Victoria Dahl's Tumbling Tumblrblog

Oh my frack. I finally skimmed that stupid-ass article about Maeve Binchy being childless. Gaaaah. Didn’t read it all, because I don’t really care about the writer’s opinion. But this line caught my eye: 

All novelists who have had children are acutely aware that the very best of our sex — Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Brontës, Virginia Woolf ­— were childless. We all worry about doing two things badly rather than one thing well. 

Oh, holy mother, really? That’s actually the last thing I wonder about writers I admire. I don’t give a shit who has whelped young and who hasn’t. And as for the worry about doing two things badly… Not all of us ladyfolk obsess about this, and I wish NONE of us did.

I’m a working mom. I write full time. I work and my children occupy themselves. News flash: it’s been like this since time immemorial. We did not invent work. Do you think that five-hundred years ago your female ancestors were crouched around a kid-sized table for hours making crafts and worrying about little one’s self esteem? I’m pretty sure my ancestors were drying fish and sewing rough fabric and tending the garden while the kids did farm chores and watched their younger siblings and hoped no one died this week. MY KIDS ARE FINE, THANK YOU, NO MATTER HOW HARD I WORK. As long as they’re not picking lice out of the baby’s hair and tending gruel over an open fire, they’re better off than my hardy, pure-souled, salt-of-the-earth pioneer ancestors were. 

We have always been working moms. We did not invent that shit. The fifties housewife in heels was a blip on a timeline that travels backward and forward forever. (And she probably only existed in five households anyway.) Deal with it. Write. Have babies. Don’t. I don’t care what comes out of your vagina any more than I care what you put in it. Just write me a great story full of emotion. (Also not invented by modern moms jesus christ does that have to be said?)

Rock on, ladies.