I Hate The Phrase "Late Bloomer"
Because late according to who?
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver.
I hate the phrase “late bloomer.” I know this community has found comfort in it from time to time and I don’t begrudge us our balms, but I’m not sold on this one. It feels a bit old guard to me. It implies the existence of a “correct” life timeline that society is willing to praise, a “late” one that society is still willing to praise but with a caveat, and those who never “bloom” at all…tough shit for us I guess? There’s a sigh of relief to “late bloomer” that’s still prioritizing norms that shrink singles. Have you ever noticed that we only use this term when we’re talking about women?
My disdain for “late bloomer” spilled out of me recently while I was recording an episode of my podcast, longtime listeners will know that many things spill out of me when there’s a microphone in front of my face. One of the things that consistently pisses me off in this line of work is the nearly global commitment to comparing singles to people who are not singles, and doing it in such a way that singlehood always sounds worse. But it’s not. We know it’s not, we don’t play that game anymore. So I have to ask: Do some people bloom late, or do more people bloom early?