Posted on 08/19/2008 6:54:24 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Women are waiting longer to have children, and more women than ever are choosing not to have children at all, according to a new Census Bureau report.
Twenty percent of women ages 40 to 44 have no children, double the level of 30 years ago, the report said; and women in that age bracket who do have children have fewer than ever — an average of 1.9 children, compared with the median of 3.1 children in 1976.
“A lot of women are not having any children,” said Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, which looked at women of childbearing age in 2006. “It used to be sort of expected that there was a phase of life where you had children, and a lot of women aren’t doing that now,” Ms. Dye said.
Women with advanced degrees are more likely to be childless, the study found. Of women 40 to 44 with graduate or professional degrees, 27 percent are childless, compared with 18 percent of women who did not continue their education beyond high school, the data show.
The numbers are consistent with a 2006 report Ms. Dye issued on the same subject. While year-by-year change is slow, Ms. Dye said, the data show that women of the baby boom generation are continuing to transform the American family.
Hispanic women are the only group bucking the trends found in the study, averaging 2.3 children each by their 40s. The number of children a Hispanic woman has decreases sharply, however, depending on how many generations her family has lived in the United States, the data show.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I’ll be married for 19 years come October. I think my husband is still attracted to the T&A thing. A sense of humor is a huge turn on, too.
I’m not at all surprised your male boss is better than the female. (and congrats for landing on your feet!) Men are more comfortable in positions of authority; women of a certain age in comparable positions think they have something to prove. And, for the most part, do an awful job of it.
Women don’t have a long history of being highly educated and holding positions of authority in the business world. A generation ago, women doctors/lawyers/professors were rare. Now they equal or outnumber men — if not yet in the professions, in the schools that lead to them.
That first generation of accomplished women didn’t have the ‘role models’ men have had, so all too many acted like their idea of what successful men act like .. and then some: career first and foremost, work 60 hour weeks, even wear man-style suits. The younger generation coming up seems more intersted in balance, and being women, dressing and acting like women. There’s hope ahead.
my my, Twink, you’re up late on the east coast!! :^)
nice post - I envy that quality of going from fight to joke/laughter so easily - don’t think we had any of that in my family growing up
Not that I’m complaining, my parents had 5 of us kids (3 girls, 2 boys) and did awfully well by us, I’d say
but in a situation of tension or conflict or outright ‘fight’ the lesson both of my parents seemed to teach by example was to withdraw and sulk, and all 5 of us kids have tried hard to learn to grow out of that over the years..... we mostly think our parents did a great job with us though, except for one of my sisters who is pretty estranged from our parents at times and then comes back into contact at other times...... [but I’d say she has issues that are really just her own, though she blames it on our parents]
I don’t think it’s selfish. She obviously knows what she wants and doesn’t want.
Good for her.
My best friend, Godmother to my kids, is in her early 40s, no kids of her own. She’s been with the same guy for almost 20 yrs and they’d be married if it were up to him. She’s one of the primary caregivers for her severely Down Syndrome brother. She loves kids. She’s also a teacher. She probably won’t have any of her “own” kids.
Clarification: 'we' as the other 4 siblings don't think our parents did anything wrong with all of us or particularly with the 5th, my younger sister -- but she goes through periods where she thinks we had the worst parents in the world, etc. even though the other 4 of us all think she was the "spoiled child" and favored to some degree.... so it's ironic that she is the one who thinks growing up was hell when all the rest of us think she got her way all the time -- which maybe was the problem! :^)
Now that we're in our 40s she seems to have mellowed a lot toward our parents, but life was difficult for all when she was in her 20s..... she is married but has no children and doesn't want any.
Ha! I was just gonna ask you if you were out with a female and if so, I want details. You described the moonlit night, etc. I have a friend, single. You are my favorite person/poster ever. You live too far, lol. I really think you two would rock.
Yep. These Olympics are killing me. And it shows in my face, eyes. Dark circles. Not pretty. I’m editing my 16 yr olds paper, just the grammatical, spelling, etc errors. It’s due tomorrow and she is so last minute. Wonder where she gets that from ;)
My Dad and I fought lots. But we had that humor thing going :) It was different with my brothers. Guess they didn’t find his wit as witty as I did. The same could be said for my Mom. We were close too but her baby boys could do no wrong, according to me, lol. And, I used it. ;) Interesting. Her boys were perfect but she signed everything over to me because she knew no matter what, all the fighting, I’d do it right. Even if I was ticked off at them.
