Tired of a culture that only seems to acknowledge domestic achievements, XOJane's Shayla Pierce says that she and her unmarried friends make a point to honor one another's personal, nonmarital, non-baby milestones.
So if I never have kids or get married, I'll never get to pillage a department store, armed with an electronic scanner and an unearned sense of entitlement? So not fair.
(You might remember this same dilemma from an episode of "Sex and the City.")
Even as a teenager, I knew this was messed up. Culturally, the life of a single woman just isn't celebrated until, through marriage or childbirth, that life becomes dedicated to another person. So I've taken matters into my own hands.
My few friends that remain unwed and childless have joined forces to create a secret society called "The Yacht Club." We call ourselves "The Yacht Club" mostly because our leader names everything she cares about after a rap song. But the premise of the club is simple: All the members gather up all of our disposable income to celebrate each other's non-domestic achievements …
It's just our way of saying to say to one another, "I appreciate all your fabulous single girl achievements, even if no one else does."
Read Shayla Pierce's entire piece at XOJane.
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.