Melanie Notkin
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Career
Notkin coined the acronym PANK in 2008 after working as a marketing executive. She defined PANKs as women who love children but lack their own due to "circumstance, choice or challenge".[3] In 2018, she conducted a study that found that nearly half of such women are childless by circumstance.[3] Her initial interest in defining PANKs for marketing purposes evolved toward a means of social connection and self-affirmation, countering stereotypes like 'cold career woman' or 'irresponsible party girl' with the empowering recognition of an important maternal role.[4]
Notkin founded a website for childless women who seek goods and experiences to share with the children of their siblings or friends.[5] In Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, And All Women Who Love Kids, Notkin discussed how aunts can be allies to both kids and their parents. She recommended striking a "delicate balance between being a fun role model and a disciplinarian".[6] She described herself as an 'auntrepreneur'.[7]
Notkin's book Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness chronicled what she called 'circumstantial infertility', encountered by single women who desire motherhood but only after finding a partner.[8] She has advocated for sensitivity toward the 'disenfranchised grief' of childless single women who experience feelings of loss unbeknownst to others.[9]
Criticism
Notkin's use of the term 'other' was criticized by linguist Robin Lakoff as a misuse of irony for readers with 'irony deficiency anemia'.[10] Some readers of Otherhood commented in online forums that Notkin's emphasis on childlessness by circumstance, rather than by choice, was off-putting.[10] Notkin argued that her book put 'otherhood' in a positive light by freeing single childless women from allowing others to define them.[10]
Works
- Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness (Seal Press, 2014) ISBN 978-1580055215[11]
- Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and all Women Who Love Kids (Morrow, 2011) ISBN 978-0061999970[12]