October 17, 2014

"What I find most disturbing is the implicit assumption in this article that women should have children."

"Even though the article is against egg freezing as a general practice, it makes no mention of the societal demand that women have children in the first place. Maybe if these women who decide to have children at 45 felt comfortable with their own desire to NOT have children, the practice would slowly become less popular."

A popular comment at a NYT op-ed titled "Don’t Depend on Those Frozen Eggs."

The "practice" that the commenter would like to see "slowly become less popular" is egg freezing, not — as one could easily misread — having children.

But the misreading is interesting, because the truth slips out. People tend to do what they want to do, and I think that egg-freezing, though promoted as a way to prolong life's window of fertility, is secretly a way to fulfill the desire not to have children at all, as the woman buys ease in the passage of time.

The longer she goes without finding a place in her life for a child, the clearer the picture becomes. She really doesn't want that child. And with that clarity, she finally sees her true and free choice, and she has been spared the old-fashioned anguish of the years of hearing the "ticking biological clock" that had, in the past, pressured women into having a baby as a bulwark against the regret that crystallizes after age wreaks infertility.

37 comments:

tim in vermont said...

Gene pool will be fine.

Henry said...

The more women who elect to not have children, the larger the dataset of women who earn just as much as men.

traditionalguy said...

Poor, poor women. They are being treated as if they are worthy of being wives and mothers when they just want to have fun.

Richard Lawrence Cohen said...

The Op-Ed in question "makes no mention of the societal demand that women have children in the first place" because that's not the subject of the fucking thing and newspaper columns have strict word limits.

Nonapod said...

Maybe we've reached a sort of critical point with our society where everyone will just stop having children. In many developed nations the birth rate in pretty much flat, and in Japan it's actually negative. Is that the ultimate end point for humans? No more children because we just don't feel like it? If we ever manage to achieve a post scarcity utopia where people are functionally immortal, will there be no children ever again?

Lyssa said...

That implied assumption was not in the article at all - it specifically stated that it was aimed at women who were concerned about such things.

Why are so many women so sensitive about their choices? If you dare make a different one, they take it as a personal insult.

ALP said...

Maybe if these women who decide to have children at 45 felt comfortable with their own desire to NOT have children, the practice would slowly become less popular.
***************
Ann! Can we have a month free of posts highlighting the thoughts of spineless, whiny, weak willed members of our gender. Please? Can I experience 30 straight days at this blog without being reminded that despite all the decades of so-called "empowerment" and feminism, most women are still too chickenshit to make a choice, and STAND BY IT with confidence, without whining about how horrible it is to run into people that, gasp, dare question one's choices?

For fuck's sake - if you don't want kids don't have them and OWN your choice. If you are not fully comfortable with that choice, well, maybe you are more undecided than you let on. Maybe you are just an empty-headed individual, parroting the party line in order to fit in with the "cool kids". Maybe you are not capable of one original thought, and latched onto whatever what convenient. If so, I don't have a shred of sympathy for you and your discomfort with YOUR OWN choices.

gerry said...

Much more practical.

n.n said...

This is not just about women. It's also about men who abstain from reproducing. Still, abstinence is preferable to abortion.

I wonder if the dodo was a psychopath who placed money, sex, and ego before its fitness. A duck will surely replace it in the generational hierarchy.

tim in vermont said...

To your point. Yes. Freezing one's eggs is like turning up the water a degree on the frog in the pan.

Ann Althouse said...

"Ann! Can we have a month free of posts highlighting the thoughts of spineless, whiny, weak willed members of our gender. Please?"

Aren't you kinda… whining?

Carl Pham said...

The funny thing, that regret is very real. Everyone thinks in her 30s (or even 40s) that she'll be just fine without. But when the first tendrils of the East Wind begin to blow, a really substantial fraction appear to discover rather to their horror that they were wrong. That their anticipation of how they'd feel at age 55 or 65 was deeply and awfully wrong.

