Just over a decade ago, I wrote a book whose main theme was about the cost of delaying marriage and motherhood to my generation of women. We'd grown up in the 1970s and '80s, during a period when our mothers were casting off their marriages like old dresses; entering the workforce for the first time in huge numbers; and the feminist movement was decreeing that men were as necessary to women as bicycles are to fish.
The message to us was clear and unwavering: Don't waste your time getting married young like we did. In fact, don't waste your time getting married, period. Put off having children until later. MUCH later. Focus on your education and then your career. It's in your work that you will find your identity and achieve your independence; it's from your work that you are going to derive the most satisfaction in life. And it was upon your work, not a man, which you could depend to support you in the long haul (hey, they was boom times). Marriage, kids -- those are afterthoughts. Things to be considered down the road, if at all.
The lesson we eventually drew, however, was quite different. Urged to "celebrate our sexuality" with multiple partners throughout our 20s, many of us became acquainted with rather less celebrated aftershocks: STDs, abortion, "commitment issues," and maybe most of all, loneliness. Much as we might try, we could not reprogram our hearts. The majority of women continued to express the desire to marry and become mothers (at least in anonymity to pollsters; it was not something you'd admit to your girlfriends). But we still had no idea how we were going to achieve these things -- how to fit them in with our careers? How to fit them in with our so-called independent identities? And how to fit them in before... we couldn't?
That was the kicker. If you stumbled along this way into your 30s, suddenly you found yourself looking around and wondering where the men went. And just as we couldn't reprogram our hearts, we discovered that we couldn't reprogram our biology either. Babies? Did someone just say babies? Where? Where?!
Thus many of us found ourselves making the accidental journey into single motherhood, reproductive technology, and adoption.
My eldest daughter is now 20. I began researching my book before she could read. In the space of time since my book was published and she has grown up, I've watched her generation shake off the stigmas attached to marriage and motherhood. Traditional weddings, with all the trimmings, have become fashionable again. She and her friends don't hide their delight with babies and small children (I remember me and my friends rolling our eyes at such behaviour). And they talk seriously about how they will mesh their careers (because of course they will have them, economy permitting) with marriage and motherhood.
And yet, they seem to be as perplexed as we were about how to do so -- to "have it all." My daughter cites Beyonce as an inspiration. True, celebrities of Beyonce's stature in my time weren't singing about "what we leave behind" (at least beyond our staplers and investment portfolios):
I was here
I lived, I loved
I was here
I did, I've done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here
I want to say I lived each day, until I die
And know that I meant something in, somebody's life
The hearts I have touched, will be the proof that I leave
That I made a difference, and this world will see
...or lifetime monogamy (as in "1 Plus 1"):
Hey! I don't know much about guns but I... I've been shot by you
Hey! And I don't know when I'm gonna die, but I hope that I'm gonna die by you
Hey! And I don't know much about fighting, but I, I know I will fight for you
Hey! Just when I ball up my fist I realize that I'm laying right next to you
But I do notice that parents will spend thousands of dollars, if they have them, researching colleges for their children; we will spend hours agonizing over every grade, every step our children take towards setting themselves up for a career. But how many hours do we spend talking to them about how and what it means to share a life with someone? About the selflessness and generosity it takes to be a wife or husband, a mother or father -- and that such selflessness and generosity are not stifling things, nor are they identity crushing things? Indeed, these are the very qualities that will lead to the most enlarging and enriching experiences of our lives. I know parents who will speak frankly to their 12-year-olds about how to use a condom -- but would shy from "asserting" any advice about marriage or motherhood. And yet the latter advice is desperately and urgently needed, more so than ever.
Now another study has just come out confirming what should by this point be the obvious: that postponing pregnancy too long has its perils.
The [study] says some women may be waiting too long to start their families, perhaps because they over-estimate their chances of successfully conceiving with fertility treatments, if the need arises.
It says women in their 20s and 30s need better reproductive counselling so that they have an accurate grasp of what waiting to start their families does to their chances of conceiving.
"Better" reproductive counselling. Yes, that's what needed. Sure. And maybe "better" and more realistic life counselling as well.
Follow Danielle Crittenden on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcrittenden1
Barbara & Shannon Kelley: Freedom, Fertility and Feminism: The Real Cost of the Pill
Melanie Notkin: It's Time to Stop Calling Career Women Without Children "Delayers"
Dr. Nalini Chilkov: Cancer Risk Factors: 10 Things Women Should Keep in Mind
Of weddings, babies and more...
Don't wait too long to have a baby, expert guideline warns
Believe me, I'm no hyperfeminist but please let marriage and family be something that happens if you find the right partner; not the top priority for girls graduating college.
One conclusion I've reached should have been obvious from the beginning: men and women are different, and attempts made by a generation of women to pretend that wasn't the case, was a fallacy. We should celebrate the differences, while at the same time providing for as consistent and equal a path through life as possible for both genders.
Personally, I think my daughter's generation of young ladies (with careers AND babies) has it better than the ladies in my generation. I think they are closer to getting it right, which is great, in my opinion.
Thanks again.”
The other side of that coin of opportunity, once those choices of careers broadened, was delaying pregnancy. And it never seemed to occur to those women that nature intended their bodies to reproduce at a much younger age than 40, or even late 30's....so.....the difficulty getting pregnant or keeping a pregnancy. As a woman who has observed the changes over time, it seems to be a combination of age AND the long term use of the pill. Never-the-less, it stunned me one day to see a VERY intelligent, successful women in tears on TV saying, "Nobody ever TOLD me that if I waited until this age it would be harder to get pregnant. I thought "Why would anyone have to TELL someone as intelligent as you ??"
My children talk about the difficulty their generation is having with pregnancy. One of mine waited so long with his and his wife's high powered careers, that he just admitted to me that he realized he will probably not live long enough to see/really know his grandchildren.
It really is about choices my dears. May you all find the right ones for you and be happy.
A grandmother now, I am a child protection social worker. There are so many children here in the US who are waiting for their adoptive homes. Children who need families desperately. Are we really only "real women" if we had children from our own bodies? What values are we passing on to our sons and daughters? "Don't wait too long to have children." Seriously?
I will never understand how people feel that their opinion matters on my personal business when it was never asked for. To all readers, please be supportive to people wanting to be parents and know that they will choose the best option for THEM............even if it's not the best option for YOU.
If you don't meet the one you want to marry, there's not a lot you can do about that. I don't know one woman who stated an age at which she wanted to marry. We all sort of thought it would just happen, but we didn't worry about it.
I do agree however, that it's a mistake to aim for late 30's and beyond as your starting point for having babies. I know there are many women who conceived at that age (myself after 40) but there are far more who have enormous problems. As one geneticist told me (for that is who you get to consult with when you conceive at an advanced age) - Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. And those eggs age along with the rest of your body.
My grandmother got a degree in chemistry and was 25 before she had her first kid.
My parents married a year out of under-grad, but were in their 30s, had their advanced degrees, and were well established before having kids.
My brother is finishing his Masters, and I my PhD, and we will both be in our 30s before having kids with our potential partners.
Do you know what putting off marriage and kids has done for our family? It has made us economically, academically and socially successful.
You will never convince me that rushing into having kids with the first guy who comes by 'because I might not be able to do it later' is a good idea.