Melissa looked around the room, a New York City apartment filled with attractive 40-something singles gathered to celebrate yet another birthday. "Look at this," she said pointing at the room with her eyes. "So many amazing men and women... How are we all still single? Maybe we'll never be married. Maybe we won't have kids." She shrugged and nodded her head thoughtfully. "Will we still be here for each other when we're old?"
The chatter in the room that sweltering 95 degree day was about summer weekends off the Island, the benefits of The Hamptons versus Fire Island and who met who at what bar the weekend before. Singles who live alone move into homes with others for the weekend in the summer, staving off more than the concrete heat of the city. It's simply less lonely.
Jeffery, one half of the newly married couple -- the only married couple -- there, was ready to leave. "We have to get back to Hoboken," his wife said to explain the early departure. They had moved to New Jersey optimistically, making more room for a baby they hope comes. Our group "tries to have a baby" these days. Everything is done with a coating of optimism and gratitude that the right relationship has potentially come in time.
The crowd of singles that gathered that night seem to many to have it all. They've got the looks (not one unattractive individual -- all fit and well-dressed), they've got relative success, they've got the freedom to get on The Hampton's Jitney and take a two-day reprieve. They have no kids to worry about. Their student loans are long paid off. But one thing has eluded them, the men and women alike: The expectation of a life with love, marriage and children.
Americans are marrying later than ever before. And with that, women are having their first birth later than ever as well. But these women are mislabeled as "delayers" or "career women," as if being single and childless at 40 was ever our intention. Women over 30 who want children and are in healthy, loving relationships never say to a marriage proposal: "Let's talk about this in a few years. I have big meeting at work tomorrow."
Their careers are not stopping them from having it all. They are simply and smartly waiting for the right relationship. A 2008 study from the University of Boston Department of Economics entitled "Are Career Women Good for Marriage?" agrees that the right marriage with the right partner is worth waiting for. ("Career women" is their term, not mine. Career women as opposed to what? Single women who don't support themselves financially?) The authors found that women who marry after age 35 have sought 'quality' marriages and are less likely to divorce:
...career women display greater selectivity in the search for marriage partners and greater flexibility in sharing the benefits of a marriage with their partners. Greater selectivity implies that career women will be older when they first marry and that their marriages will be of higher average "quality," possibly making them less prone to breakup. Greater flexibility implies that it is easier for two-earner families to re-adjust the intrahousehold allocation to compensate for changes in outside opportunities, making marriages more resistant to "shocks."
Unfortunately, this does not mean that the right relationship comes in time for every woman (or man) to have the children they wanted. As the end of fertility approaches, nearly 20% of American women remain childless. It's a challenging time as we ask ourselves: Will we find the right relationship before it's too late to have children? (As an aside, the good news is that if we do, women who have their first birth after age 35 are more likely to have more children than the overall average birthrate for women ages 15-44. Plus, we're not alone in late births. Pregnancy rates for women ages 40-44 rose a whopping 65 percent from 1990 to 2008.)
"We thought we'd have it all," Melissa said still shaking her head, referring to the understanding we had as daughters growing up in the 1970s that we'd get the families our mothers had and the social, political and economic equality they didn't. I put my arm around Melissa and gave her a little squeeze. I know too well the moments of grief that come from feeling alone in a room full of people. You don't always get what you want, but as friends, we do our best to give each other what we need.
And no one should ever feel like she's stuck on an island, alone.
___
The 4th Annual Auntie's Day(R) is Sunday, July 22, 2012
Melanie Notkin is the national bestselling author of Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids (Morrow/HarperCollins)
Http://SavvyAuntie.com
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I think "having it all" is a Wall Street concept, anyway. The real question to ask is do you want it all? I certainly don't. Having it all, for women anyway, often still means doing it all. Unless, you're rich enough to hire people to do what wives are expected to do for free- housework, childcare, etc.
Men contribute more than they used to but damn few rush out of work early to pick up the kids at daycare.
If we changed the corporate and political culture to be more kid friendly: in house daycare, good affordable healthcare, etc., having it all might be possible for the next generation of women.
Too many career women holding out for Alpha males until it is too late.
Too many ignored Beta males going their own way.
Too many divorced males, reamed by Family Courts, never to chance marriage again.
But keep thinking of injustices which happened thousands of years ago (in which all parties have been long deceased), if it makes you happy.
