Celebrating One Hundred Years of Failure to Reproduce on Demand [NYT editorial: Way off for women]

April 14, 2002

EDITORIAL OBSERVER

Celebrating One Hundred Years of Failure to Reproduce on Demand

By GAIL COLLINS

A century ago, American women were experiencing a spectacular burst of energy and opportunity. For the first time, they were going to college in large numbers. For the first time, they could choose from an assortment of professional careers. The number of female doctors was higher at the beginning of the 20th century than it would be at any time until the 1980's. Most of those suddenly liberated, high-achieving women did not marry or have children. Almost instantly, the country started worrying about "race suicide."

"If Americans of the old stock lead lives of celibate selfishness . . . or if the married are afflicted by that base fear of living which . . . forbids them to have more than one or two children, disaster awaits the nation," thundered Theodore Roosevelt, father of six. G. Stanley Hall, a turn-of-the-century equivalent of a talking head, warned that "if women do not improve," men might have to undertake "a new rape of the Sabines."

It's always comforting in a time of crisis to note that we have been down this road before and are still around to worry about the state of the pavement. The author of the hour, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, is making the talk show rounds warning about "an epidemic of childlessness" among professional women, which she recounts in her book, "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children." In it, she worries that close to half of the women who get graduate degrees or pursue heavy-duty careers in business are failing to reproduce.

Ms. Hewlett is more worried about personal happiness than the protection of the gene pool. But she has definitely touched a nerve, or perhaps the entire spinal column. She argues that too many women count on being able to become pregnant in their 40's, then discover it's a long shot. Although we cannot have too many warnings about the danger of betting your happiness on the fertility industry, her hand-wringing is a little like the old greeting card in which an alarmed woman announces, "Oh darn, I forgot to have children!"

All this is weirdly resonant. Between 1890 and 1920, when the number of women entering professions like college teaching, social work and library studies was soaring, 75 percent stayed single. Three-quarters of the women who earned Ph.D.'s between 1877 and 1924 remained unmarried.

"Race suicide" — a shorthand way of saying that immigrant women were having lots of babies while Anglo-Saxons were failing to reproduce themselves — was the talk of the nation. The New York City Board of Education, already an institution with an inventive world view, claimed that it could not give female teachers the same salaries as men because it would lead to "the sacrifice of the race for the individual." (Women, the board worried, would blow the extra money on European tours and opera boxes while the poor men struggled to save enough to start their families.)

The women who were failing to marry seemed pretty sure that the problem was a shortage of men worth marrying.

As early as 1885, a young woman was explaining to Ladies' Home Journal readers that she and her friends had decided to pursue professional careers because a good job "could supply a woman with both interest and support, two roles in which husbands just now fail." Popular magazines routinely published first-person stories, with signatures like "A Spinster Who Has Learned to Say No" or "A Happy Old Maid," in which women reported that they had rejected two, three, five offers of marriage from unsatisfactory swains.

But society in 1900 was concerned that the women who appeared to be the smartest, the most energetic and the most competent were not reproducing. Society was, it turned out, wrong. Other women — less well educated but obviously equally smart and competent — were doing a fine job raising families. The spinsters, meanwhile, were doing a fine job teaching children, running settlement houses, building libraries and exposing sweatshop conditions.

A century ago, American women for the first time had the luxury of career crises, of worrying whether they wanted to choose work or home. But they did not believe that they could have both.

Having it all was not on the 1900 menu. Even presidents of universities and heads of unions retired to become homemakers once they married. Jane Addams, everybody's favorite turn-of-the-century woman, seemed philosophical about the state of affairs, perhaps because she was happily committed to a wealthy heiress, Mary Rozet Smith. Addams, at any rate, concluded that women who wanted careers and children would probably have to wait "until public opinion tolerated the dual role."

Public opinion has come around. In fact, women tend to feel guilty now for failing to acquire all the big three: husband, children and world-class career. One of Ms. Hewlett's least convincing theories is that most of the childless career women are feeling robbed. Her best evidence is that a vast majority had expected to have children when they were in college. They probably also expected to keep up with their French and stay in touch with their roommates, but life has a way of paring priorities.

Chances are many women instinctively realize that they don't have the energy to go for the trifecta, and they veer off in one direction or another. Many others manage children, a spouse and a demanding career very well indeed, deeply irritating everybody who believes that two is the appropriate quota. The secret may be a helpful husband or easygoing offspring, or just the ability to keep focused on the task at hand, even on a day when the baby sitter has decided she's moving to Tucson.