I'm not surprised. We are increasingly weird about mortality. More and more, we are successfully able to pretend it doesn't exist -- and therefore not to consider what we need to do to deal with it -- until we are very old indeed. By which time, of course, a number of things you might want to do are not doable any more.

I've read the writing of people in their 50s who thought they didn't want children and found out too late they were wrong. There's not a lot that's sadder.

Anonymous said...

"Aren't you kinda… whining?"

It's like crying.

When President Bush cried in New York after 9/11, that was socially acceptable crying. When Darrell Issa found out Arnold was running against him in the California Governors race, he cried as he gave his, "I'm no longer running speech." That was not acceptable.

In one instance (With President Bush) he was crying for other people. In the other instance (Issa) he was crying for himself. Issa's case is pathetic.

As to whining, if you whine for yourself, it's pathetic. "I want the candy! Give me the candy!" On the other hand, if you whine for others, not so much, "Why can't we feed the hungry in Africa? Surely we can find a way to help them?!"

Gahrie said...

"What I find most disturbing is the implicit assumption in this article that women should have children."

So who the hell does she think should have children? Men? Not going to happen.

Renee said...

I have four children, but some of the woman who had the greatest impact on like were never married childless.

Never felt regret, but they had a dozen nieces/nephews.


Now that large families are so rare, childless can feel more profound.

MayBee said...

Are women who don't want to have children actually gendered properly as female?

I think we need the Genderbread man to help us figure this out.

MayBee said...

ps. Women are driving me crazy lately. Why can't we shut up for a while?

MayBee said...

It seems to me people just feel so young for so long these days, they lose track of what their body is doing (you know, aging).

I have friends in their 50's posting statuses like, "I can't believe I have a 6 year old already! Happy birthday, Susie!" Like they are just waaaay tooooo young to have a first grader.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Two opposed thoughts.

1. If you don't want kids, fuck 'em. It's your life, and some of your choices are going to carry costs. You pay for how you want to live. Be an adult about it.

2. A society that doesn't pressure people (men and women) to raise children isn't going to last very long. It's a totally natural thing, because societies that don't have child-rearing as a norm disappear.

Jane the Actuary said...

This is an odd story. Not the initial Apple/Facebook story -- I asusmed, at least at first, that this was simply a "routine" addition to their list of fertility treatments, and maybe more with women undergoing cancer treatments in mind than the "just in case" pregnancy-deferrer.

I mean the backlash (Apple isn't family-friendly) and the backlash to the backlash, with quite a bit of commentary along the lines of "how dare you criticize women for choosing to have children in their 40s?" -- at least, I assume we're still talking 40s, and not at even older ages.

It all seems like the latest incarnation of "having it all." If you can't have a kid and work at your fabulous career at the same time, then you can at least have as much fun as you want, for as long as you want, and then have a kid on your timeline.

http://janetheactuary.blogspot.com/2014/10/what-do-you-make-of-whole-apple-egg.html

tim maguire said...

Unless you can afford a full time nanny, having kids is a young person's game. I'm 48 with a 1st grader. I was far too immature in my 20's, I spent my 30's looking for Mrs Right before becoming a dad at 42. From a stability and financial standpoint, I couldn't have had my daughter any sooner than I did, but from a physical health standpoint, life would have been much easier if I did.

I don't believe it's such a good idea to make waiting easier.

MayBee said...

I bet Facebook is gobsmacked there is feminist pushback to their very generous, woman-empowering new benefit.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Tim-

I'm 40 with a 9 year old. It would be better to be 29.

At least he lives in a nicer neighborhood.

MadisonMan said...

Agree 100% with Lyssa.

If you don't want to have children, don't. If you do, then do.

What you shouldn't do, though, is give a flying fig for what other people think of your decision. That requires you to be secure in your own decision.

Life is full of What ifs. It's foolish to spend time thinking about them.

Bob Loblaw said...

The longer she goes without finding a place in her life for a child, the clearer the picture becomes. She really doesn't want that child.

