The New Way To Have It All: First Baby, Then Love
By Genevieve Lill. Posted on .
In the introduction of the book you describe a time when your friends were settling down. Do you think the the urge to settle is biologically or socially motivated?
I had a whole group of friends get married in their late twenties and early thirties. And a lot of those marriages are breaking up now. That pressure to settle down is, I think, very socially motivated. There's enormous amounts of peer pressure to get married, especially for women. There's still this idea in our society that a married woman has a little bit of superiority, that it's something she's "achieved." I hope my book will help change this culture so that marriage really is a choice, and it's one that you make because you love somebody and not because you think you should be married.
You point out that male fertility drops with age, just as a woman's does. Do you think this fact will get more attention once your book is out?
It's already gotten some attention in the press. In my book I talk to a number of men who have realized that they also face fertility issues. It's not as drastic as a woman's fertility—men can conceive babies well into their fifties. But more studies are coming out that say those kids have a higher risk of this or that.
It's important for men to be as aware of fertiliy as women are. I think men often blame women for fertility hysteria, but men need to realize that they have a responsibility, too. They need to be considerate about their girlfriend or fiancée or wife's fertility, and they should know that their fertility declines with age, too, albeit not as drastically as women's.
