taking sides: single, childless men in their mid-thirties vs single, childless women in their mid-thirties

Most men who put off children do so because of their career, or lack thereof. This really makes them about equal with their female peers in one regard.

Yes, but this is where biology really does come in and it's not just about societal attitudes. Women's fertility drops off vertiginously from the age of 35. Men's doesn't. A 35-year-old guy can probably put off having children without the nagging thought that he won't be fertile enough to do it in a few years' time. But a woman who leaves it to her late thirties or early forties is running a big risk.

Way to generalise!

The risk of chromosomal defects, etc increases dramatically beyond 35 for the woman too. I guess an issue for the middle-aged new dad is that he may be an OAP by the time his son or daughter is in their teens. This is something I worry about a bit, being a faintly creaky 37. I'd like to be trading forehands in the park with Ava in 2019 but I suspect my knees won't be up to it.

On the bright side, the risk is getting smaller, I believe.

As for choosing, we have chosen choices, unchosen choices and choices that choose themselves choices.

Wow, how long did you have to study to come up with that statement? I disagree after seeing a program on the former group.

AnyHOOO, But a woman who leaves it to her late thirties or early forties is running a big risk.

Yes, very much so. This is why I am still in doubt whether to have a second child. I know I should not think too long about this, cause I don't want to be 36 and having a battery of tests to check if I have a healthy child. And secondly I don't want to be too old: I don't want to be sixty with a young teenage son/daughter.

(x-post) I have decided not to have children and I'm quite happy, thank you very much. Perhaps the programme makers should have talked to me - I'd have put them straight.

Or am I just lying to myself and I actually secretly want hundreds of children because, you know, that's what women do.

But it just sickens me, the way that this is invariably turned into just another stick to beat "Career Women" with, when, according to the same article (or maybe it was a similarly themed one later) one of the biggest reasons quoted for said "gap" was not actually "delaying baby for career" but "lack of suitable partner". Which I thought was quite interesting.

I mean, sorry to counter the inherent misogyny of the question with my generation's bitterness towards men (or bitterness that has infected me from other OH NO! childless 30-something womens I know) but who wants to have a child with some kidult boy who's not finished being a child himself?

(I'm of your generation, Kate, and I'm not even remotely bitter towards men. Some of my best friends, etc...)

Yeah hearing this must be infuriating. But I do think it's possible to make a clear-headed unambiguous decision against having children in your 30s and be surprised by a sudden stirring ambivalence w/r/t that choice when you hit the 40s, it's like a biological reaction. Obviously much stronger in women, since childbirth becomes physically impossible past a certain age, but I've seen men go through this too. Again, please don't take this as questioning belittling or patronizing your choice. Just an observation.

I would have liked to have had kids, but at 35 (about to be 36 next week) it's probably OH NO TOO LATE according to "Science!" (Cue man in flaming tophat.) Making me one of those desperate women it's all too easy to lampoon, I suppose. Though I'm moving towards acceptance. (I'm trying to deal with it by thinking of the idea that it's better to be childless than to pass on what is by all indications a genetic condition, without sounding too much like a eugenicist.)

So I get touchy about the suggestion that IT'S BECAUSE YOU HAD A CAREER, BAD WOMAN, OH NO PUTTING OFF YOUR BABIES!!! when the reality was that it was far more complex than that, and mostly down to the tragic ineptitude of the partner(s) I had during my optimum health baby bearing years.

Why am I writing this if it's just going to provide more funnybait for stalkers? Because it's a touchy subject and I'm trying to be honest about it, as well as just falling back on the cliches.

(that said, we did have a bugger of a time trying to conceive)

"Man is not a garland flower that can pollinate oneself" to quote good old Captain Anderson (or was it Talbot? I can't quite recall.)

crossposts

Bah. My wife and I are both 36, and we've known since we were married (15 years!) that we didn't want children. And we still don't.

LEND ME YOUR SPERM!!!!!

There were plenty of other factors in play of course, and I'm not suggesting that this would be the norm for 40-y-o new parents. The way things are going, that kind of generation gap will probably become the norm.

(FWIW, I was very keen to have children when I was in my mid-late 20s, gradually went off the idea into my 30s and then, suddenly, at 34-ish thought it would be the greatest thing.)

Seconded. I've already more or less done my back in! You simply don't have the energy at 40 that you had at 30.

http://images.radcity.net/5990/1070833.jpg

Nope, never. In fact, I grow more confident with each passing year -- dadhood just is not for me. And if anything, my wife is even MORE confident that momhood is not for her.

I give up. If you can't really see the doctor's point of view... I was just trying to state that SOME PEOPLE DO CHANGE THEIR MIND. :-)

Consider the fate of someone going onto the Chicago thread a catlovers site and describing the result of going to the pet sactuary as a 'random' kitten. :)

I don't know though.

It's as obnoxious to me as would be a doctor trying to talk a woman out of an abortion.

I don't know about "panels of experts". I do believe parents choose a child from the ones available but their choice must be approved (including from the child herself if old enough).

isn't a vascetomy much more easily reversed than a ligation? Also it is not major surgery as ligation is.

