I Want a Different Type of Childless Role Model
I’m a woman without children: where do I look for models?
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This is what I would paint if I could, these gentle pictures, quiet women in quiet dresses, their hair unbound, a private moment, cat on lap, a book maybe, once a bouquet of roses.
I would paint this: a tired woman, her body drooping a bit, but calmer now, flowers in hand.
I would paint this: a thin-faced girl, book in hand, a breeze lifting the window curtain so it touches her long skirts, almost indiscernible.
And I would paint this: best of all maybe, a still room, just emptied with a shawl draped over a wicker chair, a book open on a table. A nearby wall, slanting cozily. A slice of sunlight.
This is what I would paint if I could, if a brush would heed my inarticulate wishes rather than a pen.
It is difficult to find role models as a single childless woman. But I’m looking at Gwen John now, Gwendolen Mary John, born on the 22nd of June, 1876, dead on the 18th of September, 1939. And I like what I am seeing.
Not what I usually look for in role models, I admit. I think I am over the loss of family and marital love, but maybe I’m not, because when I seek out role models for my life, usually I look for people who have something to show in place of these seeming womanly achievements.
I look for Jane Austen, maybe, or Elizabeth I. Susan B. Anthony. Rosa Parks.
I look for a grandiose life, as it were. An exceptional career. A bestselling book, or three. A starring position somewhere, a notable importance in activism.
I don’t look for Gwen John, a lovely painter but one without the name of a Picasso, an O’Keefe.
When I research this painter, I find that her life was indeed fascinating. See here for more on that. From what I know of her, she moved to Paris, had friends that included the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, had an affair or two, exhibited her work, won awards; later in life, she discovered Catholicism. Hardly a dull existence.
Still, on the surface, her life appears calm. Silent. A recueilli painter, her work was meditative, contemplative.
Of John, it was said that she was a recluse, not a celebrity. The struggles of the day, the politics, scandals, art movements, nothing touched her. She stirred no eddies. None of the feathers so popular for headgear in her day were ruffled.
During her lifetime, the work of her brother, Augustus John, and her lover Auguste Rodin overshadowed her own, and Rodin’s work still has this greater status.
On the surface, hers seems a life of peace incarnate, the epitome of a spinster, a maiden aunt, cat on her lap, a bit of knitting by the fire, maybe some reading in the afternoons, a little painting.
This is only the surface. I know little of this woman, just the small bits of information for which I have searched. And yet I am drawn to the notion that she might have been quiet, might have done little but paint, own cats. That is a significant part of my life, silence. Writing. Cats.
I am looking for role models whose lives were, in a way, the same way as I feel my own life to be, uneventful. John fits the bill.
There is nothing astonishing, nothing grandiose about my life. I am simply me. I read; I write. I drink tea in the mornings, and bake sometimes, in the afternoons. I have my pets.
Too often when I think of life’s meaning, I want something, some grand achievement to fill in the place of children and marriage. Something unusual that no one else has.
I have nothing.
Female role models are hard to find in general, I know. The world is patriarchal, and even those who are married and mothers must struggle to discover those who have gone before, who forged a path worth taking.
But single childless women are in an even more problematic fix. I am not alone in thinking that my life must be a very special one to make up for the loss of more typical female achievements.
If I don’t have kids, the saying goes, then I have to figure out what to do with my life.
I have never figured it out, though. I enjoy writing but have no great literary novels; I have been sick and have no career, no notable importance. I wear no crowns.
I resent the fact that I need a crown. I resent the fact that there are so many life purposes that women are expected to have.
Gwen John’s work is quiet, soft, gentle. Her life is cats, books, sunlight through an open window, and I am glad of it for this is my life too. This is what I would paint if I could. This is what I want to write. This is what I am, and what I want to see.
By Colleen Addison
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Thank you for writing this. There are so many of us who are childless and have not accomplished something outstanding. Why isn’t it enough that I have lived life, and supported myself in the process? Why is having a child an outstanding accomplishment? You have set down in writing what many woman think - an accomplishment if you ask me.
Loved this post. A disclaimer, I am married with one adult child. Your depiction of what you would paint is amazing. No one, parent or not, should be judged for their role. It is clear in this post that you are a talented and beautiful soul. Please continue with your wonderful work!