After leaving the movie theater yesterday, I heard a little boy scream:
“it’s Valentines Day. We have to get mommy a present.”
His Father:
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s tomorrow. We don’t have to buy the damn present yet.”
I began this post as a comment to a comment.
“Enrichment” means different things to different people.
In grad school I was called selfish, and hence doing the opposite of enriching, because I chose to remain
childless
When I told people that i was in my 40’s and without a partner, it wasn’t considered a good thing that I consciously made this choice because I had “so much love, and other resources, to offer.”
My heart agreed but not my pragmatic self which said that I could lavish that love on my Goddaughter and niece. It’s hard enough raising a child with two parents. I didn’t want to begin by being a single parent. Maybe that’s selfish of me, but….
I hate living in a society where a person is measured by status of accomplishment or by marital status and children
When I was an SSI claims rep, I would have to pretend that my Goddaughter was my child, because the claimant’s would think me unworthy otherwise
Having children was the only thing many women could do to make themselves feel worthy.
Some of my single childless coworkers would cry until they learned to shut their emotions off. Most women didn’t begin their working life thinking that they wanted to become a single childless SSI Claims Rep in a bad area of the Bronx when it was a national joke.
We were the workers, but we were also “guests” in the neighborhood. As such we had to be professional yet friendly. In training we didn’t learn how to stop women from letting us know how we had failed God, by not reproducing, and other such things.
There was much that I could have said to a woman who had five children with five different surnames, but I wasn’t paid to make claimants feel badly about themselves.
I was paid to take their claims without editorializing on their life choices, and to accept or reject them based on their resource level.
Most medical decisions were made by the state, but we were the people they would see, so we represented power, and they could take back their power by deriding our single childless state.
I took the cowards way out, and told a white lie–white because my best friends husband did leave, and I helped to support my friend and Goddaughter in every way possible
My Goddaughter’s sixteen and at that angry rebellious stage that makes me happy because too many kids are too satisfied with their lives. While she has all the normal materialistic things, they live in a one bedroom apartment, and maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world.
My niece leaves me notes, because I’m “cooler” than other aunts and have a blog, an Imac and take her to cool Madison Avenue stores.
I can get her the Juicy couture stuff her mother doesn’t. Presents are always welcome. I would welcome some also. Little things that show that they occasionally think of me. But really who ever gets their aunt one? If your nieces and nephews do, please leave me to my delusions.
If I’m reducing this to materialism, Madonna had it right 20something years ago.
As wonderful as my relationship is with my girls, I’m not their mommies. We did and do have wonderful relationships, but sometimes it hurts not to be a mother, and they’re the closest things….
I have never had a holiday celebration in my apartment because it has to be convenient for everybody else. As I’m single and childless, it doesn’t have to be convenient for me
My question is am I supposed to be altruistic and above wanting?
Has our society really not changed in any meaningful way?
When I went to Mexico by myself this was looked at as horrible by the people in the hotel. I went to relax, and found myself totally tense because I was such an oddity I had to be a puta
If you’re an attractive woman who choses not to have meaningless relationships, people do view that stranger than if you really are a puta
I was fat for awhile. In a way it was great because I could do anything that I wanted to do without seven people commenting on me being alone
But I don’t make a great fat person.
Anna Nicole Smith’s death resonated with so many of us because she lived life on her terms.
I want not to care about my friends and sister and society’s approval but I do.
I want to feel that my life is worthy. At the same time I don’t want to feel obligated to always do volunteer work because I’m single so it’s easier for me to hand out meals at a homeless shelter.
Couldn’t that be a great family activity? A way of teaching kids that they might live in a designer label world, but not everybody does?
I don’t want to take vacations with groups catering to singles just because we are single. That’s a commonality that’s purely surface. I chose to go to Cancun because it seemed as if it were an easy place not to have to make decisions and for once I didn’t want to have to make decisions.
I felt so out of place and as if I should go home and find anybody to settle down with. But I have rejected that possibility more times than I can remember off hand. Once a single man on the express bus from Riverdale told me that by constantly rejecting his overtures I was making life difficult for myself.
We had talked on some bus rides and had nothing in common. I pointed this out. He said we could both work on changing. This was a time in my life when I was going to school full time, working full time and had an elderly mother, who needed me.
“Changing” was a luxury I had no time for, and frankly had no desire to change for a man I had shared a few bus rides with. Yet single women are expected to take care of elderly family members, work, and change for men who show the least interest.
It’s not better to be with somebody than nobody. Most of the time I know that. Most of the time I even like that. But then there are experiences like Cancun, and days like Valentine Day brought to you by your local chocolate shop, flower sellers, Hallmark and Tiffany’s.
We’re expected to silently listen to tales of true love and applaud at the end. It’s another day we’re supposed to be reminded that we’re less than most people. Yet I would assume that the most secure couples don’t need to talk about their love, but I’m probably wrong.
We have to remember anniversaries, make Mother’s and Father’s Day calls even if we no longer have parents. It’s just expected.
47% of all women live alone. Society has to adjust their thinking to take that in, and the rising population of single men as evidenced by Bone who I use as an example because this began as a comment to this post.
There is another great side to this.
Because I don’t have to worry about sending a kid to college or what a spouse thinks, I can live life on my own terms. I do have resources which makes it much easier. I totally understand and appreciate that.
After the worst decade, and only bad one, of my life, and it had some great years, I’m finally becoming me again. Writing so much truly helped because writing has always helped me understand life.
I can give me Valentines Day presents all year round except for the chocolate. Maybe in its own way it is romantic because being good to myself makes me appreciate me more.