I think that one sister of yours has her own issues outside of the family. JMO. Your parents sound wonderful.
We have 4 girls of our own. Humor is huge here. Funny you said about sulking. I have no time for sulking mostly. I give it some time then you gotta get over it. One of the kids is sulking and I hit them in the arm, crack a joke. I’ve gone up to the room, barged in, said sulking time is over, heard But Mom, whine. Said time to get over it.
My Dad had a wicked sense of humor. We’d be in the middle of a blow out fight and he’d crack a joke and we’d be cracking up, and nothing else mattered. My Mom would be sitting at the table, head in her hands, saying we were nuts. Or a fight would break out during dinner, and she’d be saying end the fight, foods ready, etc.
We never withdrew and sulked. Well, I tried the sulking but nobody let me sulk. However, my brothers tend to sulk and that doesn’t go over well with me so I annoy til they snap out of it. They claim I was the favorite, got away with tons they couldn’t get away with (well, I was the baby and the only girl, duh).
Funny, we have the same kind of fights here now. Me and my oldest brother, every Christmas Eve. Everyone scatters because they know if they get involved we just turn on them. We can fight with each other but no one else can kind of thing. Then either he or I crack a joke and all is well.Beer helps.
My parents were not perfect but they were the best example of a married couple. I swear my mom was almost perfect.
Well said.
I wrote about how the Mother treats the Father. I have seen a Wife jump all over her Husband and treat him like scum and then one of their daughters would join in and the Husband would have to leave his own home to have some peace. I married one of their daughters and I became a target.
I am no longer with that woman.
Great story! And I'm envious. Mrs. Tom-H and I have only three and had to stop because we were getting a little old -- married at 30, first one at 36, last one at 42. If we'd started 5 years earlier I think I could've convinced her to have a least one more child.
My father gave me that advice 30 years ago. It applies to both her looks and her suitability as a wife. The "apple doesn't fall far from the tree" adage applies here.
I did it when I chose my lovely bride 22 years ago. Her mother, then about age 60, adored her husband, was trim and modest about eating, drinking, and money, and was happy and energetic. Now the Mrs and I are both over 50, and she is just like her mother.
The respect is key (and Biblical). Many women turn on the charm (and sexuality) before and for a few years after the marriage. But if they can't appreciate the fellow for who he is, and let love adapt, she turns off in the sack and increasingly disrespects him.
I understand that.
I saw what you experienced in my extended family. Maternal side, excluding my mother. I also saw how horrible the men treated their wives and daughters and sons, again maternal side, excluding my mother. They all sucked with a few exceptions. They were horrible to my Dad and he only put up with it because of my mom.
Most of my Mom’s sisters treated any male, including those new to the family, like scum, some even while being nice to their face. They all married losers and assumed all men were losers. They taught their daughters to think the same way, feel the same way. And, given the male examples, it wasn’t that difficult. All of them were screwed up,imo.
However, new females were treated even worse. The in-laws. Being a male in-law was awful but being a female one was off the charts. I always felt more sorry for the female ones. Fortunately, they were just one branch of my maternal extended family and I had my parents to provide common sense and reality. My brothers were hilarious. But one married the same type of person, twice! With the same kind of family.
We tease everyone in our family. It’s different than what I saw happen in some branches of my Mom’s family. There’s a reason I don’t talk to some of them, a reason I cut them off completely regardless of family/blood. Nasty people.
I’d knock out anyone that disrepected my husband. My brothers teased him to no end at first but never disrepected him. Hell, they like him more than they like me. I’d never allow my kids to disrespect their Dad nor would he allow them to disrespect me.
I firmly believe there is a large group of people who feel very inadequate. They try to bring everyone else down to their own level instead of improving themselves. They will back bite everyone else and tell every dirty lie that can be imagined.
That is why I said for men to see how a woman’s Mom treated Pop. Women should also see how a man’s Pop treats his Mom.
Life is too short to have to put up with that kind of behavior.
Level of education is not a mark of intelligence and definitely not a measure for wisdom.
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