Choosing the Road Less Traveled

My husband and I recently signed up for Netflix and Hulu and I have been binge watching some popular shows (and about a million history documentaries of course) that I never really got into before. One of my new favorites is "Parks and Recreation". If you haven't seen the show it centers on a small town's  local government, particularly the department that takes care of the, you guessed it, parks and recreation. Amy Poehler plays the lead in this comedic ensemble, she is a self proclaimed feminist who often seems like the only person in her department with drive and ambition. In the final episodes of the sixth season her character, Leslie Knope, discovers that she is pregnant with triplets. As she and her husband discuss this unexpected and terrifying news Knope reassures her husband, Ben, that everything they have faced together so far has prepared them for having triplets.

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Did you say aw? Did you swoon a little bit at the romantic notion of them facing this great challenge hand in hand? Well you're not alone, I did too. And then I started reading a few blogs discussing this plot line. One in particular caught my attention and had me rethinking my original "aw".  In the blog titled The Trouble With Triplets, Libby Hill discusses a common sitcom trend to create strong, independent, career-minded, feminist characters only to have their final season centered around a pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing. Hill's blog reflects back on strong feminist characters in past sitcoms who remained childless and the looks at the current trend of characters who can "have it all", the principles, the career, the spouse and the brood of children. She argues that the male characters in sitcom history have children but its only a small plot point not a major life change, whereas the female characters' whole story-lines seem to lead up to motherhood.

Hill's argument is interesting, but the point I found most thought provoking was mentioned fairly quickly in the blog. Hill refers to a strong female character from another recent sitcom, Robin Scherbatsky from "How I Met Your Mother". Robin clearly states in early seasons that she does not want to have children but then in later episodes is devastated to find out that she cannot have children. For some reason the show's writers felt it necessary to take Robin's choice to stay a non-mother away from her. To me it seemed like the writers knew that they wanted her to have no children but didn't think the audience would believe that this would be a choice that women would make willingly. I wonder, is that such a shocking choice? 

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As a thirty-two year old married woman I can attest that one of the first questions people ask me is, "Do you have any kids yet?". Did you notice the "yet"? In our society it is almost automatically assumed that there is a certain progression of events in a woman's life; high school, college, maybe grad school, career, marriage, children. My husband does not face the same questions when he meets people. The questions I face about my plans to procreate are usually replaced by people asking him about his plans for his career, financial planning or home ownership. If the assumed ideal life progression goes marriage then children, shouldn't he face the same awkward questions about our plans to, or not to, start a family? Let me state that I fully support every person's right to choose parenthood, I am in awe of the many excellent parents I know. I wonder though, does society understand that not all people will make the choice to have children?  Can society accept that for some, "having it all" does not include having children?