The Friends Experience is coming to Toronto next month, and I literally CANNOT wait to attend and see the set with my own eyes. For those of you who’d been living under a rock for almost 30 years, ‘Friends’ is a show set in the 90’s that showcases six 20-something year old friends, three men and three women, living in New York. It starred Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer. It was also a show that helped me learn English when I first move to Canada as a teenager.
The show tackled some funny storylines, but also some serious ones that people go through everyday. One of them is the journey to motherhood. Or better yet, the different journeys to motherhood. Practically all bloggers and content creators who discuss the storylines that tackle women’s journeys to motherhood only discuss the three main female characters on the show. Everyone seems to forget the very first journey to motherhood on the show in the very first season when Ross was expecting a baby with his ex-wife, Carol, and her lesbian partner, Susan.
All four storylines showed very different and unconventional ways women become mothers. Ross’s storyline with Carol and Susan showed the significance of the love and affection of not only a step-parent, but a family of same-sex couple and a child as well. Phoebe represented motherhood through surrogacy when she offered to carry her brother and sister-in-law’s child, and she ended up carrying triplets, which is more common with an IVF procedure. Rachel represented single motherhood and co-parenting with a one-night stand (I made a mention about about the toxicity of her and Ross’s relationship in ‘A WOMAN’S ROLE IN RELATIONSHIPS AS REPRESENTED IN ENTERTAINMENT‘), and Monica represented infertility and becoming a mother through adoption.
I initially watched the show when it was still airing on NBC in the 2000’s. I couldn’t fully understand the significance of the four specific storylines that related to the different journeys to motherhood. I wasn’t even thinking about motherhood back then. Whether I’m a young teenage girl or an adult woman isn’t a factor on me truly understanding the significance of the journey to motherhood. Instead, the real factor is me going the unconventional journey to motherhood myself. Speaking from experience, not being able to have a child the ‘normal’ way sometimes feels like I’ve failed; like my body has failed. The conventional and ‘normal’ way of having children is a married couple having sex.
‘Friends’ was ahead of its time, though. It showed women that no matter how they became mothers, they were still mothers. Whether she’s a lesbian partner helping raise her partner’s child and loves the child just as much, she’s still a mother. Whether she had a child via a surrogate, she’s still a mother. Whether she had a one-night stand and raising a child on her own, she’s still a mother. And even if she’s a adoptive mother and not a biological one, but loves and nurtures the child just as much, she’s still a mother.
As of 2022, there are more and more women out there having children the unconventional way. The unconventional way has become the norm. We see so many women now even having children on their own. It just goes to show one thing and one thing only – there’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ journey to motherhood, and no matter what your journey to motherhood is or might’ve been, each journey is beautiful.
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