The Root has allowed four women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s riff on just how significant is it is that someone, somewhere, grinned and bore itβliterallyβpushing a football-sized version of themselves out into the world. Some have even *shudder* done this themselves.
Theyβre all great pieces. I notice that in the younger ages, there is downward pressureβthe being-a-daughter part takes center stage. In your 30s, there may be kids, but things turn inwardβRebecca Walker sums up mothering at that age as being βabout getting your proverbial sh*t together.β Forty-something Salatheia Bryant-Honors, who lost her mother, feels both at once. But of course, the tale with which I identify most closely is from my friend Helena Andrews, who writes from her 20s with the specter of maternity breathing down her neck:
Suggested Reading
If youβve ever been to a wedding, funeral or father-daughter purity ball, then youβve satβperhaps teary-eyedβthrough John Mayerβs βDaughters.β The song is the audio version of a Lifetime movie event. Basically itβs about how some girl got so messed up by her parents that now she canβt truly love the man standing on her steps with his heart in his hand.
The last two lines of the hook are something like a eulogy: βGirls become lovers, who turn into mothers. So mothers, be good to your daughters, too.β Why not βgirls become lovers who turn into. β¦β something other than mothers?
Why, indeed? Iβm certainly not averse to motherhoodβIβve seen some pretty great examples of it in my life. But like Helenaβs, my own wonderful mother has also suddenly been afflicted with βa crazy case of the βgrandbabies.ββ At dinner in Washington this week to celebrate our mutual birthdays, she was way unsubtle about her desire for me to get hitched and start cranking out some grandkids. She jabbed me and said that I was βready.β I got up to go to the bathroom. She waxed nostalgic about the joys of raising me and my sisterβIrish (or Nigerian) twinsβwhile my dad completed his medical residency 300 miles away. I swapped my empty wine glass for hers. She described what sounded like awful sacrifices and stresses. I joked about how lame it must have been to be pregnant-to-bursting with me on her 28th birthday. Still, she persisted in her relentless advocacy for early marriage, and little ones for her to go all Marion Robinson on.
This is all by way of saying that Mireille Grangenois has singlehandedly made me reconsider my glib eye-rolling. All of The Rootβs storytellers do wonderful jobs of explaining their lives as women and mothers, but Grangenois, a media executive, gives a particularly honest take on what itβs like to have an 11-year-old at age 53βjust as everyone else seems to be having all the fun. βI am flanked on both sides by the comparatively carefree existence of two other women in my peripheral orbit. My husband Steveβs ex-wife celebrated her 60th birthday in December with surfing lessons in Costa Rica as she vacationed with their adult daughter.β My mom is no M.I.A., but she couldnβt be more excited to be empty-nesting at 52 (sorry, mom!), sipping wine at a trendy out-of-town restaurant, instead of changing diapers or, heaven forbid, still wrangling my hair.
She really needs to stop being right all the time.
βDAYO OLOPADE
PS: Yes, that sign is for real.
Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.
Straight From
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.