Personally, I would use the term ‘mentor’ instead. In fact, I don’t hear it used in the ‘wise one’ context - ever. Must be an archaic usage.

'Gone With the Wind' when Scarlett references Mrs. Merriweather, Aunt Pitty Pat and Mrs. Mead (all portrayed as intrusive busybodies as "old crones" ) Not sure why that image stuck, but it surely did.

So, I think there are two "C" words that will rile me if used in my direction. YMMV.

Another negative pejorative.

Three stages of women's lives - I refuse to let the a holes continue to demonize older women. Especially when I know why it's so important for them to do so.

i’m officially the bitchy old lady of the block. but when shit gets cray, ppl cry on my shoulder.
for the most part, if i tell u to fucking cut it out, u do. i might have to say it a few times, but…

i got tired of ppl thinking i’m a witch (true fact, many do.) and leaned into it early in the plague.
it has mostly proven useful, tho it makes it hard to get laid or hire contractors.

my tenants know better than to fuck w me, even tho i’m 5’2” 120#. i need that.

evolution doesnt give up yrs of possible fertility for nothing. grandmas r y we r what we r.

(although thank goodness for that part, no more creepers or catcalling)

There was a series on life in the Paleolithic ages that was mostly informative and occasionally surprising but they had one astonishingly stupid woman on who pointed out that women who survived childbirth lived on into old age, but all she could see them doing was baby sitting while the young women picked berries.

We know from watching orcas and close primate relatives that older females who aren't actively breeding take on leadership roles within their groups. An old woman past breeding would be a phenomenal storehouse of information on just about everything the group would need to survive, the knowledge passed down through generations. Observations of wild troupes of rhesus monkeys have shown that when males learn a new skill, they use it but don't share it. When a female learns a new skill, she teaches her offspring.

The patriarchal devaluation of women past breeding age has likely cost us a tremendous amount of basic human knowledge. It has certainly deprived us of leadership that thinks with their heads instead of their gonads.

You can expect all sorts of insults as a childfree woman, people (even supposedly liberal people) would never dare visiting on someone who has popped out the obligatory 2-20 kids with an appropriate dead-eyed mate .

Have kids or don’t -it is not some amazing feat.

And it is an overpopulated planet. I always wish people would address it from the left so that it would not be that only bigots and racists address it (because one way or the other it is a reality that people notice).

Just saying “educate women” without explicitly pointing out that family planning is a social service is bullshit.

And women like me who choose to not have a kid (in my case both for the planet and to prioritize my own career/work ) don’t appreciate trashy decisions devaluing our lives.

Look at any other bigotry, find sexual references of one type or another.

Liberal people are not really bigoted against the childfree, but maybe it is true that for people who are great parents it is hard to be able to understand that childfree people can be happy and fulfilled..even my own mom initially thought that way a bit because she and I were close and she loved raising me..she was a great parent. So in the cool people I think it is that they are so happy in their kids that they think it is a shame to miss out on that.

But then it is not feasible for everyone to “have it all”. That is the infinite everything worldview. I would only be able to pull off a job I really liked or a kid with a job I found somewhat meh. One has to be realistic about one’s limitations.

I think it is great when cool people can pull off both a challenging and time consuming job and a kid. Otoh there are also people who “have it all” whose lives I just don’t want…the sort of hyper-competitive, status conscious tiger parenting etc. That looks like no fun at all. Otoh really enjoying having a kid rather than the obligatory kids is cool. Those are cooler people.

My old colleagues were examples of people who seemed like great parents and good at challenging jobs. My mom otoh quit physics to go into banking because she found physics increasingly hard after her masters and so she quit and went into banking which she never liked or bought I suppose. As a former physicist she found economics too soft to be credible I guess*.
So she used to candidly admit to me that her life became all about having a random job and focusing on me. We were close..I miss her every single day..She was no tiger parent.

I still persevere at science because she told me she always regretted leaving science. She said that if she had had a job she loved she wouldn’t have cared whether she had a family or not.


(*: I find the notion of infinite growth whether it is overconsumption or human overpopulation glaringly absurd. Usually it comes at unackowledged costs like ecological crises; horrifying production sources like factory farming or democracy destroying surveillance capitalism packing people into slummier and slummier circumstances. I think the left being silent about human overpopulation is a bad idea since racists and bigots never mind talking about it or signaling about it (and of course in entirely wrong-headed and insane ways it should go without saying, but still best explicitly said). The worlds being built are often just unsustainable..but I have found ways to steward such resources as I have at my disposal as well as I can..it is a work in progress usually).

while I was still married. I'd put on a mournful face and say "god has not seen fit to bless us." That kicked the whole thing upstairs and shut them up.

The tough part was glaring at people who knew me so they wouldn't ruin it by laughing, I'm kinda the poster child for the "out" atheist.

Good for you Warpy..I have enjoyed your posts over the years . It is an absurd assumption..
I am also an out atheist..