Redefining "Settled"

A Journey of Letting Go, Finding Peace, and Challenging the Narrative Around Marriage, Children, and Fulfillment - By Emma Smallman

Reading time: 4 minutes

Have you ever been asked this:

‘Are you settled?”

A question that used to make me slip into a state of panic and a clammy sweat as I knew what the sub text was, “Are you married with children?”. My response always being “no”, I used to respond from a place of embarrassment and shame, but I don’t anymore and that the motivation for writing this, in case my younger self might be reading.

As a women of 44 years old the narrative around children has been a consistent and strong one for pretty much my entire life. I always assumed I would get married and have children, that was just something that happened right? The thirties were known as the ‘deadline decade’ and during that time most of my peers were having children and getting married. I felt a pressure and a sense that I didn’t belong. Friendships inevitably changed as I couldn’t really share in and understand their experiences.

Whilst this was a really difficult time, I also knew that some of the alternatives, such as doing this with the wrong person or doing it alone just weren’t for me. As time went on, I started to become curious. Did I want children and marriage or was it just the norm, part of culture and society, an expectation maintained by generations?

It’s not to say I don’t see many happily married people who love being parents so there is no judgement in that respect, I just started to question it for myself. I also started to consider my place in society, back in the day a single woman of my age with no children who also enjoys working with the moon would probably have been considered a witch and likely have met a sticky end…

During the ‘deadline decade’ I can’t tell you how many times one of the first questions id be asked when meeting someone in a social setting was about whether I was ‘settled’ or asking if I had children. This question often casually flung across a dinner table to which I would always answer no with some discomfort. What amazed me most was how at that point the line of questioning would simply stop.

It reminded of those books where at the end of each chapter you asked a question and were directed to a different page depending on your yes or no answer. My ‘no’ response always seemed to automatically point to the end of the book. I was baffled to think that by having no children or a husband to speak of that there was nothing more worth asking about. Now it amuses me when this happens, my life at the time was, and still is, rich in so many ways and I know I have a wealth of very interesting things I can chat about.

If I’d only been asked another question. It took me a long time to realise it said more about the one asking the question than it did about me.

Now I’m in my 40’s people rarely ask anymore, yet it’s now I am comfortable and confident to challenge such things. When a recent taxi driver told me I had been left on the shelf as I travelled home alone on a Saturday night, I thrived on having the opportunity to unpick that with him. When I walked into a club and a guy stated the MILF’s had arrived, I told him I wasn’t a mum so was does that make me? An ILF? He had no response and walked off.

When someone asked me whilst on holiday if I had a family, I listed having a mum, dad, siblings etc and at the end said that I didn’t have my own children though if that’s what she meant. I never do this aggressively, that’s not my style and would be unnecessary, my hope and intention is only that it might make people think. So, to anyone who may have grappled with this, felt pain and anguish around this sensitive topic or doubted yourself please know this: There is nothing wrong with you if for whatever reason you are not married, and/or you don’t have children. There isn’t. You are wonderful and bring gifts to this world and maybe life has some other delights up its sleeve which require you to be exactly as you are right now.

If this is something you are struggling with, whatever your gender and circumstance then it also might be useful to know a bit about the journey I’ve taken to get to this point as I would never have been able to write and share all this, even just a year ago. I was utterly embarrassed wanting something that I didn’t have and knowing my time was running out, but then I began a grieving process.

I started to vocalise how I felt and allow the emotions surrounding it to come out. The first time this deeply happened was on a retreat, something unblocked and I was finally able to admit the upset. I sobbed in the arms of a shaman. Then at another retreat it came up again and I let more out. And a few times more until I could finally really start to feel acceptance.

Then whilst in Mexico earlier this year I was in a lovely place called Isla Mujeres which just so happened to be the home of a statue of the Mayan goddess Ixchel, sat as a shrine on a coastal cliff. Ixchel was new to me, so I researched her and discovered she is the goddess of the moon, fertility, the arts, medicine and many other things. Also, I chuckled to myself as my nickname as school was eggshell, so the synchronicities were all lining up.

I felt hugely in alignment with her so was excited to walk to the end of the island and meet her. I sat at her feet, meditated then handed over responsibility around my fertility. Stating that if me bringing children into the world was of benefit then let’s do that, and if not then I will continue to bring other gifts and let it go. I took great comfort handing this over to something greater, a reframe which made this situation more about the bigger picture of the world than my individual wants and needs.

At the end of the Mexico trip I was with two friends, women also in their 40’s who had made peace with their child free status. Seeing them being further on inspired me and allowed me to start exploring a different version of myself. I no longer wanted to live from a place of lack, how could I when my life was so incredibly abundant, I wanted to feel at peace like they did. Then, one day shortly after coming back I heard someone on social media talk about it being astrologically a really good time to ‘let something go’. You may hear this term a million times over, in yoga classes, on social media posts and elsewhere.

Personally, I got to a point where it started to feel meaningless, however for some reason, that day, I really heard it. Not only that, but I also embodied it. To paraphrase it was about how letting go didn’t need to be a big, long arduous process but that actually, if you wanted to, you could simply and gently just let that something go, right now, the way a leaf just drops from a tree. I was clearly ready because in that moment I did. The narrative around having children left me. I found peace.

Since then, life has felt different, I am still just as focussed and driven by all that have but without the ruminating, waiting and wondering about what I don’t have. I’m sure grief will rise again throughout my life, but I realised that whether you have children or not there is grief. If you have them the grief can sometimes be for your old self, the version of you before having kids and I only know this because I have heard it many times from friends.

And there is no shame in that either, even if having the kids has been and is the most wonderful thing in the world, it no doubt changes your life. I can also imagine some of you saying you get day-to-day grief in raising children too, from the outside it looks incredibly hard work! I’ve also realised I have brought many things into the world, through my projects, work and creativity.

These have required many similar qualities that a mother or wife would demonstrate such as commitment, dedication, love and nurturing. I also appreciate how many wonderful children there are in my life to love and have fun with and who maybe get more of my attention than they would if had my own children.

So, the final reflections are these. Firstly, whatever process you might need to go through in relation to the above or something else, allow it to be just that, a process. Mine certainly has been a long journey and writing this is another part of that. Secondly, we all have an infinite number of possible versions of how our lives could have gone.

If we’d have made this decision or that one, all the what ifs. Take pleasure in the wondering, the day dreaming of the numerous potential paths but ultimately through chance, circumstance and choice we have this very one. The one we are in right now reading this. So how would it be to trust in the flow of life and follow that wholeheartedly?

Not swimming upstream anymore. And who knows, maybe like Indiana Jones sliding to get under that gate I end up having children just before I hit the menopause or get married down the line. I’m not closed off to either, the difference now is I feel neither a pressure, expectation nor a disappointment surrounding it.

Then finally for the plea, next time you think about casually flinging out the question around whether someone is settled or has children please tread with sensitivity, you could be uprooting something deeply personal and emotive for someone. And if you do feel its ok to ask, just make sure you have a follow up question lined up if they say no.