Offspring

Asher Keddie & Kat Stewart

There's a show on Australian TV my wife likes to watch called Offspring. On the positive side, Offspring does show some of the nicer bits of inner Melbourne; it is quirkily humorous; and it shows the female characters as being just as flawed as the male ones. And the two lead female characters, Asher Keddie and Kat Stewart, are both attractive women.

But there is one aspect of the show which grates. Offspring brings delayed family formation into prime time.

The show is relationships focused. One sister (Keddie) is still dating inappropriate men; the other (Stewart) is partnered to an arty type of inner city man and is attempting to embark on motherhood.

The problem is that Keddie is a 37-year-old actress and Stewart is 38. The character played by Keddie is not really grown up yet. Nor is she choosing men she might reasonably end up marrying.

So we're expected to sit down and watch two actresses in their late 30s in the midst of dating and relationships drama you would more reasonably expect from women in their 20s.

What's more, the show plays to the vanities of "late bloomer" women by showing them going out with younger men (Stewart's on screen partner is played by a 34-year-old man; the Keddie character is going out with a young intern).

If the answer to this is "it's just a TV show, it's not real life, no-one would take the message seriously", then I'd point to the real life circumstances of both actresses. This is how things stand with Kat Stewart:

Stewart .... hopes to have a family. "That's something I definitely want to do," she says. "I do love children. In five years' time, it would be nice to have a kid or two."

She admits starting a family isn't something she'd given a lot of thought to until recently... But given she'll turn 39 in November, she's all too aware that priorities now have to be made.   [Sunday Herald Sun Magazine, June 12, 2011]

Priorities now have to be made? She's about to turn 39! As for Asher Keddie, she still, at age 37, hasn't made up her mind about children:

Keddie has always been open about the fact she isn’t sure if children are on the cards. “I feel so good about the way life is unfolding with my incredible husband. We’re living the life we always wanted and I just don’t know if children are going to be part of it.”

Which makes her curious as to why the question keeps coming up. “Why do people want to know? I don’t care if people want to have kids or not. But I’m not sure how I feel about it, so to discuss it any further would feel too personal, I suppose.”

I think it's a pity. Here we have two intelligent, attractive, married women and it's possible that neither of them will become mothers because the whole issue of motherhood has been pushed back in their lives to such a late age.