Careful what you say!
We know this woman takes names
and she sure kicks ass . . .
Posted on 10/13/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Eurotwit
Women who put off getting pregnant until past their mid-thirties are ‘defying nature and risk the heartbreak of infertility, miscarriage or other complications,’ began an article in my morning paper a week or so ago. I put down my toast and read on with the grim fascination of someone who turned 30 this summer and is beginning to feel the first twinges of anxiety about the vigour of her own ovaries.
The piece quoted a woman called Susan Bewley, a consultant obstetrician and one of the authors of a report on fertility in the British Medical Journal. ‘Women want to “have it all” but biology is unchanged,’ said Bewley. ‘The best time to have a baby is up to 35. It always was and it always will be. Paradoxically, the availability of IVF may lull women into infertility.’
Bewley went on to talk about the whopping cost that older women having less healthy babies is putting on the National Health Service, and concluded that women must be persuaded to have babies younger. ‘I don’t want to blame women or make them feel anxious or frightened,’ she said. ‘The reasons for these difficulties lie not with women but with a distorted and uninformed view from society, employers and health planners.’
How nice of Dr Bewley not to blame us for what she calls ‘the epidemic of delayed pregnancy’, but I think she has the wrong end of the stick. Women of my age have not been lulled into a false sense of fertility. We aren’t yet frightened — I hear outright fear kicks in at 40 — but we are well aware of the dangers of trying to have children once we’re past our reproductive prime. We’re informed and beginning to be concerned.
We’re also pretty clued up about why our generation is delaying having children — and it has nothing to do with being failed by employers or health planners. Nor, despite endless newspaper features on the subject, does it have much to do with business women putting careers before babies. In my experience, the root cause of the epidemic lies with a collective failure of nerve among men our age.
How many young women do you know, happily married or the equivalent, who are wilfully refusing to have children now at the risk of running the gauntlet of IVF in five years time? Quite.
Dr Bewley accuses women of ‘playing Russian roulette’ with nature, but the point is we’re only interested in having babies if they are fathered by men we love and who are going to stick around and enjoy bringing the little brutes up. By the time they hit their mid-thirties even the most dedicated career women are ready to do some nesting — even if that means grudgingly accepting that our careers are more likely to suffer than our mate’s and that we’ll probably end up changing most of the nappies. The trouble is that very few of our male contemporaries are what you might call twig in beak.
There’s many a slip betwixt having an amusing, attractive boyfriend and the pair of you committing to the long haul of marriage and children. I know dozens of delightful men of my age and considerably older who say they want to get married one day. They will even go as far as talking about how comparatively young their own fathers were when they sired them, and fret about how geriatric they’ll be by the time they have a son of their own to kick a ball about with. Yet they are careful to preserve the idea of getting married and/or settling down as purely hypothetical and entirely out of their control — as though a meteorite might hit the earth one day and when they come to they’ll be at the altar. In the meantime they concentrate on having as much immediate fun as they can and dodge thinking about next month or next year for as long as possible.
And who can blame them? If our biological clocks didn’t jump-start us into wanting babies, I think many women would do the same. Ours is a generation that has grown up with the luxury of being able to pretty much please ourselves — especially when it comes to our romantic lives. The power of parental pressure and societal disapproval has all but evaporated. Nobody is made an honest woman of anymore. These days the only reason to marry or commit to anyone is because you really, really want to and you think you’re going to carry on really wanting to. Yet the whole art of pleasing oneself is remaining free to do just that — something to which the arrival of a small child could prove an obstacle.
No one ever said biology was fair. I have accepted that in real terms I am suddenly much older than my male friends. When a great friend who turned 30 within weeks of me came round to discuss our shared milestone, it emerged that I was already bracing myself for my 40th birthday. He, needless to say, still thought of himself as being in his early twenties and claimed to have never considered a future with his girlfriend of two years’ standing because he ‘wasn’t ready for all that’. Of course not every man his age is in a state of prolonged adolescence, but a critical mass of them are. I recently went to a wedding where the presiding vicar actually congratulated the groom on having enough ‘backbone’ to commit to marriage while his spineless contemporaries squirmed in their pews.
