one more thing, i can’t help but notice that a lot of tumblr’s popular ideas about what 30+-year-old women — and it’s almost always women — should be doing instead of having fun online seem to line up pretty closely with very conservative beliefs about what women’s options should be. especially that women should have children and that once they have children their lives should revolve around those children completely, with no time for breaks or hobbies or internet discussion or other selfish, frivolous, unmotherly activities. to be a mother or a woman old enough to be expected to be a mother is to be a specially regulated class of person, judged by her performance as a self-sacrificing caregiver and exemplar of chaste maturity.
it’s hard to escape the influence of these ideas. but if you don’t hold yourself to this standard at age 22 or whatever, if you want more than what patriarchy has planned for you, then it’s worth it to try to let go of this standard when it comes to older women too. and not only because you will one day be one of them. but also because it’s the right thing to do.