Awesome image by Natalie Dee, of course.
As y’all know, I often get a good larf out of Audrey Irvine’s dreadful “Relationship Rant” columns on CNN. For retro anti-woman thinking and twisted “insights,” I crowned two of them the Most Ridonkulous Op-Eds of 2009 and 2010. But today, lo and behold, I found myself agreeing with one! SRSLY. Please mark this special day on your calendars, because it is not likely to come around again.
Her latest post is “Bought a house so I must want kids?” and in this episode of Audrey’s adventures, she has friends over to her new three-bedroom house for a cookout. Nosy questions abounded!:
Each group that I showed around the house –regardless of age or gender — had the same question when they saw the two spare bedrooms.
“So, what do you plan to do with THESE bedrooms?”
I pondered the question each time, realizing I couldn’t say I’d use it as an office since I had one set up downstairs. My answers varied from “how about a guest room” to “possibly a home gym” to “I really don’t know.” Their reaction each and every time was exactly the same: “How about some kids?” My first response was “with whom?” — seriously, I am not married– then I realized they were referring to my new beau.
Yes, mortgage + multiple bedrooms + boyfriend = impending kids. Truefax.
I admit, I sympathize. When I bought a one-bedroom apartment at age 27, certain people in my life assumed that buying only a single, lonely bedroom meant I was committing to permanent spinsterhood.
As one of my snarky dumbass peers put it, “why buy a place for yourself unless you already know you don’t want to share it?” Never mind that you can share a one bedroom apartment with a partner—as most couples I know do. Or that a two bedroom in New York City was well beyond my means anyway. A woman buying a home with her own money is seen as a declaration of intent, even if I was simply making a commitment to my own happiness and financial security. That was Audrey’s logic too:
I gave all the right answers: that buying a house made more sense than a townhouse in this market, I realized the amount of equity I could get buying in this neighborhood and of course the first-time home buyer credit was too much to pass up.
No one seemed interested in those answers, so the conversation quickly changed to something else.
Because if it’s not about a single woman’s path to marriage and kids, then, really, who cares? After all, marriage and children are the ultimate goal of all women:
Society does seem to put an enormous amount of pressure on women once they hit the later years of childbearing age. (ed: ya think?) Assumptions are made that every personal decision is a reflection of your desire to have, or not have, children.
What’s funny is that the majority of the comments on CNN—most of which are safe to read, for a change—seemed to say “fuck the busybodies, enjoy your house!” I happen to agree with those too. Group hug, everyone!
(Tomorrow—a return to our usual contentious feminist caterwauling).
Am I the only one who gets the impression from Ms. Irvine’s interrogators that they treat children more or less like accessories? I know that’s a classic conservative trope to pull out, and one that’s misused the vast majority of the time, but urgh. Children are a conscious decision, not some sort of flesh-and-blood diploma for Being Good Wimminz.
I wonder if part of this has to do with the expectation that women have no reason to care about things like equity and tax credits (presumably because their husbands will deal with all that complicated money stuff).
Cat, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Having kids should not be the default for men or women. We see the sad, painful results of that mind set every day. Having kids should be the result of a carefully considered decision, and people who decide that it’s not for them should be treated with respect for taking the choice seriously.
And then you can be me. I have never bought a house, even when I could afford one. I’ve never wanted my own house. I like renting. And yet i have children. Which in the world of these people is apparently irresponsible but just as i don’t know why they think buy a house = must have kids so I also don’t know why have kids must equal buy a house.
This time a year ago I was about to buy a house. (It ended up not working out because of a financing SNAFU, but for a while it looked like a done deal). It was a 3 BR house with a detached garage, with lots of mid-century details.
It was interesting, because the first thing a lot of people asked me was “So, what does this mean for your relationship?”.
The assumption seemed to be that because I was buying a house on my own, despite having a boyfriend, that meant that we were either about to break up (because he was not financially involved in the transaction) or get married. Or at least live together. In reality, none of these things were planned. The plan was that, as before, we would live in our own places – but my place would be a house rather than an apartment.
This seemed to blow people’s minds.
And yes, comments were made about how having extra bedrooms would be nice if I wanted to have kids (I don’t, btw).
I headed people off at the pass by telling them that I planned to use one as a guest bedroom, and the other as a room devoted to yarn and crafts.
When the house thing didn’t work out, I moved into a new apartment anyway. But a 2 bedroom this time (rent is cheap here), with a room just for my office and crafty stuff. Because I can. And my boyfriend still visits – and envies my spare room.
Real estate lust is one of the few ways I am Utterly Conventional. Most days. I really, really want a house of my own. It will never happen, especially here in NYC, but probably never anywhere, for financial reasons. I suppose I could look on the bright side and think that my inability to own is a good thing, since no one will get the wrong idea and think the Dude and I are heading either down the aisle or to Storks R Us.
@Emilyanne: I totally understand. I won’t have enough money to buy anything for a very long time at least, but I’m not entirely sold on the property ladder anyway. I think my view is skewed though because a lot of my renting experience was in Germany – otherwise I’ve mostly lived in halls of residence and similar. The circumstances there make it much more attractive to be a life-long renter than they do in the UK or US.
Renting is a good option in Germany, and about 50% of people (and more in the cities) do it. There are strong controls on how much rents can rise annually, and renters have strong rights. For example, if there is a problem with the flat and the landlord doesn’t take care of it, or if you are inconvenienced by work on the building or similar, you’re automatically allowed to pay less than full rent (Mietminderung) – don’t think I’ve heard of that anywhere else.
Besides, ‘Eigentum verpflichtet’ – with property comes responsibility – is an idea that is strongly anchored there, to the point of being written in the constitution. So a lot of people tend to think that it’s better to be flexible but property-less. And I see their point…
@Endora, I’ve always liked the German model, not least because I prefer to be flexible and property less. I’ve honestly never seen the fuss about about having a house. Actually I have to say I’ve also never had issues with renting and my renting has always been in the US and the UK, but I think that just makes me lucky rather than clever.
It’s so annoying we get so little credit for having a fucking BRAIN.
I bought a 3 bed 2.5 bath house on a golf course because of its resale value. Same reason I drive a Honda.
And it’s convenient to have extra bedrooms when Mom visits and brings my aunt.
To be especially generous*, it seems to me that many people I have known have bought houses in preparation for having kids. It is because of this (and a lack of frigging imagination**) that they assume that others will do the exact same thing. In other words, it might not be solely due to “children are accessories” thinking.
*The assumptions of others that I will follow in their foot steps and have children just like they are/did is actually causing me problems at work right now so this is actually very, very generous on my part.
**Oops, not being so generous right here.