Why We Need To Live By Our Own Rules

Last week, my dear friend Meghan was in town from New York. She had just written this beautiful post on being single in your 30s, and we started talking about how no matter what age or stage of life you’re at, people seem to want to project onto us their own ideals of what we should be doing with our lives. She is single, and wrote about how friends often say things like “I can’t wait for this to happen for you” or suggest that she’s not trying hard enough when asking about her love life, which is both unkind and unhelpful, and belittles the very fulfilling life she does have. It seems almost impossible for society to accept that women might not be seeking a partner at all, or that even if they are, that they can still be completely happy and fulfilled on their own.

Although not the same, I find myself constantly faced with other people’s expectations of my relationship. When my husband and I were dating, people would constantly ask if he was ‘the one’ and when we were getting engaged (for the record, we were both perfectly happy and neither of us felt the need to rush into marriage). When we eventually did get engaged on our 10 year anniversary, a friend and a close family member sincerely asked if I was ‘settling’ because it had taken us so long to decide to do so. And even though I am happily married and have a strong, mutually-supportive relationship, even I often worry that maybe my marriage is not everything it should be because it doesn’t look like the seemingly perfect marriages I see on other people’s Instagram, or like the blissfully happy ones depicted in all those romantic comedies I’m obsessed with (granted, that one is obviously my own fault, but I just love a happy ending). In fact, the main reason I didn’t blog my wedding (other than this post about my reluctance towards the whole thing) is because I didn’t want to contribute to this idea that getting married is some huge accomplishment, or that our weddings need to be these beautiful, grand, Instagram-perfect affairs (spoiler: they don’t).

Now that I’m married and in my mid-30s, it’s the steady trickle of concerned questions about if and when we’re having children, because my ‘time is running out’ / ‘it’s going to be harder to do it this old’ / ‘you don’t want to forget and regret it later’, or even ‘I just don’t see you as a mother’ (all actual comments from several friends, close family, and two separate colleagues within the last year). And then there’s the ‘ooh, is that a baby bump I spy?’ comments I always see on social media when that person has not yet chosen to share their pregnancy publicly, or worse – is not even pregnant. Although I have never been pregnant, I have watched too many close friends struggle with infertility, adoption, miscarriage or the loss of their baby. I’m sure everyone who constantly asks such things mean well, but for all they know I might have been desperately trying to have a baby, chosen not to have children, or anything in the middle.

I’m sure I am far from alone here. As women, we are literally raised to believe that one of our main purposes in life is to become mothers, but we have simply got to stop stop assuming that everyone in their 30s is trying to get pregnant, or suggesting they’re doing something wrong if they’re not.

I’m so grateful to live in a time where self-determination is mostly celebrated; in most cultures and communities, we are free to decide our own education and career path, embrace our own personal identity and sexual orientation, and pursue our own ambitions. Yet despite this progress, we still project so many societal norms onto women – how we should look (usually younger, thinner, and whiter), what our relationships should be (best friends who feel like family, family who feel like best friends, and a perfect partner with whom we’re blissfully happy always), what our careers should be (thriving, but not so successful we ‘forget’ to have children), and how we should act (clever but not too opinionated, nice but not too boring). And in turn, we’re all left feeling somehow inadequate when we don’t tick all the boxes. I don’t know about you, but it can feel hard to manage the weight of the expectations.

So as women, let’s try to start shifting that narrative of those expectations that are placed upon us from a young age. We can’t always change the things we’re constantly taught about how we should look, act, or be. But let’s at least stop projecting those societal norms onto each other. Stop asking other women if they have a boyfriend, when they’re planning on getting married, or if they’re planning on having children anytime soon. Stop suggesting that we need to ‘have it all’ in order to be successful, that we’re selfish if we choose careers over our children or failures if we choose children over careers, and that we should be pitied if we tick none of those boxes at all. And stop clicking on ridiculous clickbait articles about another woman’s potential pregnancy / divorce / cellulite or believing we must look and act like the women we see in all the magazines, movies, and pop culture growing up, and instead find better, and more diverse role models for the next generation of women to look up to.

And most of all, we need to reframe the expectations we place on ourselves to do all of these things by a certain age in order to have a full, happy life. Instead, how about we all try writing our own story; one where we’re the heroine of our own lives, and we live it exactly as we please. Happiness according to us, not anyone else.

Wearing: Whistles coat (past season, but similar styles here + here) // Whistles skirt (inexpensive version here) // Bella Freud sweater (past season, but similar style here) // Chanel bag // Converse trainers // H&M beret // Anthropologie necklace // Topshop brooches // Michael Kors watch. 

Love, Briony xx

Photos by Joe Galvin