“Opportunity cost” is a term in economics, which will be familiar to many of you. For those of you who haven’t come across it, “opportunity cost” just means the thing that you sacrifice in order to pursue the other thing.
My dad used the phrase so much when he worked in strategic planning that when he left his job they gave him a framed caricature of himself with “Yes, but what’s the opportunity cost?” written in a speech bubble next to his face.
The term came to me many times over Christmas and New Year, particularly when I was talking to two women I know who are both 34 years old and fresh out of 18-month long relationships and feeling a little wobbly about life.
Of course, a 34 year-old woman to me is a baby, but I appreciate that they feel like they are grown-up. I also have to acknowledge that by the time I was 34 I had been married for five years and my youngest child was one, although it was also probably the time in my life when I was most overwrought, least happy, most appalled at what I had willingly undertaken. Maybe 34 is just a crap age.
It is tricky to know what to say to someone in that slightly lost, single situation - man or woman - that will be a comfort and not patronising or bone-headed. The trouble is that you cannot compare two possible lives next to each other and calmly choose which one you want. You cannot fully understand - are you ready for this? - the opportunity cost of either continuing to actively seek family life or pursuing solo flight. And I think we all know by now that having a family will prevent you from doing certain things. We can’t have it all.
I couldn’t say to either of these women, “Marriage will not make you happy. Children will not make you happy,” because perhaps they would. Have they made me happy? Fuck knows!! Sometimes I am happy and sometimes I am not, very not, but I’ve got no way of telling which bits my family are responsible for.
I do know women, though, who have been wrecked by family life: the careers they loved are made impossible or they had no idea how much domestic slog family life entails, even if you have help. They had no idea that they would not be able to buy their way out of trouble, how shit most private childcare is, or how downright poisonous the nanny-mummy relationship can become.
Perhaps domestic life has wrecked me, too, and I am kidding myself that I am alright with it. Perhaps I am like Ivan Denisovich at the end of the story, considering my day in the gulag to be perfectly alright because I know how much worse it can be. It might be the last, ghastly days of the school holidays and it’s raining and we’re all perfectly demented with boredom, but at least I do not have a baby and a toddler. At least I am no longer 34.
I know things aren’t the same for men, but they have all sorts of opportunity costs to consider, too. Do they really want to be working that job, seeing those people, doing that thing? Or would they rather be motorcycling across South America, carefree, growing their hair, doing sun salutations on Machu Picchu?
I never want to say to single women in their thirties “Don’t worry, it will all work out,” because I don’t know that, either. But I do know that family life is no sort of magic bullet.
How about you? What advice or succour do you have for 34 year old single women who are feeling a bit wobbly? Please leave a comment in the handy box below. They are listening.
I am adoring this thread. My husband and I have taken to sticking two fingers up behind our kids’ backs on occasion! Childish I know but helps with a slight release. Am thinking this helps whatever your situation, stick two fingers up at the phone, the exes, whatever you need to.... no stage lasts too long. Bad times don’t last, neither do good..so we have to hold onto the good and enjoy them. Stick two fingers up at the bad and hope they go quickly.
Can I add that Roblox is my nemesis and my almost 12 year old tells me every day that-she is the only child in her class without a mobile phone?! I am sticking to her not having one. First world problems hey 12 year olds?!
Love you all Substackers ❤️
I had my son at 18 years old! so I had to grow up pretty quick and by 34 years old I had more time and money to travel and see the world. I went back to University at 29 (SOAS) but luckily there were quite alot of mature students at that Uni...had a great time! I can't imagine what it would be like to be 34 and single again and not have children and I think its probably worse for women as men can have children at any age. The main thing is that you do things in life that bring you happiness and are good for the soul, whatever they may be.