Time - and Fertility - Waits for No Woman

Crosswalk ^ | Heide Seward

[Brookhaven]

Three recent events - a new book by economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the April 15, 2002 Time magazine cover story about it, "Making Time for a Baby," and a recent "60 Minutes" story by Leslie Stahl on the same subject - have re-ignited the ongoing debate about women balancing career and family.

The current furor centers on the growing epidemic of childlessness, especially among successful women. In Hewlett's new book, "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children" (Talk Miramax Books, March, 2002), she notes that many women who put off having children until their 30s or 40s to follow the career track have found themselves unable to conceive without expensive and often emotionally taxing fertility treatments.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who paid close attention in biology class.  Women are most fertile in their teens to mid-twenties. Fertility begins to decline slightly as early as age 27 and continues to decline. By age 42, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, as stated in the Time article, "once a woman celebrates her 42nd birthday, the chances of her having a baby using her own eggs, even with advanced medical help, are less than 10 percent."

The incidence of miscarriage or chromosomal abnormalities is also much higher for older mothers. Add to this the growing numbers of women who find themselves infertile in their peak childbearing years because of a sexually transmitted disease that went undetected and untreated when they were younger, and it is apparent why there is cause for concern.

Unfortunately for many women, by the time they finally settle down and change their focus from career to family, it is too late. As Hewlett found in a national survey of 1,647 women that she conducted for her book, childlessness was less an affirmative decision than what one woman called a "creeping nonchoice."

They were so busy climbing the career ladder that relationships took a back seat. Before they knew it the years had flown. By the time they got married or, in the case of those who did marry young, simply turned their attention to starting a family, their biological clock had run down.

Certainly some of these women never intended to have children, but only 14% of the women in Hewlett's survey said they definitely did not want children.

As related in the 2001 report, Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century by Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Senior Fellow of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the percentage of American women age 40-44 who have not had at least one child almost doubled in just over 2 decades.

Data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics indicate that the percentage increased from 8.8 percent in 1975 to 16.5 percent in 1998. Recent Census data indicate that by the year 2000, the percentage had reached 20 percent.

Among what Hewlett calls "high achieving women" -- those who earn in the top 10 percent for their age group or who hold advanced professional degrees - 42 percent are childless. Among women earning $100,000 or more, nearly half (49 percent) reach 40 without having given birth.

The reasons that so many women find themselves in this predicament are complex, but one of the most tragic reasons is ignorance. Even highly educated women, it seems, have not fully grasped the reality that their childbearing years are relatively limited and that they must take this reality into account when establishing their life priorities.

An online survey conducted last fall by the American Infertility Association (AIA) offers a picture of just how little women know about their own fertility. Out of the 12,524 women who responded to the survey, only one answered all 15 questions correctly. (Only 13 percent knew, for example, that fertility begins to decline at age 27; 39 percent thought it began at age 40.)

Concerned by the lack of awareness about age-related infertility, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) conducted an ad campaign last fall, featuring a picture of a baby bottle shaped like an hourglass, implying that time might be running out for women who wished to have children.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the ASRM was excoriated by radical feminists for scaring women with a message that they must have children early or risk childlessness. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, openly displayed her hostility to the ad campaign in an interview for the "60 Minutes" story.

Some of the radical feminist backlash to the effort to educate women about their fertility may be attributable to defensiveness. After all, it was radical feminists who expended so much effort over the past several decades pushing women into the workforce and discouraging early childbearing, especially if it meant (heaven forbid!) having to depend solely on a husband's income for a time.

If feminists were chiefly concerned -- as they claim they are -- with expanding women's choices, then the choice to make family a higher priority than a career would be celebrated, not belittled, and ensuring women's ability to have children would be pursued with as much passion as ensuring their ability not to have them.

As AIA president Pamela Madsen puts it, "Reproductive freedom is not just the ability not to have a child through birth control. It's the ability to have one if and when you want one."

It is not clear whether Madsen's definition of birth control includes abortion and abortifaciants. Certainly radical feminists would include them under their definition. In any case, their near-exclusive focus on that side of the equation and their silence on the issue of age-related infertility indicate that many of them would not agree with her.

And many women who listened to the feminist siren song of "career before children" have been cheated of their chance to have children as a result. Maybe the current controversy will help keep the next generation from repeating their mistake.

[crystalk]

That's it! Only stupid, low-achieving women are having any children; the successful are all childless.

That is why kids are so dumb today: their mothers were too dumb or idle to pursue a career, and also too dumb or idle to avoid a birth. And if they DID get pregnant, they were too cheap or stupid or idle to get an abortion.

But won't this drag the whole gene pool down pretty quickly?

[Brookhaven]

I also found these numbers.

A study published in 1957 examined the relationship between the age of the female partner and fertility. This study found that:

By age 30, 7% of couples were infertile

By age 35, 11% of couples were infertile

By age 40, 33% of couples were infertile

At age 45, 87% of couples were infertile

Reference: Tietze C: Reproductive span and rate of conception among Hutterite women. Fertility and Sterility 1957;8:89-97.

