Yeah....but they don't have to give up on it completely, either. Women can realign their dreams to work within the reality of what currently possible.

They can partner with another woman to raise their kids together.

They can stay within their family of origin to raise children.

They can wait till later in life and have established themselves enough to go it alone and not having many children.

They can start demanding pre ups and trust funds for what they lose out on in the workforce having children and caretaking.

A lot of older women need help because theyre not financially stable. And they often have houses. A younger woman could partner with an older woman, help keep the house up and provide care and engagement in exchange for childcare in order for mom to work.

If all men want to be is a sperm donor and a beast of burden....who are we to argue? If people have a right to choose how they want to live their life and that's their choice, what right do we have to force them into a life they don't want? Let them go.

Look. By now we all know that the village ain't showing up. We can continue playing Cinderella, waiting around for a man to come and build a village and a support network for us....in case it'll get done right after the cabinet door and the toilet handle we've been trying to get him to fix gets done. In other words, never.

Or....

We can start thinking realigning, thinking about how pods could work, and build our own support networks from the ground up from the start based on what we know we need, instead of making do with pieced together scraps left over from what they keep telling us we need.

It's our choice and it's our responsibility.

We can have the families we want but we can't force someone to be a part of that who has expressly said in all the ways that they don't want it. Believe them. Trust that they know what they want. And move on.