Reading this article about Gen Z women living in same kind of situationship as Joan Baez did back in the day made me think how some things never change. While looking for an old document in my online archives recently, I chanced upon a folder with some eighteen year old photographs of me taken by J. Looking through them filled me with a mix of concern and sadness for that version of myself. This is a woman that was not quite prepared to be single and a mother to boot and yet she was both and putting on a brave front. It is not at all surprising that I got myself into some very sub-optimal relationships back then. Could they be called situationships? In a sense, yes. I needed to see signs of life, light at the end of the tunnel - that my family would turn whole from being fractured and that I would not need to do it all alone, carry all the weight all the time.
That is exactly the state of mind that leads to bad outcomes. That was me then, I see it in many young women I know. Only a select few are able to stand their ground, stay happily single until they meet the person who brings something magical and special to her life. Such a woman does not need a man to fill a vacancy in her life, she is able to live a full and meaningful life on her own, she does not get her inner peace drowned by the sound of her biological clock ticking, she does not feel less than women who are partnered and have families. She has the inner resources and wisdom to see the single state as an opportunity to accelerate in many areas of life and a not a problem to resolve urgently. I was most certainly not that woman. The biggest favor a parent can do for their daughter is to teach her how to be happily and confidently single for an undetermined period of time. Since I had no clue about that, there was nothing I could have taught her. I hope being as different as she is from me, will serve her well in this regard too.
Comments