So your partner is less-than-perfect, and there might be a better deal and you can trade-up, if you just hold out for your "ideal", and you're less-than-perfect, and you can't stand that either, and what happens? The only thing that goes by is time - everything else is in a holding-pattern, limbo, if you will, because of your hang-up with "perfectionism".
It's not "life" that is the problem - it's YOU. Nothing, nobody, is "perfect" - and that's perfectly OK.
Family values is now mocked as backwards when it is far more advanced than the values we replaced them with. It does not mean we assign gender roles, it means we put family formation and stability first in our society. Feminism made a lot of mistakes because many of it's theories were short sighted and poorly thought out. It assumed the worst about us in so many respects and encouraged the worst in others. Being selfish as possible or simply putting your own desires first is not how we created a thriving civilization. Sacrifice was required to create all we see around us. The ideals of feminist did not respect that.
I am not make excuses for bad men but women should understand the unique risk men face from cheating women.
I don't think that feminism is at fault here. Our economic and political system have been dramatically shaped by breaking down "male" and "female" roles - and it has been for the better. Because, throughout history, there have been women better suited for "male" roles and vice versa; strong women and sensitive men never went away.
Roughly half the world are women. Fighting for women's rights isn't selfish - it is way bigger than any one self.
But I hear you. We have lost sight of the value that sacrifice holds. And we can't do that. If we can't have roles we still need rules. Besides - Sacrifice feels good. Sacrifice has good results. Sacrifice is good. And most of all, sacrifice works best if it is chosen.
But nobody can choose to sacrifice when they are forced to sacrifice by people who have way, way too much money. Sorry, off topic, but only a little - I do very passionately believe that extreme inequality benefits selfishness (ruthless competition), and puts the most selfish people in charge.
Anyways, yeah. That's all.
Telling women they should put themselves before the needs of their family was an had the affect of demolishing the foundations of most vital relationships. When we look back the feminist pushing messages like these they were in fact the radicals who we should have never listened to in the first place.
Equality is not the problem but the misguided theories popularized that treated all things created during the rule of males a conspiracy to oppress women. We need to recognize the good nature, and good will we threw away in trying to embrace the ideals of narcissistic ideologues.
Oh, those were the days, the days before evil feminism came along: we couldn't vote, couldn't get credit, couldn't get a decent education, couldn't opt for a career, couldn't choose whom we want to marry or if we want to marry.
Things are so much worse for women now! *eye roll*
Learn your history!! Judging by all the comments I've seen here and elsewhere, there are plenty of men (even female collaborators) who will take all your rights and choices away! Don't let them.
The thing is the paradigm has changed in the relationships between men and women and many people have yet to adjust. I am divorced and I love the company of men, but if I never get married again. I will be okay with it because I figure I have about 30 more years on the planet and that is a long time to be lonely or unhappy. I figure if I have happiness I really do have it all.
The feminist lie has already claimed a generation of women...and now those same women want ANOTHER generation to try at the same task that FAILED them...
Having it all.
If you meet a woman who insists on having it all...run. You have met a person who will never be happy.
Run from them too.
Men never went to work to "have it all". Men went to work to provide for their families. Men went to work to sacrifice their time and their lives, willingly and happily, mostly, to provide sustenance for their families.
Feminists, on the other hand, think (incorrectly) that men go to work to fulfill themselves. This is the reason why many women are driven and shackled by the delusion of feminism; they think they can fulfill themselves through work. Men never thought this. Men always viewed work as a means to an end. Feminists think the career is the end.
The difference, evidently, is that men are self-sacrificing, providing for their families. And feminists are selfish, seeking self-fulfillment through work.
As a woman here in America you:--Live longer than a man--Generally have more education than a man--Control more family wealth than a man--Spend more family wealth than men--Are typically the "default" winner in a divorce settlements, gaining both children and money from the husband--Start the majority of divorce proceedings--Use more health services than a man--Are about 50% of perpetrators in intimate partner violence, yet the cultural meme is that men are nearly 100% perpetrators--Receive lighter prison sentences than men for the same crime--Have several federally mandated health offices specifically for women, where men have none--Have legal "set asides" specifically because of your gender, such as Title IX and VAWA (where, in point of fact, it is known that women account for half of intimate partner violence cases)--Don't have to sign-up for Selective Service at 18 yrs old, like a man--Don't have to serve in forward combat areas, like a man --Are less than 8% of occupational deaths (that is, men are 92% of work fatalities)--Have more choices as to how you want to live your life, be it career or family, or some combination; while men are still "expected" to solely support their families with a job/career onlyThis is just for starters.