I’ve known since my early 20s that I didn’t want to have kids. Yet I wasn’t turned off by marriage. As a matter of fact, there’s a part of me who visualizes myself married—as long as I don’t have to live with my husband. When I told my married sister that last part, her response was, “What’s the point of getting married?”
Considering the fact that Christian marriage began as a way to guarantee a man that his children were his, I actually don’t see much need for it. I know there are men who also don’t want to father children, or at this point in life, don’t want to father any more children; so that’s really a nonissue for me.
My biggest stopper is I don’t want to be a bang maid. I don’t want to be that woman who fills a significant part of her time with the domestic duties of attending to a man every day, having very little time to read, do art or just otherwise relax after the work day.
At any given time, I’m working on at least two different writing projects, putting together at least one on-going creative project, and reading at least four different books in rotation. In the meantime, I work a full-time job and occasionally two different freelance jobs. And did I mention that I exercise every day?
I’m not as selfish as I come across. I really do care about people, but from a distance, where it easily fits into my already busy schedule. For example, for the past seven years, I’ve made Christmas cards–very stylishly decorated, complete with a unique message, written in longhand. This takes me a lot of time to do. One might walk away with the impression that I’m some warm individual who always does such thoughtful things. Yes and no. As long as warm and fuzzy fits neatly into the master schedule, I’ll do it. Besides, since I’m not on social media, again another thing that would drain my creative schedule, my Christmas cards are a way to give a yearly update to out-of-town friends.
Now, some people think, if I just had a man, I could quit working and have all that extra time to pursue my creative projects. Yet I’m not going to base my financial stability on whether or not some man still loves me. Let’s face it: I have a strong personality, which sometimes gets on my own nerves. I can imagine how it affects other people.
However, I need my financial obligations to be met every day, not just those sunny times when I’m loved by someone else. Plus, being an adult means attending to one’s own financial responsibilities. Am I to believe that some man for whom I perform domestic duties and sex should meet my financial responsibilities? I know—you gotta give some to get some, but it just seems less complicated and time-consuming to separate money from romance.
I have a sinking suspicion that some men mistake cooking and cleaning with love since their mothers did that for them, without realizing she only did those things because he was a child. No one in the world loves you like your mama. No one. You can be loved by others, but you’ll only have one mama.
When the romantic curtain is pulled back, a woman being financially dependent on a man puts her in a precarious position. Women, who have their own, independent source of money, tend to have more control of their own life. Moreover, women have far more to contribute to society than a myriad of menial tasks.
I like setting that tone from the very beginning. When I go out on a date, I genuinely don’t expect a guy to pay. I know that all money comes with strings attached—apron strings and G-strings. Not to say that I don’t don those strings occasionally, but they’re not tied to a man’s money, but rather my own necessity.
The first Black actress to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel for her role as the maid, “Mammy,” in Gone with the Wind in 1940. Throughout her acting career, McDaniel played a maid in 74 movies. She once said, “I’d rather play a maid than to be one!”
Amen, Big Mama Hattie!