AIBU to find this view of women’s purpose really sad?

[MeMeMeMeOw]

What do you think? How can you have no purpose in life if you aren't a maiden or a mother? I find it very sad that she thinks she doesn't fit in to a "standard family structure".

After being told in her late thirties that she would not be able to conceive, Kim found herself questioning not only her own life trajectory but the stories our culture offers women about identity and worth. Living in London, watching friends move through marriage and motherhood, she found herself asking: if I’m not the maiden, and I’m not the mother, then who am I? What story am I allowed to inhabit?
The profoundly confusing experience of being on a life path that felt somehow off-script: of having perhaps wanted kids and for it not to have happened, to have tried and not succeeded, to have felt relieved and aggrieved at the same time.

‘The words ‘child-free’, ‘childless by circumstance’ and ‘childless by choice’ have grown more common in the lexicon of midlife living in the last 10 years or so. They arrived with us as an essential act of dissent, a long overdue demand for recognition from the 20%+ of women (and men) who will enter their 40s without the standard family structures, who have found ourselves navigating a life we perhaps didn’t necessarily expect or choose. Facing challenges, opportunities and griefs that too often go unseen, and which are too often denigrated.

Tbh, I don’t find it as much sad as inevitable?
We all have expectations for our lives, and strong desires for how our lives will take shape. If that is taken from you, and all around are enjoying what you thought you’d enjoy, it would make you question everything.

I’m sure she’ll ultimately work through it, but this is a phase she needs to go through.

Of course it's sad for anyone to feel they aren't able to live the life they wanted, and worse to feel that their actual life is somehow perceived as odd or abnormal because it doesn't include youth or babies. But mostly that will be her working through her grief for the life she wanted.
I have plenty of friends in their 40s upwards who are childless or child free, I think if you don't have the diversity of friendships it can feel more isolating

There's a lot of pressure to (1) be in a relationship and (2) have children

I can totally understand people's sadness about not following that route

I think I don't care about society's opinion about what my purpose in life is. I'm a religious person so my life's purpose is extremely clear to me, defined by God. If God doesn't care whether people had children or not in their lifetime on this Earth, then I'm certainly not going to be bothered about society, or what some random nobodies' opinions are.

It’s a bit pithy to say you find it sad. Can you put yourself in their shoes?

I think it’s sad that so many childfree women apparently believe this sort of thing that their life purpose is to be a mother in 2026. I thought this kind of dated thinking died out in the 1970s. They should take it up with their parents really that they were brought up to believe a lie. The birth rate is dropping spectacularly and I do not believe only 20% of adults in the uk are childfree given the relatively high average age of first child these days. But if it makes people feel they’re special and different and part of some maligned minority group then that’s just The Narrative that people like to create for various subcultures I guess. If you can count it as such.

Women's only purpose in life to a lot of other women is caring for other people either children, older relatives or even husbands its weird

And taking on othet people's issues even when it is none of their business

I don’t find it sad at all. Women are allowed to feel confused and drifting when they find out their life cannot pan out in the way they imagine and that’s okay.
What is sad is a woman not being able to express her feelings for her life without someone latching on and turning it into something it isn’t. She isn’t talking about other women, or other women who don’t have children, she’s talking about herself.

Where is this from? It seems far more an attitude from decades past! I know a few women without a partner or child and aside from the odd wistful ‘what might have been’ seem quite content and certainly valued. They certainly aren’t sitting still lamenting how things have turned out.
I didn’t get married until 40 and had kids after - I wanted children but I don’t think it defined me, in fact I found the adjustment from Monday to X’s mum or Y’s wife hard.
I don’t think it’s ’off script’ anymore. After all my friends are now early 60s and most of any children have been launched (I still have one in uni). A few are now divorced, I am a widow. Are our lives suddenly valueless?

Found the article. Funnily enough Kim has a book to promote.

The quote didn't make me feel sad. It made me feel Kim would be better off if she cared less about the stories our culture offers and got on with doing as she pleases.

Well it's very hard to create a meaningful statistic on what percent of women will become a mother.

If you took all of my closest friends at age 30 and did a percentage on who was a mother, you'd only get 10%. By 40, you'd hit 90% - but there would still be my friend who had her daughter at 41 to reach the full stats (so far).

You have to reach menopause to get an idea of how many women eventually had children in a generation, and how many kids they had. Heck, one of the 10% is still going with the youngest newborn in the group.

The archetypes of 'maiden and mother' are longstanding, and can feel limiting for women who don't want to be defined by their relationship status or motherhood status, but there is a traditional archetype that we forget because it sounds, well, unpleasant. The 'crone' archetype sounds awful, but actually represents a woman's wisdom in her developed years and can look like all sorts of roles, a guide, teacher, someone with elevated skills but above all the wisdom of a life lived. All of these 'types' are rooted in language and a society that has prioritised the status and skills of men, but to me, as a career focused non mother (and far from my maiden years) i embrace the crone. i am wise, educated and the other women i know benefit from knowing me (I hope). perhaps we could re-name the crone as 'elder' or wise woman. There is a lot more women have to offer than just reproduction, and while i totally understand someone grieving for that being taken away, if that is what they wanted- we can still become far more. i would never want to patronise the grief of those who wanted children and did not or could not have them, but part of helping with the grief is allowing a more positive message about the roles of women in society outside of motherhood.

Biologically, the fundamental reason for human existence is survival and reproduction. You can obviously find meaning and fulfilment without having children, and might be a lot happier as a result!!!

I think it is sad people feel they need to “inhabit a story”. Life is wonderful when you do what makes you happy, rather than follow a script.

However she is allowed to feel sad about not being able to reproduce, if she genuinely wants to reproduce, rather than just feels she should. I never felt any biological urge to reproduce so it is very easy for me to say “well why can’t she just adopt” but as I understand it, for people who do have that urge, it is extremely intense.

The woman had the option of having kids taken from her, everyone knows that childfree by choice is an option but she had that removed from a potential life trajectory - of course it's okay for her to question her identity.

I don't think she's saying they are the only choices just that maybe she thought they were options and now they aren't.

When I was 11 my mother gave me a book on the "facts of life" but I had already worked things out for myself by watching dogs, farming films and so on. I made a decision that the whole horrendous nasty business was not for me. I could never see how family life or having children was going to serve me. I have never swerved from that opinion.