Happy International Women’s Day
When asked what woman I admire most, I am overwhelmed flipping through my inspirational female rolodex. Gretchen Rubin, happiness expert, author, and podcaster immediately comes to mind. Gretchen’s organizational frameworks, including her accountability matrix, have continually weaved seamlessly into my life. Payal Kadakia, founder of ClassPass, also comes to mind. Payal created more than an app - she created a new way to approach fitness. She changed how I workout, turning my days on the elliptical at Crunch into a smorgasbord of boutique studios across the globe. Ruth Reichl, former NY Times food critic is a woman I follow with a passion, devouring her books and articles, wondering if I too can make a living one day eating around NYC. My mother, Eileen Hoffman, sits in my rolodex too. Eileen worked hard to build a life for me that many people can only dream of, with access to education, culture, and love. It’s never lost on me that her sacrifices were for my gain.
When a woman inspires me, I am often looking for a quality they have that I might also have, or aspire to have one day. Like Gretchen, I graduated law school but don’t practice today. Maybe I can become an author like Gretchen. Similar to Payal, exercise studios are my happy place, my escape from everything. Maybe I can be like Payal, and turn a need I see in the world into a company. Like Ruth, I have a deep understanding of the NYC restaurant landscape, reading Eater as often as I read the Times. Maybe I can be like Ruth and write about food one day. Like my mother, I am passionate about building the best life I can lead. Maybe like Eileen, I can find more ways to find the best the world has to offer and fold it into my life.
As I search for traits in these admirable women that I might also have, I notice that there is a role they all play that I will never play, and that is the role of mother. I do not have children nor do I ever want to have children. Even though the traits I admire about these women are not related to their role as mother, I still feel a slight disconnect between me and them, knowing they did everything while raising children. That’s why I have a prominent card in my rolodex for Chelsea Handler, a woman who is childless by choice. Chelsea Handler’s standup specials, book, and podcast speak to the comedic tendencies I have. I admire her raw honesty, ability to bring important issues to the stage, and her hilarious videos on life without kids. Although more women are choosing not to have children, being childless by choice still feels like being the left-handed kid in the classroom who needs special scissors for an art project. Not being a mother is a defining characteristic in my life, but also feels complicated to feel defined by something I’m not, versus something I am.
This International Women’s Day, I want to focus on adding more inspirational women to my rolodex, regardless of whether or not they are childless like me. Too often, people define themselves by their relationships to others. Someone might identify as a wife, mother, dog pawrent, or employee, all of which are great roles to play and relationships to have. But the relationship I most admire in a person is the one they have with themselves. I want to admire a woman for the relationship she has to her own identity, not just the role she plays in serving others.
This distinction became apparent to me after my father died of COVID in March, 2020. My parents would have celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary that year. With so many years together, it is no surprise that parts of their identities were intertwined. Now that my Dad is gone, people act like his shared identity with my Mom died with him, leaving my Mom to fight for her own living identity. She was a great wife to my Dad and continues to be an amazing Mom to me, but what’s more admirable is who she is to herself. What inspires me every day is my Mom’s passion for the things she loves. When my Mom loves something, she is all in. I dare you to find someone more invested in Broadway than my Mother, going to every show, knowing every actor, donating to amazing Broadway causes, and being the first person at the new Museum of Broadway. I try to be just like Eileen, finding new things to love about life and going all in.
Women wear so many hats, play so many roles, and are expected to be the queens of juggling several balls in the air and catching them when they fall. As we celebrate women this month, and hopefully every other month of the year too, I encourage you to see how women around you show up for themselves, and find ways to support them in their most important role - the role of an individual.
