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 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.
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.
