That’s what Dr. Kay Trimberger observed in her ten-year study of single working women’s varied lifestyles. Single women today are pioneers–looking beyond traditional forms and breaking new ground to find ways to incorporate intimacy, connections with younger generations, friendship, sensuality, and so on into our lives.
She observed that the most satisfying single lives were supported by six pillars that the individual woman had mastered in some way:
a. Make a home – decorating, gardening, cooking
b. Work – meaningful, joyful but not workaholic
c. Network of friends and extended family – takes good social skills to achieve
d. Community – network(s) of connections through church, politics, work
e. Connection to next generation – relatives, friends, mentoring, other approaches
f. Sexuality – from creative celibacy, to widely varying arrangements with lovers, to other ways of incorporating sensuality
She was surprised to learn that the middle-class single women she studied came from the same types of typical middle class families as married women. They didn’t have significantly more or less dysfunction in their early lives–as many people would suggest as a reason why women remain single.
Perhaps her most fascinating observation was that the least happy single women she studied were those who put most of their energy into either finding or keeping a partner.
Dr. Trimberger urges all single women to claim what is good about their lives. That we should feel free to do what we want–not what society tells us to do. Listen to her thoughtful interview on the new pioneering single woman of today.
