The New Way To Have It All: First Baby, Then Love
Women fighting fertility timeouts are redefining what it means to "have it all."
In 1983, legendary Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown released a book called Having It All, in which she outlined tips for women hoping to find success in the workplace, at home and in bed. The past 25 years have left women's plates increasingly—some might argue, precariously—overloaded, as they try to maintain healthy portions of career, love and family. In her upcoming new book, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures In Finding Love, Commitment, And Motherhood, New York City journalist Rachel Lehmann-Haupt explores the expanding buffet of choices that exist for women hoping to "have it all" today.
YourTango: Tell us about your book. What prompted you to write it?
Rachel Lehmann-Haupt: In 2001, when I was 31 years old, I ended a relationship with someone at the same time that a woman named Sylvia Ann Hewett wrote a book called Creating A Life. It basically told women that they needed to start having children younger because the dividing line between a regular pregnancy and a high-risk pregnancy was age 35. For the next couple years, single and dating, I was very aware of this age looming over me. There was pressure to find love and create a family before getting "too old."
This baby panic was shooting through the media and I thought to myself, "This doesn't feel right." The answer that women should start having kids earlier seemed too simplistic. Most of us who are educated and want careers also want to support our families. I found a statistic that said the number of women having babies between 35 and 44 has doubled since the '80s. They need their twenties and often their early thirties to go to medical school or law school. Where is having kids going to fit into all of this?
So what advice do you have for women who want to have it all?
You have to expand your concept of choice. We have this idea that we're supposed to do things in the right order, when in reality, it might mean having a kid first and then meeting the love of your life. Or maybe you meet the love of your life and you have kids, but you have to put your career on hold for a while. Or you have a career, then you meet the love of your life and that means you have to use assisted technology, a donor egg or adoption, to have a child.
The other thing that's important is that you don't have to have it all. Who's to say that having it all is the most fulfilling life? A lot of people have told me it's really stressful trying to balance it all. Maybe you want to be a really good writer; you focus on that, and you and your partner don't have kids. Or maybe you just want to be a mom. Having it all does not have to be the end-all be-all goal for every woman.
Discussion
Just because a woman has a baby...it doesn't make her a Mother. I think that the question that needs to be asked is why would a single woman want to have a baby? The most common answer is "someone to love me unconditionally" and to me...that isn't healthy. There are far more things in life to fill that void than to bring a child into the world for selfish reasons.
There are other reasons single women have babies besides fulfilling the unconditional love aspect. Single women have babies for the same reasons married people have babies. No one reason is better or worse than another. I'm not sure about your "not a mother" argument. These woman are becoming mothers.
Single mom Lori Gottlieb did a related piece in the Atlantic a while back that drove me crazy. She went ahead and had a baby on her own and is now wishing she'd just grabbed a guy who wasn't perfect when she was younger. I hate her solution, but I think she describes the problems of single motherhood well. It's a lot of work and it may keep you from getting a guy.
I think the idea that you can choose any order to do things in is probably false optimism. If you want to have a baby without a partner, I think you need to be ready for the possibility that you aren't going to get a partner later.
False optimism? Perhaps, but if you're 39, and you have tried to find someone and it just didn't pan out, it makes more sense to go for the child rather than the marriage. The point is, you want a family of your own, for the same reasons every other person wants a family. At 38, there is no guarantee that you will find someone to marry if you wait 4 more years and try to date, even if you are willing to settle. But there is a good chane that if you choose to wait another 4 years without having a child, you most certainly will forfeit the chance to ever have a child.
And the chance to have your own biological child is a very difficult dream to have to forfeit. Most men would never even dream of forfeiting that dream. I'm in my 30's and I'm contemplating these type of dilemnas right now. I realize that if I were given the decision, I would have that child, because it doesn't make sense at 38 to risk losing the chance to ever have a child in order to hold out for a marriage that may or may not come. I have seen more women regret never being mothers than never being wives. My older single aunt often expressed how she wished she had had a child on her own when she had the chance.
On a side note, Lori Gottlieb, who wrote the article you linked to, is very different from the single women I know in our 30's. We didn't spend our time rejecting perfectly good men who weren't "worldly." It wasn't about being too picky. Among my single 30something friends, some of us were unlucky with the people we dated, others lacked the social skills necessary to date until later in life, some divorced, and others just rarely got asked out. None of us had high powered careers that forced us to delay marriage, not that there is anything wrong with that. Marriage just didn't happen, for reasons we may or may not have had control over.
I think Gottlieb didn't have a realistic idea of what single motherhood woul be like. Single motherhood is always hard, wether you're 39 or 25. Anyone who believes she can date with a baby or young toddler is deluded.
While, I'm sure it is easier to have two people raising a child, why does it necessarily have to be a partner or a spouse.
I'm sure there are many would-be grandparents out there (other family members and even friends) who would help out a single parent, no?
I have to say as a new mom that just because you can do something it doesn't mean it should be done. I'm all for women doing what they can to have families, after all I'm a better person for being a mom. But, it's VERY hard to have a baby. It's VERY challenging to deal with sleepless nights, and the stress of a brand new life let alone doing it alone.
So while I agree it's important that we have the ability and the choice to do things like this, don't lose sight of the fact that having a baby is a hard thing to do. We need the men, or the partners, in our lives for support. Doing it alone isn't good for you or the baby. Sure there are some SUPER-UBER women out there, but for the rest of us, we need help. And just as the author is giving women permission to not have it all or be superwomen, I think we need to recognize that having two people to help raise a child does make it a hell of a lot easier.
Men are no more obsolete today than they became when we started using vibrators. Nothing replaces the real thing!
Wow that changes the whole game for the men...now they are even less useful...to the women. Kind of expected in the age of disposal diapers..
It's not like that was the one thing men ever offered to women. Seriously if all a lady wants is a baby, she shouldn't get married because she wants a sperm donor. That is less respectful to a man than a woman having a baby on her own. Once you take reproduction out of the mix, I think you free people up to treat love like love and not just a financial exchange (money for an heir) like it used to be.