Of course, it's regrettable that having it all is easier for men. But frankly, the fact that women who choose hard-charging careers often do not have children is pretty far down on the list of American social problems. Anyway, things are bound to improve by the turn of the 22nd cent

I think Gail Collins is so off the mark here.

Many of my own single, attractive, female friends -- successful in careers, but unmarried and childless, have been reading Sylvia Hewlett's new book, "Creating a Life." To these women, the findings in her book confirm what they silently suspected: There are MANY educated, successful, single, unmarried, aging and childless women in this country -- and, something is wrong with this picture.

None of them expected it would take as long as it did to financially support themselves, or to get where they did, and to have to do it alone -- without a "helpmate" as Sen. Nelson recently labeled Tipper, the spouse of Al Gore.

Gail Collins seems to be very eager to brush aside any questions of my female friends, yet this debate is now taking center stage as a result of Hewlett's book. And, most of my close friends are: liberal or independent / swing voters. Without families of their own and children, many do feel they have missed a boat they did not plan on missing.

And, while I do not intend to sound an alarm, Gail Collins' claim that "race suicide" is a joke is also off the mark, as it is a cold, hard fact that whites in this country are now reproducing at the lowest rate when compared to every other race -- and that fact is known to most teachers, who are constantly told to expect an increase in (1) Hispanic students (as Hispanics are reproducing at the higest rates) and (2) black students. Whites are far behind in reproduction rates.

Gail Collins' editorial here leaves me wondering why she and others refuse to believe that some women DID intend to have children and families. I can't help but wonder if she is a big supporter of the so-called 'Peter Pan' theory for men, as such men do not see the need to marry, and intend to remain at a teenage mentality forever in terms of responsibility. To me, Gail Collins tries hard to make it sound like this is just fine: Peter Pan men, and childress, intelligent women. But, I disagree with her.

BTW, here's some reviews of the subject book, from amazon:

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Between a third and a half of all high-achieving women in America do not have children" and "the vast majority yearn" for them, says Hewlett, founder of the National Parenting Association. In this study of baby lust, Hewlett portrays the anguished hand-wringing by middle-aged women who were career-obsessed throughout their 20s and 30s, only to wake up single at 40, biological clocks all petered out. Infertility treatment is not a solution, she says; it's expensive, dangerous to women's health and unlikely to produce a pregnancy, much less a live, healthy baby. Moms and potential moms from playwright Wendy Wasserstein to a 46-year-old single woman who traveled to China to adopt illustrate Hewlett's thesis that "some of the most heartfelt struggles of the breakthrough generation have centered on the attempt to snatch a child from the jaws of menopause. A few succeed; most do not." Hewlett attests that "if high-altitude careers inevitably exact a price, it's profoundly unfair that the highest prices... are paid by women." "Self-indulgent" women might try to have a child and a career by hiring a nanny, but for Hewlett, it's more "courageous" for a woman to forgo childbearing if a career is her real goal. Hewlett's advice to young women is strangely retro: get married you'll be happier and healthier. She counsels them to give "urgent priority" to finding a marriage partner fast, "have your first baby before 35" and look for work at a family-friendly corporation. Though ardently argued, her case is unconvincing.

From Booklist

Founder of the National Parenting Association, Hewlett reports on new data showing nearly half of the most successful women in corporate America are childless, mostly contrary to their heartfelt desires. Hewlett begins with interviews of high-powered women--lawyers, journalists, scholars, doctors, businesswomen--who wanted children but ran out of time to begin their families. She reviews recent data on career women and their odds of marrying and raising a family, noting that despite promising...

See all editorial reviews...

[READER] Reviews
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The importance of facts, April 9, 2002 Reviewer: Teresa Fletcher from Atlanta, Georgia

I think this book stresses the importance of facts and becoming educated on making life decisions. Having children and having a career are both choices and with choices in life there are always consequences. However, what Hewlett points out is that women have been given false information in terms of how long they can wait to have children. Having fertility information at 25 (as opposed to 45 when it's too late) can be helpful when attempting to plan for both career and family and I think her message is just that simple. I agree with her suggestion to look at where you want to be at 45 and plan backwards, however, there is one tiny stipulation. Just because you have a plan, life is full of surprises that cannot be forecast, foreseen, or prevented and plans have to remain flexible enough to change. For example, you can plan to get married at 27, but you may not meet your partner until you are 32. I think the key is understanding the consequences and potential consequences of making these decisions. I would love to say that in a perfect world, you can have a great career and a great family. However, when maintaining a balance, both areas may not get full attention all the time. Life is a juggling act. You may only be 80% productive on your job and 80% productive on childrearing. But that is much better than neglecting one or the other because both are important.

