Inktober/Blogtober Crossover: Day 14

As I sit in my room, ready to write a piece on today's Inktober prompt word, I can hear the clock on my wall ticking.  As it turns out, today's prompt word is "clock," so a more appropriate soundtrack would be difficult to find.

The trouble is, I'm a single woman of a certain age (36, if you're wondering).  There are plenty of people out there who believe that the clock is ticking for me, personally and they're not afraid to tell me so.

"You're leaving it a bit late, aren't you?"

Well, yes.  I'm unlikely to have kids.  I've made my peace with the fact and yes, it's been a difficult journey, because I just assumed I would be a mum, one day.  It's certainly something I'd have loved very much.  I think I'd have been good at it.  But a woman of my age, with no partner (and I say that as one who is now open about the fact I'd be just as happy to end up with a female partner as I would a male one), no place of her own and little in the way of savings, is not ideally fixed to be contemplating motherhood.

And sure, the media makes women well aware of the fact that they have something of a sell-by date.  Apparently, I should have snagged myself a husband, by now.  And if I must insist on falling for a person regardless of gender, that can be widened to alternatively include snagging myself a wife.

There's very little media or societal emphasis on the idea that a woman can be independent and happy.  There are precious few examples of an unmarried woman on screen or in literature, where she's not portrayed either as a sad and desperate loner or a laughably commitment-phobic cougar, bordering on sex-obsessed, despite being past her prime.  We've all seen the rom-coms featuring the terminally single, frumpy friend, whose character is played for laughs.  And hey, sometimes at the end of the film, she finds love and is validated!  Thank goodness for that.

All these "spinster" movie tropes and massively outdated societal values end up bleeding into public consciousness and result in people thinking it's even remotely acceptable to ask a woman in her mid to late 30s why she hasn't had kids, yet.  Never mind that she might have struggled with fertility and it could be a hugely painful subject for her.  Never mind the fact that every woman has the right to decide not to have children and shouldn't be judged for it.

Those same backwards values give certain people the belief that they have the right to ask women of a certain age why they're not married, or whether they feel they've failed because they're not in a relationship.  I once had a friend who got together with a guy and sent me a message to say how happy she was.  I congratulated her and said - completely genuinely - that I was thrilled for her.  She replied: "Aw Em, don't be sad.  It'll happen for you one day."  I remember reading through my response to her original message over and over, looking for where I'd sounded upset, jealous or otherwise mopey, and the fact is, there was nowhere that I had.  This person had just assumed that I must be.

In truth, nobody has any right to decide how you must be feeling, or what you should be doing with your life.  Whether a woman is perfectly happy being single, whether she's desperately in love with someone who doesn't love her back, or whether she really is struggling with loneliness, the principle remains the same: you can't just ask personal questions or make assumptions based purely on the fact that a woman is single and has no children.

The clock on my bedroom wall is still ticking.  But it's the only clock I can hear.