I don’t know a woman of my age whose version of living happily ever after fundamentally hinges on becoming editor, or senior partner, or surgeon, or leading counsel. But faced with a generation of emotionally immature men who seem to view marriage as the last thing they’ll do before they die, we have little option but to wait, busy ourselves with making the most of our careers and hope that Mr Non-Phobic Right eventually makes himself known to us before our ovaries pack up completely.
As I finished my breakfast and contemplated my chances of a decade of heartbreak, I wondered whether women will be the only losers in this epidemic of delayed pregnancies. Isn’t it possible that, just as I have no interest in a relationship with someone significantly older than me, when the men of my generation get to the dark side of 40 they’ll tire of dating girls who are now revising for their GCSEs? They’ll still have a fighting chance of producing a few nippers, of course — but will they do it by settling for a much younger companion who falls far short of the intellectually equal but by now hopelessly barren soulmate they went out with in their thirties?
What can Dr Bewley and co. do to get them ready for fatherhood before their mid-forties? I fear that even Jane Austen wouldn’t have the answer to this one.
And what does she supposes causes that "failure of nerve"? Could it be feminism leads to sexually liberated women leads to men who live in an arrested adolescent stage until their 60's leading to lonely, angry women in their 30's who finally want to commit but can't?
Naah, gotta be something else.
It is infinitely better not to be married at all than to be married to a harpy.
She's right on several points. Too many men are just not interested in getting married today until later in life. Most of us haven't matured enough yet to truly appreciate the job of being husbands and fathers so we wait and pursue more self indulgent pleasures and pursuits. It is better to do it later in life after you have developed some sense of responsibility as well as self.
Modern women don't help themselves by being loose and acting like men with respect to disposable relationships and thinking that they can wait forever.
She's caught between a rock and a hard place. If a woman wants kids she should be looking to procreate with the right sort of man, not a 30 something adolescent. Too many men are still committed to that sort of lifestyle though.
Every woman I know who is faced with fertility problems didn't "put off having children" for careers or anything else. It wasn't until later in life that they finally married and found someone who wanted to be a father.
That's what adoption agencies are for. There's plenty of kids out there who need a good home.
I do all mine and some of the kids'.
I also get extra credit because my MiL recently caught me ironing some of my wife's clothes, and almost had a heart attack from the shock. :-) (Well, extra credit for the ironing, not for the near-coronary ... my MiL's a nice lady ... oh never mind!! ;-))
Wow, what venom ... this is a really nice cross-section of angry, kneejerk responses we have going here.
I agree that the best relationships are those that came out of situations when no relationship was expected. Like here at FR, and in other like forums, common interest groups etc. So when things happen to folks like Petronski/Cyborg & HairoftheDog/Ecurbh, the kid in me that believes in fairy tales is thrilled!
The adult in me is amazed. ;)
PS,
I think it's more life in general that has made me the twisted cynic that I am.
Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures?
Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You know which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress-$5000..Tuxrental- $100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood - all the time.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original color.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.
One wallet and one color for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on Dec 24 in 25 minutes.
Is it really any wonder men are happier?
I'm stuned.
YOU! are extremely wise!
Here's to FReeper matches.
And to having good conservative children from them.
That happens, too, unfortunately.
Don't get married.
See,
My Two Continent idea isn't that off the wall!
Careful what you say!
We know this woman takes names
and she sure kicks ass . . .
As I read the comments, I was amazed at the responses. I don't blame women for not wanting to end up as single mothers because the man in their life is not willing to stick around to be a father to the children! Aren't some of the same people condemning the writer people who also condemn single/divorced mothers? How responsibile is it to have a child knowing there is a low probability that the father will stick around long.
I am watching my own son's generation as they go from relationship to relationship with no thought of long-term commitment. I just saw a study yesterday that said the average age of marriage is increasing - to over 30 in some areas. This is an issue. Women have to focus on their careers if there is no one to provide for them.
Even though I had a "provider", I have stayed current with my career "just in case" - especially since he showed no real interest in the children once we had them. Plus, I enjoyed my career. Fortunately, since I had my own business, I was able to be there to take the kids to school and to pick them up afterwards and be there for them. I am happy with most of the choices I made, but I think I was very lucky.
LOL!!!
Those of us with teenage children are working on matches :-). The 2008 Inaugural Ball (George Allen and J.C. Watts?) should be a great opportunity!
Someone please buy this woman a clue? Please? ;)
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