Living Single

at the national level.

We still seem to see ourselves as a nation of traditional families, but in reality are anything but. I wonder what effect this "cultural lag" will have upon us.

Certainly it makes changing policies more difficult. But I wonder if it also makes changing attitudes much slower as well.

Yes, I too found the "report" both myopic and odious. More power to you if you can plow all the way through it - I could only make it a small way in before getting the obvious drift - you're taking it much more seriously than it warrants.

The website is awomansnation.com for those who want to see for themselves.

It's likely apocryphal, like so many such stories are, but I remember reading once that a woman tried heckling Winston Churchill at some speaking event.

She said (approximately) "I'll have you know Mr. Churchill, that in 50 years women will run the world!".

Churchill paused dramatically and then said "What! Still?".

That's basically what the title of the report brought to my mind.

I think the issues are not so dramatic. You obviously use different definitions of "single" in different articles, depending on what you want to get through, and in this case, "single" means simply "not married".

The 50 million women you quote who are "single" by that definition, will still often be mothers, for example as unwed, divorced, or widowed mothers, and encounter similar problems as their married counterparts.

Among the 50 million will also be a hefty number who live together with a partner and/or children or have a romantic relationship but are not married.

And the overwhelming majority - and I do not say this disregarding the validity of the choice to live by yourself for ever - the overwhelming majority will consider themselves "between relationships" and only temporarily single.

So, while there may be issues with the report, I don't think they are as egregious as you make them out to be.

I am not sure that the nuclear family was ever something that really worked or existed and it is high time that we acknowledge that. People have been participating in communities and caring for non-family members for a long time. I am excited about a world where we quit placing so much emphasis on the nuclear family is something natural and ideal and accept that love, support and connection comes from many many places. As singles, I think we see that more clearly sometimes and as singles we are often asked to help non-family folks. And as singles, perhaps non-family relationships are more obvious and important in our lives.

The thinking in our culture about what constitutes a family is changing, I think. But change can be slow and confusing. I look forward to the clarity.

I went to a writers' conference in Portland, about 15 years ago, and the keynote speaker was Molly Gloss, who had just released her novel, "The Jump-Off Creek." In her speech, she said (very loosely paraphrased) that she could not have written anything authentic without the experience of being a mother, and she didn't think any woman could. I was really offended by that--my life has no wisdom to offer because I haven't reproduced? What a sad and narrow vision. I still read her book and it was good, but I checked it out from the library instead of paying for a signed copy. >: )
What was really sad was the number of people at the conference who weren't offended by what Ms. Gloss said, and thought it was odd that I was. Writers, of all people, should question archetypes and cultural expectations. It was fine, and probably valid, to say that being a mother had enriched her own experience and given her greater wisdom, but to generalize that to all women, and discount all other paths of experience? Please.

I haven't read the Shriver Report, but from what I've read about it, the irony is that it undermines its own claim to feminism when it defines women only by the men and children in their lives.

Yes, this discussion is so last week, but I saw something on Brothers and Sisters last night that disturbed me. I normally like the show. Last night Nora, the mother, and Sara, the daughter, were arguing about Nora not bringing a date to a party. Nora is a widowed homemaker who has found new purpose in her life by planning and building a residence for families of kids in the hospital, kind of like a Ronald McDonald House. Jumping back to her argument with her daughter Sara, Sara accused her mother of using the cancer center to avoid dealing with "her neglected romantic life." As if the busy mother of five adult children and grandmother to 3, with an incredibly consuming late-life career, is somehow less than praiseworthy because she isn't putting her passion aside to pursue online dating. And Nora accepts her daughter's criticism, acknowledging that she couldn't possibly be complete without imposing some stranger into her huge family that's around her all the time. Last year Nora chose not to marry a man she loved because he was a politician and lived in D.C., and she didn't want to give up her family life in California. I didn't realize that meant she was required to find someone else closer to home. : /