Sorry — that's a very poor subject summary but I couldn't think of another way of expressing it.
I'm at the kind of age where I'm seeing my contemporaries who have children looking forward to their daughters getting into relationships, getting married and having children. I see women who've had shit marriages, women who've been abandoned and abused by their children's fathers, women who've sworn never to have anything to do with men again, all quietly encouraging their daughters to find someone to settle down with. Many of those women, after a drink or two, will also say that although they love their children dearly motherhood isn't all it's cracked up to be and if they'd known then what they know now, they wouldn't have children.
And yet they all seem to really want their daughters to find a man and have children. I've never heard a woman say that she's advised her daughter not to marry and not to have children. Have you?
I'm watching my 33-year-old niece at the moment. She has flat-shared with female friends for the last decade and they all get along with each other so well they've clubbed together and jointly bought a home. They have a fabulous life: holidays, nights out and such trust and affection for each other that I'm green with envy. My niece says she's under constant bombardment from her mum about boyfriends (she has them, but they aren't the main focus of her life) and babies, even though her mum's now divorced for the second time and struggling to cope financially.
Why do we do it? Why do so many women keep recommending for their daughters a formula that hasn't worked very well for them?
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Why do disillusioned mothers herd their daughters into marriage and babies?
22 replies
Pluvia · 22/03/2022 11:16
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