Betty White was brilliant. Why should we care that she didn’t have kids?

Betty White is being eulogised as “America’s Grandmother”. But isn’t it time we figured out how to pay tribute to women without turning them into matriarchs?

I tried to count up Betty White’s accolades yesterday. It was tough, and not just because I’m crap with numbers.

I lost my place countless times as I scrolled through a seemingly endless list of her on-screen projects, extending to a staggering 118 TV shows, 33 movies, 27 award wins and 57 nominations. The Golden Girl had golden trophies piling up on every flat surface – and that’s before we even get started on her books, music videos, support for the LGBTQ+ community, animal advocacy, charity projects and quotes about the weakness of balls…

White’s accomplishments then, were as sparkling as her wit. And yet, should the headlines of countless media ‘tributes’ be believed, the most important number by which to judge her life was zero – the number of biological children she had. 

“I’ve never regretted it,” White said once of her decision not to procreate. “I’m so compulsive about stuff, I know if I had ever gotten pregnant, of course, that would have been my whole focus. But I didn’t choose to have children because I’m focused on my career. I just don’t think, as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both.”

The quote is old, but since White’s death on December 31 – mere weeks before her 100th birthday – it’s taken a starring role in countless think pieces exploring White’s child-free status. It got top billing in The New York Times, under the headline ‘Why Betty White decided not to have children during her long life’. There it was again in People, which went with ‘Why Betty White never had kids of her own’. It featured again when The Sunasked ‘Did Betty White have children?’ , and again, even more bizarrely, in Closer Weekly’s questionably titled article ‘Betty White Kids: A Guide to the Actress’ 3 Stepchildren’.

I could go on – but as none of us are strangers to a woman’s legacy being hung on her reproductive record, I’m sure you get the picture.

A life of joy

Despite generating so many headlines, White’s take on motherhood is far from her most interesting pontification on life. In fact, as quotes go, it’s not even her most interesting take on regret, which must surely be this gem: “My answer to anything under the sun like ‘What have you not done in the business that you’ve always wanted to do?’ is ‘Robert Redford’.”

While she never actually managed to ‘do’ him, White would presumably have been delighted this week to read Redford’s admission that he had “a crush on her, too”. Strangely though, despite being 85, a father of four and a grandfather of five, in all the coverage of his tribute, I’m yet to see Redford referred to as ‘America’s Grandfather’.

Not so Betty, who was known as ‘America’s Grandmother’ even before her death and has been eulogised as such in every corner of the US media since. I’m sure it’s meant as a term of respect, an illustration of a nation’s love. But in painting White as a matriarch, aren’t we doing a disservice to her unapologetically brilliant life?

White was a trailblazer. Bold, bolshy and brilliant, her achievements were extraordinary for any human, let alone for a woman of her generation. For all that she must have had a core of steel, her life story positively reeks of joie de vivre.

Yet despite the groundbreaking accolades, the heartfelt advocacy and her hilariously memorable take on life, the media’s desire to see her as a maternal figure looms large, her death reminding us of society’s continuing obsession with the state of every notable woman’s womb.

It’s a distraction that continues today – see any Jennifer Aniston tabloid story for proof. Yet in Betty White, it misses the point even more entirely than usual. For White’s brilliance lay in her ability to defy every expectation thrown at her.

What we should be celebrating is a woman who lived entirely contrary to the rules. Who chose not to have children at a time when birth rates in the USA were at their peak. Who divorced twice before 1950 when it was still taboo, only to find true love in her early forties when women of her age were still expected to fade into the background. Who relished every year life gave her, made friends seemingly wherever she went, and did it all unabashedly, with a smile on her face and a joke on her lips.

"But sweetie, I don't think of all this as work,” White said recently when asked where her continuing energy stemmed from. “It's fun. I'm so grateful for my good fortune. I'm the luckiest broad on two feet.”

So, while it’s unquestionably wonderful to see an older woman being revered as an icon, wouldn’t the best tribute be to remember White for all that she was, rather than for what she was not?

If we could look up to her example of how to live a life that’s true, rather than one boxed in by societal expectation? If we could laugh at her jokes rather than lament her choices, and follow her lead into 2022 with an unapologetic lust for life and gratitude for life’s multitudinous joys?

That truly would make lucky broads of all of us.