She didn't get the memo?

Hayley Hendrix

Hayley Hendrix is a Perth woman who, being single in her early 40s, used a sperm donor she found on Facebook to conceive a child.

She's not alone in doing this, but she is right in line with modern ideology in how she frames her life choices.

Why did she wait until 42 to become a mother? She very honestly describes how she spent her prime years of youthful fertility:

I'm really ready at 42 to be a mother. I was too career focused, too 'me-oriented' to have done this a decade ago. I was living in Los Angeles – it was a hectic lifestyle and there is a real Peter Pan syndrome going on there.

'You almost never grow up and I suppose this is how I missed the memo for motherhood,' Ms Hendrix said.

'I was thinking of where to travel next, what bar was the coolest place to be seen at, who was the coolest person to hang out with.

'Life now is a world apart, filled with unwashed hair and dirty nappies. And I couldn’t be happier. I am more fulfilled now than I ever have been.'

Ms Hendrix explained that living in LA, she felt a void that is gone now. These days, she feels deeply rewarded by the simple things in life.

'Remy’s smile has filled my heart,' she proudly told Femail.

'I am really present with him – he is getting all of me so it is the best of both worlds for the two of us. Not only did I have a miracle child, I really found my purpose.'

It's not that there were no potential fathers to be had, but that she followed the liberal script and spent her younger years in pursuit of an "expressive individualism" in which we focus on those things we can choose as autonomous individuals, such as career, travel and food - as well as casual, uncommitted relationships.

Hayley Hendrix admits that this realm of choice was not genuinely fulfilling or purposeful, and that she has found herself in motherhood, but she just can't let go of her ideological commitments. This is how she justifies single motherhood:

Ms Hendrix wants women to know that they are the authors of their own story, and that regardless of their relationship status, they too can become a mother just like her.

She added that while she acknowledges that there are strangers out there who may disagree with her choice, she wants to share her story publicly to show women that there is no 'right' way to have children.

'It's about breaking down stigma and purely traditional ways of thinking.'

So she's learnt nothing. Instead of admitting "I should not have wasted my prime fertile years doing insubstantial things" she is instead claiming to be a liberal heroine who is the author of her own story (autonomous) and who is breaking down traditional ways of thinking (i.e. breaking down limits on individual choice).

It was this focus on maximising autonomous choice that got her into trouble in the first place, yet she is doubling down on it and encouraging other women to do the same thing.

And it's a lie. She claims that there is no right way to have children. Yet her child will grow up without having a father in his life. And she herself, as a mother, will lose the depth of love and support that would have come from a relationship with the father of her child. She is pushing toward a kind of spiritual barrenness or sterility in denying our more profound relational needs in favour of an "I can choose any which way" mentality.

We are "creatures" in the sense of having a given, created nature and therefore there are necessarily limits on what we can rightly choose if we wish to genuinely flourish as individuals within a community.

There are even leftists now who are using the word "slave" to express how they feel within a modern, liberal society. They are expressing a deeper intuition here, that freedom is not really being able to choose insubstantial things as an autonomous individual. We do not really experience this as a state of control or agency, but as powerlessness over ourselves and our society. In the classical tradition, freedom was more usually understood as an acquired ability to govern ourselves, through habits of virtue, which would then give rise to communities oriented the same way, i.e. in which men were able to apply self-limitations not only to preserve political freedoms, but to live within a community that was able to orient itself toward the good.

Hayley Hendrix changed her surname after having her Facebook baby:

Ms Hendrix, formerly Hayley Chapman, changed her surname as a result of her experience with social media sperm donation to represent the new chapter she had forged for herself and baby Remy.

'I did it to show that Remy and I are a family in our own right.

'I am my own person on my own mission –I don’t need to wait for someone else.'

I'm not sure what exactly to make of this. I suspect, though, that it is another assertion of individual autonomy, in the form of rejecting a connection both to the past and future. Usually our surname marks a particular family lineage that connects us to generations past, present and future. When you select your own surname, to mark yourself as "a family in our own right", then it is just you and the baby as a one generational unit and identity.

It's noteworthy that Hayley Hendrix is a very good looking woman. In most eras, she would have had no trouble finding a high quality man to form a family with. Yet, having embraced the liberal anticulture, she found herself in her later 30s "desperately seeking" motherhood. All she aspired to by this time was to be impregnated by an anonymous man.

It doesn't have to be this way. Last week I visited a family I've known for a couple of years now. I walked in at a good time - they were all on the couch, laughing together - father, mother, three children and another on the way. You could sense the familial love, of the kind that most people aspire to.

The parents have achieved this at a relatively early age, early 30s at the most. How? In their case, they have a serious commitment to an independent church, and therefore to marriage, family and parenthood.

Now, a lot of churches have collapsed into liberal modernity, and many more will not resist liberalism when it comes to issues of nation and identity. But this family nonetheless illustrates the point, that if there is an active community of people, with serious and explicit non-liberal commitments, that a culture different to the liberal mainstream, with different social outcomes, can be generated.

A note to Melbourne readers. If you are sympathetic to the ideas of this website, please visit the site of the Melbourne Traditionalists. It's important that traditionalists don't remain isolated from each other; our group provides a great opportunity for traditionalists to meet up and connect. Details at the website.