Princeton Mom is my Superego Made Flesh

In the movie Forbidden Planet, Leslie Nielsen (disarmingly sexy, especially if you only know his comedy work) and some non-Leslie Nielsen astronauts land on a planet where your thoughts come to life. But they are terrorized by the monsters created by the Id.

Well, here in real world, I am haunted by the monster created by my Superego. Princeton Mom. You know, the lady who wrote the article to the school paper telling the ladies that they needed to lock down a husband before they graduated. And then gave that sad follow up interview to The Cut saying that her marriage failed because her husband wasn't from Princeton.

Well, she's back. And this time giving a speech at Princeton. And continuing to say terrible things that I'm used to my subconscious saying to me in the shower.

“If we do want to marry men who are our intellectual equal, we’ve almost priced ourselves out of the market,” she said. “Finding a husband as smart as you is going to be hard if you don’t find him at school.”

 Sometimes I worry about this. I'm technically a genius. I could join mensa. But I know how useless IQ is as a predictor of social ability or interestingness (because I am neither of those things). Still, I am technically in the 98th percentile of intelligence. Maybe I should marry someone dumber than me. But guys don't want to marry someone smarter than them. So, maybe I should pretend to be dumb to find a husband.

And so I talk to myself in circles until I remember that 1) there are many different types of intelligence and 2) smart people don't always end up in the best schools. Or any schools. Why limit myself to the guys who are at Princeton at the same time I am when I could choose men of greater intellect who didn't go to college?

Patton also said women should not wait until their 30s to get married because of potential difficulties in finding a spouse and bearing children at that age.
“A woman looking for a husband in her 30s gives off total desperation,” Patton said, likening the effect to a “man repellent.”

I will have you know I was giving off that desperation starting at age 16! I have gotten less desperate over time. But I'm still repelling to men. That is my constant.

“The fallacy of gender equality is that men can take a lifetime to marry and have children, and women cannot,” she said. “That is a hard and cold bulletproof fact.” 

Well, okay. That's true. What can I do with that fact? I wanted to get married and have children. I wanted that as long as I could remember. I was in relationships. They didn't work out. Now I'm 33. Have I ruined my entire life?

There is a narrative in the world about the woman who ignores romance for her career and then it is too late. It's a story that has been around for a LONG time. The Hepburn/Tracy movie "Woman of the Year" talks about it. It isn't the creation of feminism or hippies. And, sure, if you want to have a family then you should probably avoid following that narrative path.

But there is another story that doesn't get told. It is my story. It's the story of 9% of women who never marry and have children even though they wanted to.  I'm not 33, single, and childless because I didn't accept biological reality. I'm here because nobody wanted to marry me, and I've yet to figure out how to pull off a wedding by estoppel. I want to have a child with someone I am in love with. And so do lots of other women. But it didn't happen.

And Princeton Mom's assertions that I'm now repelling to men, or that I was ignoring biological truth, or that I could have done something to prevent it hurts. It hurts because those are the things I tell myself when I see a family at brunch looking adorable.

I did not choose this. I haven't really ever chosen anything in my life. All I can do is make the best with what I end up with.

That's what Princeton Mom doesn't get. Maybe her life was a series of choices that she got wrong at some point. But that isn't typical. I think far more people are like me. We end up in places because the things we planned didn't work out or because other people let us down. I'd much rather tell young women to learn how to make the best with what life hands them than to tell them that they have to force things to happen. If Princeton Mom had learned that lesson then maybe she'd be doing something with her post-divorce life other than telling 20 year old women how to avoid her mistakes.