On Motherhood, Making Sacrifices and Waking Up in Stilettos at 50

Actress Patricia Clarkson recently spoke up in a Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi  podcast interview about her decision to not marry and have children. And recalls defending that decision to her mother. 

"My mother said, ‘Patty, I just don't want you to wake up at 50 and be unhappy.’ I woke up at 50 in stilettos and a thong,’ “ she said, laughing. “I’ve had a great sexy-ass life.”

I’m 48. I’ve been married twice and have three kids, and I hope I’m waking up in stilettos and a thong when I’m 50 (metaphorically speaking, that is, because I’m more into sexy comfort these days).  

I’ve long struggled with this idea some people have that to be a good mom you have to give up your hopes and dreams—oh and sexiness, too.

Now, there are women whose only hopes and dreams are to have children and for whom sexiness is solely a means of attaining said children. To them I say, to each their own, but my guess is they make up a  very small minority of the population.

I’ve always been at the other end of the spectrum. For me, I dreamed of career first. The idea of family came later. I’ve always had passions and interests outside the home and have continued to pursue them even after I became a mom. In the eyes of many, this makes me a bad mother. 

For the sake of my two daughters and son, and also myself, I have pursued my passions. I hope my kids do the same. I hope they look at me and see they have the choice to pursue family, career, both or neither. For me, it’s never been an either or. 

While I celebrate Patricia Clarkson and her decision to live a sexy-ass life without a husband or children, I want to leave space for the idea that a married mother could do the same damn thing.

Like all of my generation, I came of age during second-wave feminism. I was raised with the idea that women could have it all, not really understanding that it mostly applied to white, attractive women of a certain income. But having it all isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, either. We hear statistics about the unpaid labor and mental load that gets carried out in households, and women—regardless of working status or whether they have children—report carrying the brunt of it. (Some 76 percent, according to a 2023 Skimm/Harris Poll on the State of Women.)

I want to give a shoutout to my partner here because the mental load is more evenly split in our household, and let me confess, I do sometimes feel guilty for how much he does at home. That said, this week, as my youngest started her second week of middle school and the middle child returned to her college classes, and I chauffeured them to classes and dental appointments, and the cat to the vet, and picked up whatever was needed in between my so-called day job while said partner was traveling for work, I wondered how in the world I ever made it work when I was a single mom with a full-time, in-person job. Full disclosure: I also squeezed in a mountain bike ride and a pedicure. This is what we call having it all.

In my experience, being a mother and having a career has always been a balancing act. And there are sacrifices. At times, I’ve had to stop everything so I could just focus on the one thing that mattered, and I would do it again as many times as it took if it meant saving the life of my child. 

But I would challenge anyone who says we have to be just one way. We can be mothers and sexy. We can be fat and sexy. We can be devoted to career and family. We can sacrifice in times of need and still can—and must—find time for ourselves. We can have our own interests, desires and hobbies and still show up for our children. Society likes to tell us we can only have it one-way, but we should be pushing back every chance we get.

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