I so love going to the movies in the middle of the day during the week. Maybe I’m destined to spend my life alone. I can think of worst fates as I know how to take care of myself. More than that I know how to have fun, by myself and with other people.
I appreciate the people in my life much more because we don’t live together.
Tonight’s my TV night and nothing gets between me and Boston Legal, nothing. Read the Wombat’s and my Boston Legal blog. We have been posting on Fridays, but possibly though not probably can post earlier.
I will have 3WW (Three Word Wednesday) on Thursday night.
I’m reading a lot this week, because the cold’s getting to me. I need to snuggle under covers.
I might go to a few movies because i’m a winter movie goer. In summer I would rather be out. All things that I would have to compromise on if I were in a relationship.
Maybe I am selfish. After two plus years of blogging I truly don’t care what people think of me. That’s thrilling. Have to remember it.
Please remember that you might be single one day and have no idea how to live without another person.
Can I spoil a great day?
Does Anti-Valentine’s Day come complete with little heart-shaped candies that say things like “Buzz Off”, “Get Lost”, and “Leave Me Alone”? If so, sign me up.
(I especially detest the “Vermont Teddy Bear” — a brilliantly manipulative product line that extracts cash from dullard lovers who exchange these cute little fuzzballs with each other, make strange cooing and sucking sounds for a few minutes, and then throw them away. Brrr.)
Preach, sister! I celebrate Ogre Day on February 15 for just this reason. I like the irony of judgemental benefit claimants.
Happy Ogre Day Eve.
I’m not so much “anti Valentine’s” day as I am anti obligation. You can make any day special if you choose to. Valentine’s Day is just an excuse to do what should or could be done any other time throughout the year.
I think you should call a family holiday this year – and that’s it, let people come to you. Besides, you live in the best place for people to come to celebrate.
Families and friends can be so unfair (sometimes unwittingly) to single people.
I love your style. I do find it interesting how some people feel as though having a family is the greatest accomplishment one can achieve, as if it isn’t difficult for single people.
Me, I have a child, and I was married. I was in a really bad relationship for almost 7 years. I was too young to get married, and probably too young to have a child, though I certainly don’t regret it.
What struck me in your entry was ” I felt so out of place and as if I should go home and find anybody to settle down with.”
Oh goodness! I feel the same way!! I have had some “gentlemen callers,” who seem to think I’m putting up some kind of wall. One of them, I only know from the Internet through poetry and other types of discourse, and others from my hometown. I really appreciate friendships, but my not wanting to take a relationship further has nothing to do with “walls.” To be honest, that kind of ticks me off.
I think I would be happy to spend the rest of my days single, if I had to. I think there’s an underlying idea that women “need” a man in their lives. In honesty, I’d love to be in love, but I’m not. So what?
Nice blog, by the way. You really do rock.
Cheers
I never thought a lot about it, but you’re right. As single people, we are pretty much expected to adjust to everyone else, because “we can.”
And the last couple of years, I’ve decided I’d rather be single on VD. It’s less pressure 🙂
you bring up a lot of good points, but that opening image of the boy wanting to get his mother a valentine day present is priceless and the dad should have been kicked up side the head for his attitude.
And it’s interesting how everyone uses VD referring to Valentine’s Day and I’m always thinking of something else…
Perfect and I am not at all upset. 😉
I would hate to read people who worry about what people think of them because it would affect the writing of that individual.
Remember, their roses will all be dead in 4 to 7 days.
Bwahahahahaaaa!
😉
I think we’re taught to forget ourselves, and that our primary decision-making should involve things that are good for us.
Is having a partner nice? You bet. Is having children good? Of course. Is it good or right for everyone? No.
What’s good for some isn’t good for all. Having a child or partner for the sake of soing so actually causes more harm than good, to both them and you.
You’re neither selfish nor unfulfilled. I’d call you….
Pragmatic.
Pia:
I have to say that it’s very ironic that you would feel in any way “inadequate,” unworthy, inferior, or whatever when doing your thing in the Bronx.
Au contraire–I think your choice is a much wiser and un-selfish one than the one most of your clients took.
Having babies out of wedlock with no father and no means to support them adequately is not noble–it’s stupid. Of course, I wouldn’t wish any child hadn’t come into this world once they were here, but these women limit their choices and the choices of their children, more often than not, in tragic and thougtless ways from the very get-go.
I think it is much more common in some other cultures to feel that you must have children at any cost, under any circumstances. Those who are lucky have moms of their own who can mind the kids. But the kids are hapless victims of poor planning, refusal to use birth control or demand that a man commit in order to pursue parenthood,
In light of Nixmary Brown and the millions? more like her, I say enough–being a single self-sufficient woman is something to be proud of. Plus, you were helping these women, and were paid to do so.
And that’s not even taking into account all the children of divorce. Despite the fact that it is all too common now, it’s effects can be absolutely devastating to kids, and the parents who must share and/or battle for custody.
IN fact, studies have shown as a rule unmarried women and married men re the happiest, while unmarried men and married women are the least. Makes sense, since so often wives have to put their needs on the back burner, while men get to have a “wife” to take care of all the stuff they have “no time” for. What women need is a “wife” of their own.
Though I’ve never lived alone, I sometimes imagine how much fun it must be to do what you please when you please; to get together with your girlfriends and guy friends and not worry whether your b/f will get along with them and vice versa; and so on. Now that I’m getting my own place in the Bronx near my b/f, I think the relationship will be even healthier and happier. Right now when I stay at his place it’s on his terms, and I’ve about had enough of having to be so compliant.
I’ve found as I get older that I don’t really give a fig about what others think of me. I’m true to myself, and that’s what’s most important. The irony is that generally the less attention you pay to pleasing others, the more respect, admiration and love you tend to attract.