and she probably wonrt tell you itrs a better career

"Ah, this is the dream," I said, and we nodded in silence for a minute, then burst out laughing. In some ways, I meant it: werd both dreamed of motherhood, and here we were, picnicking in the park with our children. But it was also decidedly not the dream. The dream, like that of our mothers and their mothers from time immemorial, was to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Of course, werd be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably wonrt tell you itrs a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, sherll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists and insistmvehemently, evenmthat werre independent and self-sufficient and donrt believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we arenrt fish who can do without a bicycle, werre women who want a traditional family. And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I knowmno matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally securemfeels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.