The "Secret Third Thing"

Not children, not career... a Tweet I can't stop thinking about.

I saw this tweet months ago and it’s stayed in my mind since.

First, it made me laugh out loud because it so perfectly captures so many devastating and ridiculous things about our society: How we’re obsessed with thinking in the binary. How everything must tie back to growth and production. How a woman must have a good reason for not being a mom (ie. contribute to capitalism in some other way). And how insanely narrow-minded our system is at large.

The tweet is tongue and cheek, of course. No single person is ‘mommy’ or ‘girlboss’—people are multitudes, etc—but these flattened, marketable identities are what capitalism loves to push us into.

When I hear a woman defending why she doesn’t have kids—as has rightfully been everywhere in light of “childless cat lady”—I am both resentful and grateful at once. I hate that we feel the need to justify it, as if, without children, we owe people a reason for our existence. And yet it is undeniably helpful to explain—not because we care what right-wing bozos think of our lives, but mostly because we want other women to understand the richness of an alternative way a living, a type of life that, without concerted effort, is often derided and made invisible in our culture.

The most common justification for not having children, or, rather, the most commonly acknowledged in pop-culture, is a woman who has a turbo-charged career (ie the “girlboss”). I remember embracing this reasoning myself back in the heyday of “Lean In” feminism, when we fell into the trap of conflating female empowerment with being more like men. But, of course, just because a woman has aggressive career goals does not make it any more or less acceptable to choose childlessness. The reasons one forgoes children are vast, and having any single one prioritized feels a bit icky, as if we’re trying to prove, with this one, it’s OK. When rather: IT IS ALWAYS OK.

A more contemporary vein of rationalization is the common assurance that—don’t worry—childless women still love children and contribute to caretaking in other ways. Again, this makes me bristle. I respect and appreciate women who explain this obvious fact (it’s unfortunate that we have to remind the world that non-parents care about other people, too), but, also, so what if we don’t like spending time with kids? So what if we actually don’t want to be a caretaker? Who cares? That is also OK!

Of course I believe in wanting to make a positive impact on humanity and the world with one’s life in some way. But I reject the idea that by having a child, you’ve done your duty, and non-parents must do backwards flips to prove our worth with parallel examples. Most of the people I know who have children (admittedly, a very specific milieu) do so because—drum roll—they want a child. They desire that experience more than the alternative. Not because they believe it’s the most honorable way to spend their time.

Having a child is a life-changing experience, no doubt. And it’s human to assume that what you find most rewarding, others might, too—to want to proselytize (as I do with my TV shows). But it’s arrogant and close-minded to insist on. It’s interesting that the people who most commonly tell me that having a child will change my life for the better are men. I have no doubt that the love they feel for their child is, for them, mind-blowing and world-changing. I will never feel that specific kind of love, and that’s a loss. I also know that I am beyond rich with relationships, friendships, and experiences that these men will never know. Everything is so wildly individual.

Isn’t it funny how something so simple can be so powerful? The “secret third thing”— neither mommy nor girlboss—is so appealing precisely because it is no single thing. It is whatever you want it to be. It is a regular, non-singular human person living their life. It is defining life on your own terms, that which is private and free of labels—a secret.

In the past few years, I’ve contemplated more than ever what it is I actually want, after decades chasing what society defined as success. Go for a promotion, get married, run that extra mile—why? If I can’t think of a good reason, if the effort doesn’t outweigh the benefit, benefit rooted not in external validation but in my own desire—which has taken about forty years to access, and, of course, encompasses goals beyond individual pleasure—I’m getting much better at not doing it. This is easier now, in my forties; I’ve gotten a lot out of my system. I did run that extra mile and a thousands more, I did try for years to find a partner, and fought for promotion after promotion. Sometimes (most of the time) we learn the hard way.

At this particular point in life, the secret third thing for me is some mix of time, relationships, storytelling, nature, and rest. For so many years I planned every minute of my day. My brain is so programmed to scheduling that I can almost always guess the time within a few minutes, even if I haven’t looked at a clock for hours. Now I just want the space to not rush, to observe and contemplate living, to rest when my body needs it. I want time for relationships. To be there for family and friends who are not necessarily supported in the traditional sense, to learn from and appreciate the figuring it all out. I want time to get inside another person’s brain, to live inside other experiences through TV, movies, music, books. I want to build those worlds, too, take my own experience and make something uniquely mine, to be in dialogue about the insanity of existence. I want to not move my body unless I feel like it, a life-changing revelation for someone who lived under the tyranny of her exercise routine for two decades. And sleep! I f’ing love sleep. I love laying in bed processing my dreams and thoughts without an urgent need to click into the day. In general, I want to be horizontal as much as possible, preferably with food beside me (see: my book cover).

Maybe I don’t want kids because I’d rather have time. And what I do with that time is not glorious, most of it is not honorable, often it’s very boring. But it’s my own business.

The tweet, if nothing else, is a prompt to remind ourselves who we are and what’s important to us, outside the categories society pushes us into. The secret third thing is not a hashtaggable, lifestyle identity, boxed into a personal brand, which is what’s so hilarious about labeling it at all. It is ours alone, if we make space to define it (and redefine it and redefine it again and again) for ourselves.

Random recs:

• REJECTION by Tony Tulathimutte — This insane work of fiction is truly demented and brilliant. It’s a series of interconnected short stories that goes deep on characters whose lives are defined by rejection in some way. It’s deeply uncomfortable and hilarious and doing something utterly new. Also, it’s published by my imprint, William Morrow (which I will never tire of saying)!

• This conversation with Miranda July and Esther Perel, for all the other All Fours fiends out there. It was fun to hear them talk and quenched my need to still live inside that book, at least for another 58 minutes.