This really might be the true fear.

All of a sudden I'm wondering if I wasn't being hopelessly naive. So parents ARE allowed to pick and choose their babies? That seems kinda... divisive - the generous, philanthropic qualities of adoption take on a sinister note if the parents can pick the prettiest or most smiley baby.

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE UGLY CHILDREN!

p.s. thanks Anna for explaining very concisely what I've been spluttering about

Being 17 or whatever, I think we picked the parents who listed music as one of their primary interests, because we thought they would be more likely to be artistic or open-minded in the event that her child turned out to be like her.

It was an unbelievably difficult decision. I can't imagine what it must have been like for the prospetive parents. So it does kind of... I don't know. It seems a bit flippant when people say "oh, well, I'll just adopt!"

I am of an age, and an inclination where I believe that I will not have children. Part of me feels I would really like kids, though I have seen the degrees to which they have changed friends lives and wonder if I would be able to accept such a change. As someone whose whole approach to relationships is hugely risk adverse, it would seem to be admiting a whole load of risk into my life. Therefore the adoption or fostering idea is both attractive and even more scary for me. I do like children and am pretty good with them (I know where the off switch is).But am I missing out by not having any? Not when there are so many friends and families children I can be part of.

You're missing a lot. But if you have kids, you also miss a lot. it's a win/win, lose/lose situation. Does that make any sense?

at least until they were thirteen or so, the threat would probably seem pretty plausible.

This wasn't really a problem in NY, where none of my friends were baby makers, but now that I live in VA (temporarily) I'm in a much more conservative environment, and I think it is a bit of a mystery to my coworkers now as to why I am not married and making babies. If/when I move back to a large city this will hopefully change.

Also, now I work with a lot of kids and parents and I think the kids are so charming and wonder if I shouldn't embark on my own little vanity project after all. But I like to come home to peace and quiet and I wonder how I could deal with raising a child and being peppy and not cranky. Because I realize how depression in parents easily manifests itself (somewhere down the line) in depression in children. Luckily, there's no sperm donor in the picture so I don't have an opportunity to test my recent musings.

FInally, dealing with my mom's health now makes me think about who will look after me when I get older...and maybe I should have a child as a form of security. But again, this is fear speaking.

So childness for now and for the forseeable future, but not ruling out possible changes of mind, as circumstances permit.

Also very disturbed with why someone would state point-blank that childness women are somehow going against their nature. If you feel that you are not going to be a good mother, or don't have the wherewithal to raise a child, or simply aren't interested in having children, surely it's better to realize that than to blindly go along and have a child for the sake of it?

I also respect those who do have children, whatever their motivations, the delivery process itself seems massive, and all of those minutes and hours and days dedicated to childcare. I wonder how people entertain their children all day? I think I was just put in front of the tv or left with a good book, but I feel like it's important these days to be stimulating baby's brain at every moment.

Way to generalise!

-- ailsa (ailsa.watso...), April 6th, 2006.

Whoa there, Alisa. You sound a little neurotic

For Markelby:

(I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here a bit. I have no *desire* to give birth to a child. I'm not going to rush out and adopt a kid either. If I were to find myself pregnant, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I'm only thinking about the issue right now because this thread is here.)
-- ailsa (ailsa.watso...), April 6th, 2006 4:44 PM. (ailsa) (later)

And, as Andrew F pointed out, I wasn't extrapolating to the whole world. Basically, *I* don't have the desire to experience pregnancy, give birth, etc. And I don't really understand this urge in others. I do get that it's there, but without having experienced it, I can't understand how it would drive, for example, Nathalie to question Trayce's decision to not bring another child into the world, given that Trayce is a grown-up intelligent woman who has, presumably, given this matter a bit of thought.

I *do* understand that everything changes when you have a kid (I do have a mother, after all, and she didn't really want kids either, but has managed more than OK). I just don't understand this rampant biological ticking clock stuff. I can't imagine a point ever in my life where I'll go, "oh, what I need now is a baby". I'm 33, I've been happily married for five years. If I was going to do it, now would be as good a time as any. I JUST DON'T WANT TO.

I think I have stuff I could pass on to the next generation (I do "mother" problem teenagers for a living, you know) and I have considered fostering, as it's not so *final* as adopting and having a kid, but it can be... (my big brother was fosterered by us when he was 11, he's now in his late 30s and very much part of the family).

Sorry, Mark, you called me a robot (and you know me well enough, I hope, to know that I'm not) so I just wasn't sure. Also because I use "cheers" in a sarky voice more often than not. Thanks :-)

Seconded on Mary's post. Much more eloquent than my ramblings.

If it helps - I have fallen pregnant before. I had an abortion. No regrets. Sorry. Not going to apologise for it.

?

there is nothing inherently wrong with either group

i just found out my mom smoked throughout her pregnancy with me. thanks mom!
― the man from mars won't eat up bars where the tv's on (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:54 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

she did look cool tho
― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:55 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hahahaha

sarahell otm. the thread title sets up a pointless opposition that the OP then blithely ignores in order to make a blandly 'trenchant' observation. bfd.