"If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me, I could fit in at least one, maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children"
About this Quote
It’s the kind of sentence that smuggles a gut-punch inside a spreadsheet. Quindlen opens with the cool authority of actuarial math - “statisticians say” - as if longevity were a clean, purchasable commodity. Then she flips the premise: forty years isn’t just time, it’s capacity. “One, maybe two new lifetimes” reframes aging not as decline but as an expansion of possible selves, a modern, choice-heavy fantasy of reinvention.
That buoyant prospect is immediately booby-trapped by the last line. The word “Sad” lands bluntly, almost journalistically unadorned, because she’s not performing wistfulness; she’s issuing a verdict. The subtext is the cruel asymmetry of adult freedom: you can start new careers, new loves, even new cities, but you can’t restart the particular intimacy and exhaustion of being needed by small children once that season passes. Time lengthens; the window narrows.
The quote’s intent is less personal confession than cultural critique. It speaks to late-20th-century (and very current) narratives sold to ambitious adults - especially women - that life can be optimized: delay, plan, keep options open, have it all in sequence. Quindlen punctures that logic with a biological and emotional constraint you can’t hack. The line doesn’t romanticize motherhood; it mourns its irreproducibility. In a culture obsessed with “next chapters,” she’s insisting some chapters don’t reboot, and that’s not failure. It’s the cost of a life that only runs once.
That buoyant prospect is immediately booby-trapped by the last line. The word “Sad” lands bluntly, almost journalistically unadorned, because she’s not performing wistfulness; she’s issuing a verdict. The subtext is the cruel asymmetry of adult freedom: you can start new careers, new loves, even new cities, but you can’t restart the particular intimacy and exhaustion of being needed by small children once that season passes. Time lengthens; the window narrows.
The quote’s intent is less personal confession than cultural critique. It speaks to late-20th-century (and very current) narratives sold to ambitious adults - especially women - that life can be optimized: delay, plan, keep options open, have it all in sequence. Quindlen punctures that logic with a biological and emotional constraint you can’t hack. The line doesn’t romanticize motherhood; it mourns its irreproducibility. In a culture obsessed with “next chapters,” she’s insisting some chapters don’t reboot, and that’s not failure. It’s the cost of a life that only runs once.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mother |
|---|
More Quotes by Anna
Add to List
