Person First, Spouse/Parent Second

We have a new-to-us professor for one of our summer classes.  He wanted to learn more about us, so on the first day of class, he had each of us stand up in front of the classroom and answer questions from our classmates for 60 seconds.  I wondered what questions I'd be subjected to, and hoped none of them would be too awful.  The first question I was asked wasn't awful, exactly, but it was interesting:  "What was your maiden name?"

My classmate looked startled when I told her I'd kept my name when I got married.  Then the next couple questions I got (from another classmate) were about Scott.

I'm not expecting my classmates or anyone else to show interest in any specific areas of my life.  But since I personally believe there is much more to my life than my marriage, I found it telling that that was the area at least two people found the most interesting.

This incident made me think back on a t-shirt I saw in the window of a bridal shop some time ago.  The slogan on the t-shirt was "Pour me some bubbly, I'm getting a hubby."  That slogan made me cringe at the time for reasons I couldn't fully articulate at the time.  But I realize now that what I find so distasteful about it is that it's treating marriage like an achievement.  To be clear, I think that happy marriages are a wonderful thing and that weddings can be celebrated as a joyous occasion.  But treating them like an achievement brings to mind images of people training for some sort endurance event and carrying spears to hunt a spouse and bring him/her home as a trophy.  I also feel that the "marriage as an achievement" burden falls particularly heavily on women--no matter what else you do with your life, nothing quite lives up to getting your M.R.S.

Parenthood is similarly treated as an achievement.  Just like with marriage, I feel that this burden falls particularly heavily on women.  Also, like with marriage, I believe that becoming a parent is an occasion to be celebrated, but I really can't view conceiving a child as an achievement.  Being a good parent is an achievement, but that is a process rather than a single event (and unfortunately, much rarer than conceiving a child).

With both marriage and parenthood, there is a lot of luck and timing involved.  Luck and timing are just that--luck and timing.  They may be joyous occasions, but they are not achievements.  Treating them as such implies that people who don't get married or don't have children are lacking in ambition or talent.

I've come up with some t-shirt slogans of my own to replace that cringe-worthy "Pour me some bubbly, I'm getting a hubby."  I think they may be particularly useful for women, whose true achievements that they have worked for often fly under the radar.  But men may feel more pressure by these cultural ideas than I realize, so I've created ones that should work for everyone:

Start a commotion, I got a promotion.
More champagne for me, I got my degree.
Bask in my glory, I published a story.

Scott came up with an additional one:
It's no longer a prob, cuz I got a job.

The more milestones to celebrate, the merrier.