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Screw Your Timeline

At least that's what you should say....

By Shana NizeulPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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The other day, I was sitting on my front porch talking with my best friend, when she brought up the subject of the life timeline. You know, the timeline for when society thinks people should accomplish goals, hit life milestones, stuff like that, and in her case that means when she and her boyfriend are going to get married.

This got me thinking. Why do people care when you do things in life? Why is there a certain age that things need to happen by? I know that 50 years ago, society was a lot more rigid. Most people got married at a younger age, therefore having kids at a younger age. These were the "life steps." Fall in love, date for a year or two, and then get married. After that, you would have kids and live your happily ever after.

Well, things aren't like that anymore. People have a ton of options and they don't have to get married and have kids right away. Life is long, and most people don't die young, so people are going to school and then focusing on their careers for a longer periods of time before they even think about getting married. And this means that having kids is also put off longer, which is why you might be seeing articles about the national birth rate declining, which I don't think it really is, I just think that the younger generations are waiting longer to have children. So this has led to a decline in the amount of babies born.

So talking with my friend made me really angry for her. Here she is, 28 years old, with a Bachelor's Degree, an amazing artist, a great human being, and she is in a stable, long-term relationship and has been for about ten years. But this seems to confuse people because they are always asking her: "When are you guys getting married? When are you going to get engaged?" Which, as many of you may know, gets old fast. Just because they've been together for years doesn't mean they should rush to the altar to placate your life timeline. That would be stupid and irresponsible.

Then, when you do get married and people think that you've been married for long enough, you'll start getting, "When are you guys going to have kids?" Then, when they think your first kid is old enough, they will start asking, "When are you going to have another one?" But then that will stop, because people seem to think that two kids is the limit. You will hear about your choice to procreate or to not procreate, especially if you choose to have one child or if you decide to have three or more. People are so crazy. They just can't wrap their minds around the fact that someone might make different choices than they do.

Then, after you have kids, people will start asking you about your parenting choices and about your child hitting their milestones, offering unsolicited advice in the grocery store or in line at the post office. But really, the only people who should be concerned with those things are your partner and your pediatrician. People are generally nosy, and it's up to us to shut them down when they are intrusive.

You can't ever win with your life choices. There is always going to be someone who disagrees with what you do or how you live. They only have opinions about what you should do, and if you live your life by other people's opinions, then you probably aren't going to be very happy. So you don't care about what other people think about your life timeline, because you're the one living it. Not them.

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About the Creator

Shana Nizeul

Hey everyone! Here I am- happy wife, SAHM, badass photographer, and sometimes writer. Hope you like what you read!

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