Did you hear that Kirstie Allsopp had pontificated on how young women should plan their lives? Surprise surprise, she thinks they should all do as she did and not bother going to university but just go out and get a job. That is easier said than done though she probably found it a simple task as she went to a posh school, the sort of place that people send their kids to so that they can rub shoulders with wealthy and influential families and gain lots of contacts for use in later life. Education is the least of their wishes.
Well we don’t all have those sorts of advantages (?) in life and nowadays a degree is required for just about any career, gone are the days when you could just get a job and work your way up the career ladder, learning by experience.
What really annoyed me though was her assumption that all women wanted to get married and have children. According to her we should all be married and sprogged up by the time we are 27 because apparently your fertility falls off the edge of a cliff as soon as you are 35. That’s absolute nonsense of course and I speak as a person who was born to a 36 year old woman, and she wasn’t even trying to get pregnant, in fact she was trying to dodge that particular event as she already had four kids before having me. I’m the product of a failed ‘Dutch cap’ apparently so I wasn’t so much an afterthought as an aftershock!
Coincidently Jack’s mother gave birth to him at the age of 36 and he came as a bit of a shock too, what can I say, – our parents were just careless I suppose. My paternal grandmother had her eighth and last child when she was in her 40s, she didn’t leave the house for months, she was so mortified to be in that state at such a great age. And think of Cherie Blair who was pregnant in her 40s twice, each time unplanned.
At the same time that all the Kirstie Allsopp stuff was in the papers there was also an article in the Guardian by Claudia Connell, which you can read here. It’s called Don’t Call Me a Spinster and it’s about her experiences as an unmarried woman, at the hands of her supposed friends, she writes:
There have been so many occasions when I’ve revealed that I’m single only to have the person I’m talking to say: “Really? But you seem so nice.” That’s because I am nice. I don’t kick puppies for fun or push old ladies down manholes – I just don’t have a husband and it doesn’t bother me half as much as it seems to bother everyone else.
My honest answer to the question “Why did you never marry?” would be the same as my answer to why I’ve never visited Canada, ridden a horse or broken my arm: I don’t know, it just didn’t happen.
and also:
The unattached woman is to be pitied and mocked while the unattached man is to be envied and respected. A simple game of word association is enough to hammer home the point. Think of the word “spinster” and what images pop into your head? Now do the same with “bachelor”. A Miss Marple figure surrounded by cats and coupons for us and a suntanned hunk in a sports car for him – am I right?
I of course have never had any such experiences as I got married at the crazy age of 17, and no I wasn’t pregnant! But I do think that the word ‘spinster’ should be reclaimed and brought back to its original meaning. A woman who was designated a spinster was describing herself as an independent woman who was in no need of a man to support her as she was able to do so quite well herself thank you. A woman with the ability to spin wool could keep a roof over her head and feed herself at a time when the production of wool was very lucrative.
Apart from that though, I have an old family friend who never married and she said to me that when she looked around her church at the husbands that the women had to put up with, she was very glad that she had never bothered with marriage and children, she is however a wonderful aunt. Each to their own I say.
This is all close to my heart, as you know. Being a single, childless woman is so awkward at times. I don’t see myself as different or weird, but other people sure do. I am constantly pitied, but I am honestly not all that sad about being a spinster. Yes, I would gladly marry if the opportunity came along, but it hasn’t and I have a great life anyway. I do love being an auntie.
I do identify myself as a spinster and it makes people squirm. I didn’t know the origin of the word so thank you for that – it makes me love it even more.
And I would not have the life I do if I hadn’t gone to college. I’m glad to have a profession and that I’m able to support myself. I have several single, female friends who never went to college because they thought for sure they would marry and now they are struggling financially. Education is freedom.
Anbolyn,
It’s probably just as well that you live on another continent because otherwise I would pair you up with my eldest son given half the chance! Lots of married women are trapped because they don’t have any chance of being independent after giving up their careers to have children. There’s no point in settling for any bloke with a pulse that’s for sure, so many women I know seem to have done that, only really interested in a daft expensive big wedding. Nutters! Education certainly gives you more choices and possibilities, or it did in the past anyway, I’m not so sure about now as there are so few graduate jobs around.
As a woman who ‘just’ got married and had a family, and I loved every minute of it and feel very blessed to have gotten to do that, I wish I had gotten a degree too. I would have had more freedom and once the kids were gone I could have had a whole new career. If I had a daughter I would have insisted on a degree for her. I have a granddaughter though and that will be a priority for her!
Peggy,
I well remember overhearing my mother saying to one of her friends that there was no point in putting any effort into bringing up girls as they were only going to end up pushing prams!! I really loved being a full time mum and I wouldn’t have handed them over to a childminder, but it’s no time before they are going off to school and if you don’t have those vital bits of paper saying you have a brain then you are stuck. Also I was married almost 10 years when we decided to start a family and moved around a lot in that time – not from choice on my part and that makes it difficult to get a life for yourself. Make sure that she gets a useful degree, so many courses here are ‘Mickey Mouse’ ones and are really useless for employment purposes.
Katrina,
I do hope that with my overtaxed brain (last week of the summer class), that I remember and come back to comment fully on this lunacy!
Judith
Judith,
I hope so too, can’t wait!
Shame that the original meaning of Spinster got demoted to a ” poor sad woman who couldn’t get a man”. I think I was perhaps too immature in my 20s to recognise The One, but I have had a great independent life, travelling and doing things I wanted to do. Some of my married friends even envy me that! I do feel the lack of someone who puts me first, sometimes, but I have a few really good friends of both sexes and I am grateful for them and how they make me feel. I hope I do the same for them.
Evee,
You’ve certainly had a very full life which might have been a lot narrower if you had married. It depends what sort of person you marry, plenty of people are married but still don’t have someone who puts them first. You’ve been such a good friend recently to C and done more than many a wife would have done!