We actively encourage teenagers not to have babies, we applaud

The words of Kate Garraway—“We actively encourage teenagers not to have babies, we applaud young career women in their twenties, then before you know it you find yourself, as I did, aged 32 at a friend’s wedding and being quizzed by everyone about why you haven’t got round to reproducing yet.”—are the lament of one caught in the shifting tides of society’s expectations. They reveal a paradox as old as time: that the world praises restraint in youth, ambition in early adulthood, and then suddenly demands fulfillment of duties it once urged one to delay. Here, the wedding becomes not only a celebration but a mirror reflecting the unspoken pressures of family and tradition.

The meaning is layered in irony. Society teaches discipline to the young, independence to the maturing, yet seldom offers patience when the season of motherhood is delayed. The very voices that once praised a woman’s pursuit of her career turn, in later years, to questions and judgments. Thus Garraway’s words uncover a hidden truth: much of what we call approval is fleeting, shifting as swiftly as the winds, and the individual is left to reconcile her own path amidst the clamor of expectation.

In history, we see the plight of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who chose not to marry nor to bear children, but to devote herself to her realm. She was praised as a sovereign, yet continually questioned and even ridiculed for remaining the “Virgin Queen.” Like Garraway, she bore the weight of society’s relentless curiosity, as though her worth could not stand apart from reproduction. Yet her reign, one of England’s greatest, proved that the value of a life lies not solely in children born, but in legacies forged.

The questions at the wedding represent not malice, but the echo of tradition, where in former times a woman’s honor was bound to her role as mother. Yet in the modern age, when paths are many and choices diverse, these questions sting, for they measure life by a single standard. They remind us that humanity, though advancing, still clings to patterns of old, demanding conformity when individuality seeks expression.

Thus, O seeker, learn from this teaching: live not for the fleeting applause of the crowd, but for the steady flame of your own truth. The world will first praise you, then question you, then judge you, for its standards are never still. But the life lived with integrity, whether it bears children, careers, or dreams, is the one that stands eternal. For in the end, it is not the approval of society that crowns a life, but the peace of knowing you walked the path that was truly your own.