 year old, and I also feel invisible when "the family" is sanctimoniously praised and fretted over. My daughter and I - along with our circle of close friends - are a much happier and more complete family than many I know of who fit the form of married couple with children. I, too, resent the implication that "real families" are nuclear families, or that struggling with a mate over shared domestic duties is a "serious" problem (the solution there is so obvious it's almost funny).
Most of those now living in "A Woman's Nation" (married with children) will someday be living as single women with no children at home. Will they then be exiled? Yep - by being ignored.

[SonofLiberty1]

When did motherhood become a 4 letter word?

[CaWa]

Thank you! My husband and I have been married for 19 years and have been harassed relentlessly about having kids. I am now getting fertility advice (mostly from fathers) because they assume it must be my age preventing me from having kids (couldn't possibly be my husband, because it's always the woman who has the problem according them). It also couldn't possibly be because we don't want kids!

I remember being lectured by someone about needing to have kids, and how it would bring us a connection as a couple we could never understand without them. My husband looked her straight in the eye and asked "and how long have you been divorced from your son's father?" She broke into tears and said "since he was two" he was 16 at the time, but she never bothered us about children again!

[SonofLiberty1]

Hey, all you have to do is to smile and say thank you.

[Bethab]

She should say thank you to someone for lecturing her on her life choices?

[Bethab]

This happily childfree couple thanks you!

[67bug]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This childfree, single woman thanks you!

[SonofLiberty1]

I have a friend from college who, before she was married swore up and down every which way that she would never have children....

Never say never:)

[Bethab]

Sure...why not? 67bug must not know herself as well as you know her. I'm sure she'll change her mind...after all...EVERY woman wants a child...right?

And since you once had a friend who had a kid...you must know better than she what her goals and dreams are. Thank goodness there is someone like you to help us silly, little females understand what we really want out of life!

[67bug]

I'm 46 now and knew since I was about 8 that I didn't want kids.....

[Soliel]

I am totally with you on this one. I have never understood, or agreed, with the idea that a woman who is a mother is better/more valuable than one who is not.

Granted, I totally agree that having children is more work and dedication and it's not easy keeping a household and marriage together. I do give credit to women who do this well. It's a challenge that I do not have.

Having said that, though, I would never devalue a woman because she does not have these things. What matters to me is your kindness, your interest in others, what you passions are and your overall character.

Married people can become quite insular sometimes. Single people can be quite developed in ways married are not. I know for a fact that single people volunteer more. I also think they are more open/accepting of others because they are single and understand.

Also, there are quite of few mothers who are just not "nice" at all...or have really negative personality traits. How does that make them better than the non mother who is kinder and more accepting?

[Bethab]

To be fair, I am in a happily childfree marriage and still have to keep a household and marriage together...I just do it without children :)

[wagadog]

Very much thank you.

Every time I have insisted on opportunities I have earned -- to pursue graduate education, to work in the field I trained in -- I was (literally) confronted with "But Don't You Want To Have Children Soon?" followed by a description of all the ills in society caused by "Working Mothers."

"Don't You Want A Family???" is an easier one to answer. I already have a family. My mother raised 5 children on her own, my grandmother 10 -- also on her own. She worked as a nurse, when it was a grossly underpaid profession. She dyed her hair (they typically didn't keep on women over 40 or 50 in those days, so she had to lie about her age) and worked two jobs.

Look at the divorce statistics: at 50%, having kids means you have a 50-50 chance of raising them alone. Calculate how much it costs, in lost wages, reduced wages (because mothers ARE paid a lot less than men, and a whole lot less than fathers), and a college education. Are you willing to take on a 20-year multi-million dollar project with no idea where the money is coming from? Suuuure you are. Stupid.

No wonder Hollywood and the MSM have had a full-blown propaganda campaign pushing unrealistic romantic notions on us for the last 50-60 years. Women would simply refuse to have children if they had any idea of what it actually entails.

[sushai]

Thanks for this. I see people confusing "women's" issues with "parenting" issues all the time, and many time it's politicians assuming all women have kids. Just recently on HP there was a headline about Michele Obama talking to women "mother to mother."