We Need More Characters Like Jhumpa Lahiri’s Narrator
It is rather unusual to see single, solitary women depicted accurately in fiction. It’s as if, unobserved in life, they have also fled the stage of literature, their independence insulating them from narrative force.
I Don’t Want to Become Jess Zimmerman’s “Good Wife”
I already feel, in some ways, that becoming my fiancé’s betrothed has meant agreeing to manage him, and I feel no little amount of dread when I consider multiplying this management duty by one or more further persons.
J. Nicole Jones’s Family Preservation
Is this, when it comes right down to it, the difference between creating a family and creating a piece of art? Does art rely upon individuality while family-making siphons from it?
Rachel Cusk’s Translated Will
To have a child is to surrender one’s will rather than exerting it. The child does not exist as the perfect external realization of an internal intention. His own will interferes in the determination of his outcome.
Claire Dederer’s Selfish Sacraments
Maybe, in the end, all mothers are monsters. Maybe the only way to avoid becoming monstrous is to forgo motherhood entirely.
Rivka Galchen’s Restful Worship
The problem isn’t and never has been motherhood itself. The problem has always been me—my fragile focus, so easily shattered; my delicate ambition, easily spooked but not as easily relinquished.
Miranda Popkey’s Sense of Surety
Motherhood would make of me someone I don’t know yet. What if she’s the opposite of the woman I’ve come to expect?
Meghan Daum’s “Central Sadness”
If in the future I find myself sometimes lonely and aimless, empty in an undefinable way, will I be able to talk about it without the question of children coming up?