by Zoe Hyde
I need to have it all, do it all, be it all, and never complain. Oh, and all of course, before I turn 30.
I was today listening to what I found to be a very insightful conversation with Lauren Graham on Alex Cooper’s popular podcast, Call Her Daddy. While the conversation was heavily nostalgic about Gilmore Girls (and, duh, how could it not be!) Graham responded to a listener’s question, which was essentially all around the idea of it being too late in said listener’s life to start over. Graham recalled how in school she skipped a grade and felt as if she gained an extra year of life. I too, have experienced this sensation when I mistakenly think the date is a digit ahead, hence when I discover it’s the 19th of April rather the 20th; certainly, I’ve gained a day. Alas, Graham spoke about how particularly women, are conditioned to these patriarchal thought traps, and instead we must objectively remind ourselves, that truly, ‘the timeline only exists in your head’.
I won’t completely get into the legitimate biological aspects that women do have in terms of timelines, however I will absolutely be mentioning how we are excessively and out of proportionally conditioned to such inaccurate and shorter biological timelines beyond reason and fact. The biological clock is not as rigid and quickly ticking-and-tocking as we’re made to believe. Nell Frizzell genuinely changed my life when I read her brilliant book The Panic Years. Frizzell writes in such a raw, relatable, yet comedic sort of memoir-meets-essay kind of way, all about how women are from birth essentially programmed to have this subconscious, undertone of a reminder, almost like the roots of a weed if you will, that we do have a biological clock for children, and we MUST ensure the alarm is strictly set. Regardless of whether we want children or not, we must always carry this ultimate decision, in all our big and benign other decisions alike.
This may sound extreme. But consider this for a moment and ask yourself if you’ve ever felt this ‘rush’. And, why? Where did the birth of that urgency stem from? For me, when I decided I no longer wanted to be a veterinarian and left vet science in the regional town of Wagga Wagga after YEARS of endless unpaid work with cows, self-determined study, and (at times, strange and disturbing) vet nursing jobs—I knew I had to figure out what career was next. And quickly. People asked me why I couldn’t just enjoy where I was at, take some time to reflect, continue to work as a vet nurse? For context, I was the ripe age of 21 years old. And I couldn’t even give them a response, I think because I didn’t have the self-awareness or language to understand what I was in fact processing, was feeling the rush of the timeline and sticking to the plan. I just knew I had to structure my life, my next career around this invisible, yet ever-present feeling—that I had to have myself ‘sorted’ before I was 30.
Hence, I bring you to the episode of Friends when Rachel Green turns 30. Green sits, realising with fear and anguish while calculating her age, along with foreseeing timelines of relationships, that she is in fact, running out of time to complete the traditional trajectory of what all women are supposed to want: marriage, kids, a perfect appearance, the career (but genuinely, this women’s work is a privilege—thank you first & second wave feminism!)
How Old Was Rachel On Friends & Was Jennifer Aniston the Same Age?
Facts about our biology are exaggerated and exasperated to entrap women into a scarcity mindset surrounding fertility, which by default extends into our decisions surrounding relationships, professional choices, and so forth. It is malevolent.
I also want to get across that it can be healthy to want children, marriage, etc…however, only if this is what an individual genuinely aspires for. I think marriage can be a great source of connection, mutual love and support, along with children bringing so much joy beyond imaginable. However, the main thing I’m rattling with is this epidemic we have as women, where we’re all subscribed to this hamster wheel. A rat race of dating the right people, looking a certain way, deciding when we want children and of course how many there will be. While Graham is so right, and we do need to remind ourselves that we’re living in the reality of our own minds, this isn’t entirely true, so we need to stay vigilant in not giving into the traps society feeds us. Of course, such pressures feel true when we have patriarchal ideas still so persistent in culture, as can be seen with exhibit A: current second-time running President Donald Trump. These are just a FEW statements, and I assure you, there’s unfortunately many MORE, that the current President of the United States has said.
“If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” Donald Trump. (X, 2015)
“Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine—that—the face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?” (About Carly Fiorina, his one-time Republican rival, 2015)
“They put her in, and she somehow —a woman— somehow she’s doing better than [President Joe Biden] did.” (Talking about Kamala Harris during a Fox News appearance in September 2024)
“I like kids. I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.” (An interview with Howard Stern, 2005)
How are we not supposed to fall into these entrapping thought subscriptions, when the human quoted above, is running one of the most powerful countries in the world. There’s also a whole other conversation to be had here about the links of patriarchy and capitalism (you need to buy X, to live up to Y beauty standard, and so forth) but I don’t want to go off on another tangent, and I’m beginning to sound a bit ranty (*sorry, I just wanted to write a thought provoking piece, not have an argument, I guess reading Trump will do that!)
Lauren Graham also wrote an insightful piece regarding women’s ageing and the perceived pressure we endure in Time. One bold take away for me, was how she reflected on the fact that there are no men writing about ageing in the same way women are, evidence regarding our need to be conditioned to timelines.
Even recently, my own Grandpa ordered me softly ‘that I needed to start to think to settle’. And I knew exactly what his words meant: a) buy a house b) get a stable boyfriend/relationship and subsequently get married c) have children. I understand there’s generational conditioning and differences here, and I don’t hold this against him, but it makes me fight the very thoughts and worries that I’m so fiercely in defiance of—that I am not enough. Even as I move through the world as I am, running to the pace of my own race. My job isn’t good enough. The fact I’m back at university changing careers isn’t enough. That I’ve saved and travelled and backpacked, spent all my savings, and then done it all again to see another continent. I’m in a new city alone across the country, with my dependent of a cat. But it’s still not ‘the right thing’ to be doing with my life and time and energy. The ‘running my own race’ metaphor has been a powerful and symbolic one for me, almost a saving grace, to remind myself that while we have obstacles that make us want to curl up and cradle ourselves at the thought that we’re ‘running out of time’ like Rachel Green, it truly is in our head as Graham speaks.
In conclusion, we (myself included) need to be active and conscious in freeing ourselves from the prisms that have been created for us by societal expectation, and instead strive for a life, and a timeline, that is unique to us. I’m at an interesting age now where some of my best friends are married, some have had their second child, while others are planning their moves across oceans, or doing cocaine in the bathroom. And it’s okay to simply meet people where they are at. In fact, I love that. We need to carry this mentality into our own lives—that the only timeline we need to genuinely obey is the one we set ourselves when we’re daydreaming, when we’re imagining our lives without any barriers or limitations, when we’re truly empowered and following the ignition of that fire in us. Passion, purpose and connection. It’s then up to us—and only us—to determine our course of action, to channel that empowerment into completing the course of our individual race. And NOT by the time we’re 30. As I like to think, stride through life in the direction of your goals with the determination of an underestimated Elle Woods.