---------------------- Give me a break, April 10, 2002

Reviewer: A reader

I watched Hewlett on the talk shows. She told interviewers that she started out just wanted to write a book about Successful Women. Give me a break - just take a look at her other books and you will see she is on a crusade to send women back to the home.

Everyone has choices and then they have to live with them. She talks about the successful men having children but she doesn't talk about their relationship with their children. She says that senior women don't have rich family lives, well plenty of senior men don't have rich family lives. I don't care if a man can father a child at age 60 it still doesn't make it a good idea!

My understanding is she was very "selective" about who she interviewed to get the results she wanted to write this book!

This woman is crazy pushing herself to have another child at age 51 when she had 4!

Here is a direct quote from Hewlett - she hopes ''young women will absorb this information and put it to good use.'' Focusing on a career ''with a laser beam and postponing all else works for men, but not for women.''

Things are different than they were when Hewlett was in her early 30s. Many men are deciding to stay home these days.

Don't let this book scare you - make your own choices!

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Ms. Hewlett misses the mark big time, April 10, 2002 Reviewer: A reader from new york, NY

If we take Ms. Hewlett's observations to the natural conclusion in a perfect world American women would all be white trash and get knocked up at 19 regardless of their ability to succesfully provide for themselves and their children.

I have no delusions about my biological clock yes I went to grad school and did the career thing, but the real problem is finding decent,intelligent, emotionally available, finacially stable, non-commitmentphobic men. Why isnt that that the cover story of Time magazine?!

As if we dont have enough stress post 9/11 world, do single women really need to have this [nonsense] thrust in their faces?

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What an eye-opener, April 9, 2002 Reviewer: A reader from Dallas, TX

I thought I knew what the statistcs were and the reality of having a child later in life. I'm shocked at how little I know. Many of my friends are reading this book, and are having the same reaction. It's fascinating & I hope that young women today will get the message -- don't only plan for your career if you want to be a mother. Plan for that, too. It doesn't "just happen". I can sadly attest to that.

There are MANY educated, successful, single, unmarried, aging and childless women in this country -- and, something is wrong with this picture. None of them expected it would take as long as it did to financially support themselves, or to get where they did, and to have to do it alone -- without a "helpmate" as Sen. Nelson recently labeled Tipper, the spouse of Al Gore.

You cannot have both a career and a family. Period. This is true of both men and women. You might object: But what if one spouse stays home and the other pursues a career? Even this doesn't work. You can't say you're a good father if every time you try to watch your son play little league [football, basketball, baseball, whatever], your beeper goes off, you get called away, and you have to arrange for another parent to drive him home. You can't say you're a good father if you don't have the time to build a tree fort with your son [and teach him how to do it], so you hire someone else to build it for you. You can't call yourself a good father if you're always on the road, week after week after week, and your only contact with your son is a phone call every other night from your hotel room. [And you sure as hell can't fulfill your marital obligations to his mother under those circumstances.] At some point, you have to decide: Successful career, or family. Our hedonistic, narcissistic culture has been promoting the former, over the latter, for about forty years now.

On the other hand, this is not an entirely new phenomenon.

better educated males are not necessarily nicer people.

Unfortunately -- that sometimes holds true for women as well.

Since I was a teenager, I've thought that I would want to marry a high powered, successful career woman. The older I get, though, the more I have my doubts. From my observations, there is something badly wrong with these women [and I've dated scads of them through the years]. They seem to be driven by a visceral hatred of everything. They are, to a woman: Rude, mean, short-tempered, impatient, and venomous. They are also almost uniformly pro-abortion. A career woman won't hesitate to murder your unborn child in her womb if she thinks that's what's needed to further her career. These women also live to commit adultery with other women's husbands [although, in that regard, they're probably not all that different from the rest of their sisters].

I'm not saying I'm looking for a Stepford Wife, but I might be interested in a disillusioned career woman who's ready to move on to greener pastures. The problem is that they don't seem to get to that point until after their wombs have gone barren.

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