MadLibPoet recently sent me a link to Lori Gottlieb's piece in The Atlantic, "Marry Him!".
Gottlieb frets over her role as a single mother – who was artificially inseminated – and asks herself the
question; "why didn't I just settle?" She spends the next 10 or so pages telling women – in what I hope is
an occasionally tongue-in-cheek tone – to quit waiting for "Mr. Right" and shack up with Mr. Good Enough.
MLP and I have both felt inundated with contradictory messages about motherhood, career and marriage.
Particularly, it seems as though the women who strived to "have it all" – a cliché that needs to just die
already – now want to tell us to back off and give up. My colleague sums it up nicely, in response to Gottlieb's fear-mongering piece:
"Why do women in their 40s and 50s feel the need to
scare the crap out of us (Gen-Xers and younger) by
continuing to take back everything they told us when
we were growing up? When we were 13 it was all 'You
go girl; get a career and shit' and suddenly, they hit
menopause and their battle-cry turns to 'Why aren't
you married?' " – MLP
Gottlieb's observations read like a cautionary tale of what happens to the little girl who strives to "have
it all" and is hit with the big, bad prospect of dying unmarried, alone, unloved and pitiful. After all,
what's more depressing than a single older woman? Certainly not an older woman trapped in a loveless
marriage:
"I don't mean to say that settling is ideal. I'm
simply saying that it might have gotten an
undeservedly bad rap. As the only single woman in my
son's mommy-and-me group, I used to listen each week
to a litany of unrelenting complaints about people's
husbands and feel pretty good about my decision to
hold out for the right guy, only to realize that these
women wouldn't trade places with me for a second, no
matter how dull their marriages might be or how
desperately they might long for a different husband.
They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage
than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize
that marriage ultimately isn't about cosmic
connection—it's about how having a teammate, even if
he's not the love of your life, is better than not
having one at all."
Jesus. If marriage is this depressing and/or underwhelming, why would anyone want to sign up for it?
But seriously, if all Gottlieb needs from a marriage is someone to occupy the same room and help with the garbage (and good GOD, that's pretty insulting to potential spouses), I've got a suggestion; adopt a cat/dog/robot and hire a house-keeper.
-CrazyCatLady
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