Women of a Certain Age
When I first began working on this essay, I was planning to explore radical ideas about mothering in science fiction. I’m a lifelong science fiction fan and love imagining different worlds and different ways of solving problems and organizing societies. One of the things I love about the future is that it is way more egalitarian that the present. About 7 years ago I read a book, Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, that made me think about being a mother in a new way,. Described on Wikipedia as “utopian speculative sci fi and a feminist classic”, it was one of the most thought provoking sci fi books I’ve ever read and I am still thinking about it.
Although Women on the Edge of Time, written in 1976, does not only take place in a utopian future, the utopia it describes still feels relevant today. What has stayed with me over the years was how children were born and parented. All children were gestated in artificial wombs and then 3 people, of any gender, would be assigned, based on their interest, to co-mother each child. As Marge wrote “When we were breaking all the hierarchies. Finally there was that one thing we had to give up, the only power we ever had, in return for no more power for anyone.” This idea made me uncomfortable: would I be willing to sacrifice the privileges and power of motherhood to create a truly egalitarian society? I began to wonder, do women cling to the power and privilege of motherhood in a way that undermines their independence and individuality? How are we parties to our own oppression?
But before I got into writing about these ideas, I decided to do a little research on Marge Piercy, to make sure I was getting the details right. thinking I’d check out her Wiki page. What I discovered was way more interesting and has changed the subject of this piece. You see, Marge didn’t stop writing in the 70s - she’s still writing now and has a huge body of work. She has a blog! She’s a poet! She’s been very busy - not only has she been writing, but she has been teaching other people how to write. Discovering this made me feel like I did after I watched the documentary, The Janes. You have this mental image of someone who did this cool, radical thing and your image of them is when they were young. But they are still here, and they’ve continued doing their work and bringing more groove into the world.
Simultaneously with thinking about and researching the radical mothering topic, I started to watch a series of talks by the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, “Finding a Fresh Alternative”. I’ve read Pema Chodron’s books but I had never seen her teach before and she is endearing, so thoughtful and honest and compassionate. But she also tells it like it is. I’ve already learned so much from her that is helping me on my spiritual path. For a while I thought maybe I would write this piece about her and what I’ve learned from her, but first, I would do some research.
Pema Chodron didn’t appear magically in the world as a Buddhist nun, she’s 87, she’s had a long life. On Wikipedia I discovered that she had been married and has two children and three grandchildren. It wasn’t until her 30’s, after her second divorce in the 70’s, when the ground dropped out from under her, that she discovered Buddhism and then became the first ordained American Buddhist nun in 1981. Pema’s work is about our liberation from suffering, our opening up to reality, to the beauty and awe of existing right now as a human. The liberation of the mind from itself, from the bonds of expectation and culture.
Over the past year and a half, since my youngest went to college, I have been taking stock of where I am in my life, now that the intensive part of mothering is behind me, While doing this I have been revisiting the life long questions: who am I and what am I doing? This is a stage of life that I never anticipated, although I guess it’s kind of a mid-life crisis, without the crisis, a mid-life review My time, and even more importantly, my attention has become more my own again. I am looking back at what I have done vs. what I thought I’d do and how I imagined my life would be. I went though a similar reckoning when I was turning 40, but this feels different, because I am much older now.
Throughout my life I have looked to older women for examples of how to be (and how not to be) a woman in our crazy, half emancipated society. Growing up in the 80’s, we believed it was a given that women were equal to men, we could do anything we wanted. It’s funny to think back to that time - grandmas were not just old then but old fashioned, they really did seem to come from a different world. That’s what 70’s feminists did, they created a new world, a new landscape for girls and women. They created the opportunities and attitudes that did not exist when they were girls. Sometimes it’s easy to be annoyed at the second wave feminists - they were so strident! And yet, look what they did, look what they accomplished. A lot of what we women take for granted today exists because they worked their asses off.
All those hip chicks from the 60s and 70s are in their 70s and 80s now. So many images from that time are of these hairy flower children, it’s hard to recognize them all their white haired and wrinkly glory. We have been living through a truly unprecedented and revolutionary time: the liberation of women. It feels insane, but just over 100 years ago, women weren’t allowed to vote. Today we make up the majority of college students. How much latent talent was subjugated, how much still is, because of the oppression of women. It seems normal now that our grandmas would be doctors and lawyers, CEOs and artists but back in my childhood, they were undereducated and bored, sitting in front of the tv, waiting out their time.
It is a little scary to think about the last phase of your life. But again our older sisters are coming through for us, showing us how to stay vibrant and active and live full lives in their later years with the enthusiasm that they met the other phases. When I look to my older sisters, like Marge and Pema, I can learn not just from their amazing work, but also from the example of how they have been living their lives. Now that my reproductive years are over, I can turn my full attention to my other work, my painting and writing, my spiritual practice and my coaching. Although the world seems particularly insane in so many ways these days, I feel positive and energized, because something new and different is happening and has been happening. I can’t help but believe it’s gong to bring us to a new and different place, like the utopia envisioned by Marge.