This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/lauren-sandler-female-writers-one-child

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Lauren Sandler's flimsy case for female writers sticking to a one-child policy Lauren Sandler's flimsy case for female writers sticking to a one-child policy
(4 months later)
Here we go again. Yet another article in a respected publication declaring the twin demands of motherhood and a writing career to be incompatible. Well, not exactly, but Lauren Sandler's piece in the Atlantic has certainly been presented as such. Under the headline, "The secret to being both a successful writer and a mother: have just one kid" and then, with pictures of Susan Sontag, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood and Joan Didion, was the declaration: "A large number of female authors are parents of only children."Here we go again. Yet another article in a respected publication declaring the twin demands of motherhood and a writing career to be incompatible. Well, not exactly, but Lauren Sandler's piece in the Atlantic has certainly been presented as such. Under the headline, "The secret to being both a successful writer and a mother: have just one kid" and then, with pictures of Susan Sontag, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood and Joan Didion, was the declaration: "A large number of female authors are parents of only children."
Let's start by examining that "large number". In the body of her article, Sandler declares: "It was only when I was working on a book investigating what it means to have, and to be, an only child that I realized how many of the writers I revere had only children themselves." She cites a handful of other names and quotes Alice Walker, herself the mother of one, as saying writers should stop at single progeny. Interesting, isn't it, how many writers only discover how right they are about a topic when they are writing a book defending their own life choices?Let's start by examining that "large number". In the body of her article, Sandler declares: "It was only when I was working on a book investigating what it means to have, and to be, an only child that I realized how many of the writers I revere had only children themselves." She cites a handful of other names and quotes Alice Walker, herself the mother of one, as saying writers should stop at single progeny. Interesting, isn't it, how many writers only discover how right they are about a topic when they are writing a book defending their own life choices?
Sandler goes on to list a handful of other writers who have made the same choice. She writes about Mary McCarthy's troubled marriage to Edmund Wilson and the treatment of their single son; about Joan Didion's writerly relationship with her husband John Gregory Dunne and their adopted only child Quintana. All these stories make for interesting observation but prove nothing about the reality of combining writing with children, which is a different reality for each family depending on economic circumstance, their personalities and sheer luck.Sandler goes on to list a handful of other writers who have made the same choice. She writes about Mary McCarthy's troubled marriage to Edmund Wilson and the treatment of their single son; about Joan Didion's writerly relationship with her husband John Gregory Dunne and their adopted only child Quintana. All these stories make for interesting observation but prove nothing about the reality of combining writing with children, which is a different reality for each family depending on economic circumstance, their personalities and sheer luck.
By the same token, I could observe that all four writers pictured in the Atlantic are wearing combinations of black and red clothing. I like black and red clothes too. I now feel vindicated in my sartorial choices and think it proves that women writers should always wear black and red if they want to be successful. After all, I just published my seventh novel and wore a red dress to the launch. Spooky, isn't it? Sandler appears to have forgotten the prime truism of this kind of "how right I am" journalism: the plural of anecdote is not data.By the same token, I could observe that all four writers pictured in the Atlantic are wearing combinations of black and red clothing. I like black and red clothes too. I now feel vindicated in my sartorial choices and think it proves that women writers should always wear black and red if they want to be successful. After all, I just published my seventh novel and wore a red dress to the launch. Spooky, isn't it? Sandler appears to have forgotten the prime truism of this kind of "how right I am" journalism: the plural of anecdote is not data.
It must be quite tiresome for women who don't write books to hear an argument about the realities of work and child-rearing discussed, yet again, through the prism of a highly privileged intellectual elite. Women who may not have the economic resources available to other types of professionals but do at least have the good fortune to be self-employed, a bonus that infinitely eases the issue of explaining to the boss that you have to work from home when your child is off school with tonsillitis. The decision to have a second child is conditioned by many things other than whether it might interfere with one's intellectual endeavours – and for many women, it isn't even a choice. There is a five-year gap between my two daughters, not because I was working on my novels but because I had three miscarriages in between.It must be quite tiresome for women who don't write books to hear an argument about the realities of work and child-rearing discussed, yet again, through the prism of a highly privileged intellectual elite. Women who may not have the economic resources available to other types of professionals but do at least have the good fortune to be self-employed, a bonus that infinitely eases the issue of explaining to the boss that you have to work from home when your child is off school with tonsillitis. The decision to have a second child is conditioned by many things other than whether it might interfere with one's intellectual endeavours – and for many women, it isn't even a choice. There is a five-year gap between my two daughters, not because I was working on my novels but because I had three miscarriages in between.
What seems to lie behind Sandler's argument is an understandable interest in exploring the issues of being an only child and having one child. However large a family, all parents (apart from those with twins or triplets) have at one point been the parents of a single child and it is certainly true that the love of one's first-born often seems to be completely overwhelming that it is impossible to imagine loving anyone else as much. Then you have a second child and you discover that you do indeed love it just as much. And as Zadie Smith pointed out in the comments under Sandler's piece: "Two kids entertaining each other in one room gives their mother in another room a surprising amount of free time she would not have otherwise."What seems to lie behind Sandler's argument is an understandable interest in exploring the issues of being an only child and having one child. However large a family, all parents (apart from those with twins or triplets) have at one point been the parents of a single child and it is certainly true that the love of one's first-born often seems to be completely overwhelming that it is impossible to imagine loving anyone else as much. Then you have a second child and you discover that you do indeed love it just as much. And as Zadie Smith pointed out in the comments under Sandler's piece: "Two kids entertaining each other in one room gives their mother in another room a surprising amount of free time she would not have otherwise."
Who are we to judge the private family choices of writers such as Didion or Atwood? They may have been desperate to have a second child but unable to do so for all sorts of reasons, or they may nursed a secret ambivalence about having even one. Either way, their mothering decisions are none of our business and I'd rather just read their books.Who are we to judge the private family choices of writers such as Didion or Atwood? They may have been desperate to have a second child but unable to do so for all sorts of reasons, or they may nursed a secret ambivalence about having even one. Either way, their mothering decisions are none of our business and I'd rather just read their books.
Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.