For several reasons, infertility rates are even higher in the general population in the U.S. today than for the population studied by Tietze in the 1950s.

Women (and men) who are planning on having families need to be aware of these numbers so they can make a choice about having children.

[Vic3O3]

I had my first child last year, at age 38. She is a blessing, and we hope to get #2 started SOON!

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

I've read that elsewhere. The more highly educated a woman is, the less likely she is to have children. These are the women who should be passing on their smart genes - they are not.

As far as the rest of the article goes, that's what adoption agencies are for.

[GVnana]

I have a recommendation. I had my kids when I was in my twenties. Now in my forties (pushing the big 50), my kids are grown, married, in college, etc. and I feel I'm living life exactly as nature intended. I was presented with my first grandchild two weeks ago. It's a great time of life that I wouldn't have traded for anything. Career? Yes. I did that too, between kids. Like a man? No. But at this stage of the game, I can run circles around most men in the workplace.

My son reports that out of twelve couples in the Lamaze class he and his wife were the only ones married. Doesn't speak well for the future.

[Harrison Bergeron]

I'm pretty sure you numbers include only couples who've never had children. The fertility/age tables for women who have had a previous pregnancy give significantly more optimistic figures.

[geaux]

Actually, I'm a professional, and see lots of my peers having children...and then hiring nannies to take care of them. The parents have no idea what their kids are up to, they take seven-year olds to PG-13 movies, and (out of guilt for never spending time with them) refuse to discipline them when they do see them. They turn out to be hellions.

[Black Agnes]

Bless you! I wish you luck. I hope to get started on my first at 36 or so. Wish me luck!

[ldakers]

bump for later

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

and then hiring nannies to take care of them

I don't see the point in having them then.

[Greeklawyer]

trophy children.

"see i have it all. I have validation as a humna...."

[geaux]

Neither me. Their pets get more attention than their kids.

[uncbob]

That's the catch 22 of modern Western times

Boy's most horny in their teens and girls most fertile yet it is the worst time to marry and despite the fact that these are the years hormones are raging ( nature's fault) sex is supposed to be verboten

Maybe we are too far advanced from nature in our way of life

Of course those obeying nature and having all the kids are NOT the educated and fiscally secure but those on the lowest educational and economic ladder

BTW I have no solution

[libravoter]

once a woman celebrates her 42nd birthday, the chances of her having a baby using her own eggs, even with advanced medical help, are less than 10 percent.

Jeesh! I wonder if my Mom knew she was statistically impossible when she had the younger of my two sisters at age 43.

And Mom's a Christian Scientist (so forget fertility specialists, let alone drugs.)

[libravoter]

I'm pretty sure your numbers include only couples who've never had children.

It would also be good to have the working definition of "infertile."

A site I picked at random through Google.com (www.fertilethoughts.net), said the standard definition was not having gotten pregnant after a year of having sex without birth control.

It would seem a lot of people who would be considered infertile by that definition could probably have kids with the help of an ovulation kit.

[luckystarmom]

Well, I think that my generations mothers are to blame somewhat about all of this.

My parents kept on telling me not to get married in college. I was proposed to then and turned him down. Well, it is very hard to find someone to marry after college.

I finally got married at 29. I was smart enough to know that I needed to have a baby soon. I still had problems with 3 miscarriages before I had my son, at 32. I was blessed with identical twin girls 2 years later.

I just think women need to be better educated about when is the best time to have children. Too many of my friends have waited and had problems.

[pettifogger]

That's it! Only stupid, low-achieving women are having any children; the successful are all childless.

Sarcasm, right?

I'm one of the lucky high acheivers who left it all when number one was born when I was 36. Number two at 38. Have never looked back. Never will. I know quite a few others like me. Frankly, I consider it a blessing to have had my kids while in my 30's. If I were 29 (instead of 30-something, thank-you), I know I would have tried to "have it all" and bust my rump at work and at home, with limited success in either place. Now I DO have it all -- as a wife and Mom. Thank the Lord for late-blooming fertility.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"It would seem a lot of people who would be considered infertile by that definition could probably have kids with the help of an ovulation kit."

We had a dog who would pester my wife by following her around, sniffing her and getting err... romantic whenever she was ovulating. We should have rented it out.

[Brookhaven]

That's the catch 22 of modern Western times Boy's most horny in their teens and girls most fertile yet it is the worst time to marry...

My "solution" is making sure people have the information they need to make an informed choice.

Women need to know that the longer they put off having children. the lower their chances of ever having children. On the other hand, a woman that leaves and renters the workforce a couple of times so she can have children is not going to climb the corporate ladder as fast as a woman that stays continuously in the workforce.

This may just seem like common sense to people that are older and wiser, but to many younger they are a real revelation.