How, you might ask?
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“I’m not your average single woman”, she said.
While appearing as a guest editor on BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour, Kim admitted she also dislikes the term “childless”. Our question: Can Cattrall be our mom, too? You only have to compare the very public tick-tocking of Jennifer Aniston’s biological clock with the scant mentions of George Clooney’s to see this blatant double standard in action. It feels very satisfying’. However, despite living in a society where nearly half of all women aren’t having biological children, women like Cattrall are often socially defined and/or disparaged by their “motherhood” or lack thereof. Entire articles are dedicated to the plethora of reasons women choose not to have kids, as if their decision warrants a longer explanation than “works for her, not for me”.
“I’m a parent, I have young actors and actresses that I mentor”. I did sit down with my nephew when he was (going through) a very tough time to join the army.
“It’s the “less” that’s offensive”, she said. I still say yes.
After birthing my older daughter seven years ago, I got to do all of that and then some. And when we finally dropped the book off at the publisher, it was as if we were taking our child to the first day of nursery school-we were so proud and so nervous.
‘I feel in that area, romantically, retired’. “Childless”. It sounds like you’re “less” because you haven’t had a child’.
Indeed they are, and three cheers for the doting, glamorous auntie who can swoop in while Mummy is changing those pongy nappies or holding her sick child’s hair back from her face as she vomits into a toilet bowl. I don’t think so. To contemporary sensibilities, a mother is someone who has given birth to a child or has adopted or fostered one. “I find the women who are single that I know who are my age are much more feeling, I’d rather be alone and have friends, and if something happens for a period of time, it doesn’t have to be forever…” She can be maternal, loving, supportive, and attentive, but there’s a profound difference between being there when you want and being there because another person’s life depends on it.
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“I think the thing that I find questionable about being childless or childfree – (is) are you really?” Yet it seems an almost preposterous thought that women of a certain age can be living a life without a partner and without children and be happy.
