There was this lovely woman Louise who had been coming to our weekly swing dance last year. She was attractive, tall, brunette, fun to dance with, and by the spring, very obviously pregnant. Apparently light exercise like walking and dancing is good for expectant mothers, and we’ve had more than a few come by our dance over the years.
Louise has just published a book about her adventures as a single mother, entitled Knock Yourself Up. I just read her interview on Salon.com and it sounds like a neat book, even for those like me who have no plans to have children of their own. Louise tells me that she writes about what it’s like going out social dancing as a pregnant woman.
I’m looking forward to Louise bringing her baby to our dance for a baby jam!
So what is all the furore about? Women wanting to go it alone or having to go it alone through no choice of their own is nothing new. All she’s doing is telling it as it is and has been. Look around the world at the number of both married and single women who are left to cope on their own either because the man is useless or irresponsible. Being a single mother was more often than not the default position for most women as men went off to find work, fight wars, disappear to foreign climes or find another woman.
Marriage as we know it today is pretty modern having come about in the mid 18th century when the secular authorities started to want to know who was living where, with whom and how many offspring they were having. Prior to that it was a “contract” between wealthy families on who was to get what and what the size of the dowry was.
It is also worth remembering that a woman was not a free person but the property of her father who then gave, or sold her to her husband who could then use her as he wanted as she had few or no rights under the law.
So well done Ms Sloan and the very best wishes to you and your child
How will little Scott feel when he is old enough to read his mothers book? I think that describing his conception as “knocking yourself up” is an assault on his human dignity. If some day he gets a girl pregnant and walks out on her, will Sloane then comfort the poor girl by quoting the subtitle of her book: “no man no problem!”?
The book is written for women but could easily become a hit among “dead-beat dads”. When they walk out on their poor kids, they can quote her: “no man? no problem!”.