Let's all leave Lily Allen alone
Why are we still taking a woman's words out of context? And more to the point, why are mothers still being told that having children will ruin their lives?
This week during a conversation for the Radio Times Podcast, Lily Allen admitted that becoming a mother altered the trajectory of her career.
“My children ruined my career…” she said, frankly.
And immediately, every mother or mother-to-be listening raised their eyebrows either in recognition or rage.
Like most who read the headlines swirling the internet this week, I was filled with a mixture of emotions. Firstly, relief and gratitude that someone with such a huge platform felt vulnerable enough to share the simple truth that yes, having kids can sometimes feel like taking a sledgehammer to your career—or at least the version of the career you once held in your mind. Cue: recognition.
But in the same breath, I also felt frustrated and exhausted by the media’s (once again) destructive agenda, essentially taking a few words from a conversation completely out of context. Cue: rage.
If you go on to click on any one of the many (many!) articles from around the globe that have shared this story over the last few days, you will discover that Lily Allen was not, in fact, throwing her children under the bus or blaming them in any way for the demise of her career. But what she was actually saying was that in choosing to have children and consciously making the decision to step back from her persona as a pop star, her career was forever changed. Disappointingly however, these facts are almost always buried at the end of the article.
What’s also even more important to note is that if you take the time to listen to Allen’s quote in context, she was laughing—essentially poking fun at the patriarchal narrative we’ve all been conditioned to believe that says we can have both children and a career and feel completely and utterly fulfilled.
“I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t,” says Allen.
Again, taken out of context this storyline can be extremely destructive as it feels like fearmongering—telling women that their decision to have children will without question destroy their lives (in one sense or another). But the reality is that what Allen was deftly trying to articulate was that actually, this narrative is incorrect in the sense that while we are sold the story of having it all, the reality is that often, we can’t dedicate the same time, energy or resources to both our careers and our lives as parents in equal measure. And there’s the difference.
“Some people choose their career over their children, and that’s their prerogative. But my parents were quite absent when I was a kid, and I feel like that really left some nasty scars that I’m not willing to, you know, repeat on mine,” Allen said.
Nobody is saying that women can’t have (or do) it all. But there is thankfully some sort of semblance of agreement amongst working mothers that perhaps we can’t have (or do) both things equally at the same time—or at least in the same way that we imagined we would prior to having children.
There are also so many variables that must be considered—not in the least, an individual’s personal circumstances. For some of us, choosing to work after having our children feels less like a choice and more of a necessity.
Once again however, it feels that no matter which side of the fence you fall on, women are being berated for their choice. If we choose work over our children, we’re judged because we have been told that a mother’s presence in a child’s life it of the utmost importance for their development. We must be completely selfless, no matter the cost.
But if we choose our children over our work, we’re similarly judged for making a choice that holds less value within society. Simply put, SAHM’s are not seen to be as important as those who choose to work.
Just this morning in fact, I shared a post on my Instagram that spoke to resisting the pressures placed on us as mothers by society.
I resist the culturally induced urge to push myself to dream bigger.
What if this is my big dream?
To do purposeful work at a pace that lets me enjoy it alongside my family as best I can.
That will be my big dream.
So instead of using Lily Allen’s words as clickbait to shame mothers into thinking that whatever choice they have made for them and their family is wrong—perhaps we should be reframing the conversation more broadly to illustrate what Allen was really saying: that motherhood is essentially just a season. Sure, her career might look different to how she once imagined it might—but given her children are now aged 11 and 12, she can also recognise that she is now entering a new season. Not better, not worse—just different.
I’ve written a lot of words over the last few years about the monumental shift in identity I’ve personally felt since becoming a mother and how I’m doing my best to surrender to the season I’m in. And like Allen, I could easily say that having children “ruined” my career—but I could also say that having children has reshaped my career in a way I never dreamed was possible pre-kids. It has made me reconsider my priorities and my dreams have shifted. They might not be bigger than they were before, but they feel more aligned to the woman I am—as well as the woman I’m becoming.
And that feels pretty damn good.