“Are women people yet?”
This is the question with which Kate Bolick concludes her new book “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own.”
Bolick, the 40-something singleton, argues that even in our enlightened age where we tell girls they can grow up to be whatever they want, the question of marriage looms far too large. “Are we finally ready for a young woman to set out on the long road of her life as a human being who inhabits but isn’t limited by her gender?”
There is, of course, no one limiting Bolick’s choices because of her gender. She is raised by a family that encourages her to do what she wants. She plays sports, gets overeducated, works at a variety of jobs, has boyfriends, casual sex, etc.
But men keep thinking she’s “marriage material” — God knows why — and she takes this as yet another sign that women are being forced by our oppressive culture into settling down.
Though much of Bolick’s book is an exploration of whether a serious writer can be fulfilled if she also has responsibility to a family — I’m probably not serious enough to weigh in on that — she also seems to be making much broader claims on behalf of women everywhere.
In an era when women can be financially independent and have sex with whomever they want, what is the point of matrimony? “The choice between being married versus being single doesn’t even belong here in the 21st century.”
Bolick’s treatise is the logical culmination of what a sociologist might call the dominant social narrative. As our fertility rates have declined below replacement rate, certain parts of society have cheered. Take journalist Lauren Sandler’s book, “One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One.” Then there was environmentalist Bill McKibben with “Maybe One: The Case for Smaller Families.”
And now it looks like our cultural elites think we should consider foregoing children altogether.
Take the new book, “Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids,” in which the contributors cite everything from the cost of rearing children to their environmental impact as reasons to skip reproduction.
Meghan Daum, the editor of the anthology, told The New York Times that the obnoxious parenting trends are in part to blame.
“It’s undeniable that watching this culture play out — the helicopter parenting, the media fixation on baby bumps and celebrity childbearing and -rearing — is overwhelming, and it’s natural that people would react against it.”
The authors complain about overpriced maternity clothes and that middle-class mothers are expected to find things to chat about on the playground.
There is no point in calling these complaints selfish, shallow or self-absorbed, obviously. If they don’t want kids, so be it.
But the notion that those of us who choose to get married and have families are somehow doing so because of an oppressive society is utterly absurd.
Not everyone wants to spend a lifetime with one person and not everyone wants to have children. But those of us who do are fulfilling a basic human desire and, by the way, we’re contributing to a society in a way that these people who want us to pare down our families are not.
They go on at length — as Bolick does — about their networks of “deep friendships.” “Friendsgiving” has replaced Thanksgiving for those who prefer to spend the holiday with buddies in Park Slope.
The New York Times recently had a long report on people moving into apartment buildings with their friends. “Rather than gather at bars, they now visit one another’s apartments, making dinners together and watching sports at home.”
As one young woman who works in advertising explained excitedly, “It almost feels like college again, but a little bit more grown-up.”
Maybe our futures really do look like one extended episode of “Friends,” but I am skeptical. Most people really do have an overwhelming desire to be a part of families and start their own.
And Bolick and the other writers who claim to speak on behalf of this brave new world never seem to come to grips with this.
In an Atlantic cover story a couple of years ago, Bolick acknowledged her limited remaining childbearing years, but proclaiming that she was not worried.
“Somewhere along the way, I decided to not let my biology dictate my romantic life. If I find someone I really like being with, and if he and I decide we want a child together, and it’s too late for me to conceive naturally, I’ll consider whatever technological aid is currently available, or adopt…”
There is nothing wrong with this plan, as long as you don’t really want to have children very much.
For the rest of us, who don’t want to feel like we’re in college again (but a little more grown-up) indefinitely, we need to plan things differently.