Lucy Hale is Normalizing *Not* Following the Traditional Timeline for Marriage and Motherhood

One of the defining elements of millennial womanhood is the range of options that lie before us. We’ve normalized the fluidity of timelines and have generally just rewritten the rules of #adulting for fellow women…yet there are still so many narratives and ideas about the “right” time to make major life moves. And Lucy Hale is here to speak on it. 

Hale has accomplished so much: She’s had a big acting career (most famously, she played Aria on Pretty Little Liars, an absolute millennial pop culture juggernaut), and she’s been really vocal about her own sobriety journey.

But even she isn’t immune to the messages about what a woman in her 30s “should” do. Hale spoke about this on a recent episode of the Know Thyself podcast. 

"I'm 36. I'm not married and I don't have kids….and I just feel like there's a lot of women who probably need to hear that it's okay to not have that,” she said. She also noted that people have ~reactions~ to Hale not being married or a mom at this phase in her life.

Here’s the thing: I got married in my 28s and was a mom by 30. There’s nothing wrong with being married or having kids in your 20s, but there’s also nothing wrong with…not doing it that way. Delaying marriage and parenthood or opting out of them entirely are completely valid options. And data indicates they’re becoming more and more common. 

Online, there are so many narratives about “bitter single 30 year old women”. We’re in a moment of traditionalism, and I fear some of the progress we’ve made around letting women figure out their own paths will be threatened. But like…screw that. We’re all on different timelines and that’s fine. More than fine, actually — it's freeing.

There's no right or wrong way to do this, and we've got to stop holding women to these outdated timelines.