I don't know about that. I have too many female friends that are miserable for having missed their chance. The most common sentiment seems to be "I was trying to advance my career so I could make a comfortable home for my family, and then when I was ready I couldn't find the right man with which to start it."

jr565 said...

If you take away the ability to have kids' women are basically weaker men. I understand that not all women want to be mothers, but having the ability to be mothers is their unique strength. It would be like superman giving up his ability to fly and super strength becuase of the responsibility.. Clark Kent is an emasculated nancy boy in comparison. Nice enough, but Clark is not Superman.

carrie said...

The problem with your argument, and maybe it is no longer true, is that a woman comes out of law school, etc., believing (i.e., brainwashed) that she should postpone having a child until later in her career or that she should not want to become a mother at all. By the time the brainwashing wears off and the woman can really think for herself, the clock is ticking or it may be too late.

James Pawlak said...

Women who don't want children are under-qualified to raise them.

aberman said...

It's not the end of the world - it's the end of you

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FB03Aa01.html

ALP said...

Touche!

Michael said...

So, yet another way to postpone adulthood and disengage from making decisions and accepting responsibility. Let's all pretend that we can do any- and everything we want when we want, and that there will be no complications or consequences, for ourselves or others.

Æthelflæd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Æthelflæd said...


I am 44, have five kids, two of which are already in college. Sometimes I feel like an alien.

jr565 said...

It seems to me that despite Lady Gaga songs about being born a certain way it's the left that is intolerant of basic biology. Women are born with uteruses. People are born with chromosomes and DNA that identify their gender. In both cases the left seems to be at war with basic biology to fit their leftist narrative.
They want to say "I am woman, hear me roar" but when it's pointed out that they are female, they chafe at the biology they have been burdened with and rail against the sexism of nature.
Women have uteruses. And are supposed to be mothers biologically. The more feminists look down their nose at their natural roles, the less they breed.
Luckily, conservative women seem to carry the mantle of motherhood for women. For all the talk of war on women, it really seems like conservative women don't view being a woman as a bad thing.
As such, maybe it's better that liberal women aren't breeding anyway.

The Godfather said...

What I object to is the notion that the decision about having children is SOLELY the responsibility of the woman. Biologically, it still takes two to tango. And it still takes two to NOT tango. As a society we are coming close to creating the situation that already exists in Europe -- we're going to have to import children, or at least adults who will create children, if we are going to survive.

In the little slice of the world that I see, couples of child-bearing age are starting to have three children, instead on one or two. I hope that's a trend.

Anonymous said...

Honestly don't know what pretend planet most of these comments are from. I am knee deep in liberal land and nobody was anti-motherhood or unaware of their time line in their 20s.

They did rail against the workplace not being mother/female-friendly when being so would not come at the price of success. And they were right. Some who had left a hostile environment and had kids are still bitter about that...as much as they love their kids, they also still feel the pull of their unused potential. It's not the kids (or their, chortle, uteruses) they blame, but the overly-hostile work environment of their younger years.

I think that's the flip side of all these archaic, anti-motherhood feminist stereotypes I'm reading above (which may have been true at one time?)- the stereotypically male, capitalist belief that if a workplace is female/motherhood/family/human-friendly, it will lose its edge and not be the best, so therefore things must not be made any easier or more supportive, forcing people (men, too) into these types of choices.

That is a fallacy as well.

Jupiter said...

"Blogger SOJO said...
I am knee deep in liberal land and nobody was anti-motherhood or unaware of their time line in their 20s.

They did rail against the workplace not being mother/female-friendly when being so would not come at the price of success."

If you are knee-deep in liberal land, you must be standing on your head. "The workplace", as you call it, is actually someone else's private property. You would understand that perfectly if it were your property. Since it is not, you think that it should be, or at least it should be managed so as to allow you to realize your "potential" without interfering with your charming little nurturant tendencies.

The only thing that forces anyone into choices is the fact that the things they like to put into their faces, and their pockets, are produced by other people, who will not part with them for free. Everyone on Earth is not one of your parents.