Add another war to the list (mommy, nanny, body) — I think we're on the brink of an Age War. This slightly alarmist article, Is Waiting to Have Kids A Big Mistake? just caused a small uproar on my Facebook wall, freaking out several moms (myself included) and hopeful moms-to-be. (Are we having kids too old? Am I having kids too old? Will they suffer because of it? Will I suffer because of it? Will we be broke? Will we all die alone??!) You get the idea.
The author of the essay talks about how she and her husband are not nearly as financially stable as they'd like to be. About how her parents (her children's grandparents) will be unlikely to see her kids graduate from college or attend their weddings (great-grandchildren seem out of the question). About how she, herself, will probably die when her kids are not *that* old (I know, I know. It gets so depressing you want to punch yourself in the eye. Bear with me). A similar and better-researched essay in The New Republic gets into more nitty-gritty about the genetic implications of older parenting (higher incidences of autism, etc) and the social implications (like underpopulation — who knew?! Apparently all of us "older" parents are ending up having fewer kids than we would have if we started in our early twenties, so the world is shrinking). Then there are the annoying (yet, in my opinion, deal-able) issues like other kids thinking you're your kid's grandma/grandpa because you're sporting a salt-and-pepper 'do, or the fact that your parents have been waiting decades to spoil a grandkid and by the time they get one, some of their other friends have grandkids in high school (sorry, Mom).
But here's the thing: the world is going to adjust. Right? Doesn't it always? Sure, these genetic and health issues are something we should absolutely consider, and monitor, as a society, as we think about reproductive trends going forward. (Are doctors sufficiently warning us of the risks of older parenting — ie., older sperm and eggs — and fertility treatments? We focus so much on "getting pregnant" — what about after? And if they aren't adequately discussing the risks with us, is it because they don't know the risks?) The truth is, much of this is so new, Shulevitz, the author of the New Republic article, hits the nail on the head when she says that we just don't know what we're getting into. And the consequences could end up being more dramatic than we think... or not.
But what does this mean for you, or for me, personally? There are always going to be extremes (like 50-year-old moms and dads of newborns) that give us pause. For the average individual, though — is it really worth beating ourselves up about our choices? For many of us, it's hammered into our heads since middle school (or earlier!) that education trumps everything. Graduate high school. Go to college. Maybe even get a graduate degree. Spend your twenties building a career, and then find a partner to settle down with. (Don't do it too late, mind you — try to find said partner by the time you're at least in your late twenties/early thirties so that you can squeeze into that non- "advanced maternal age" bucket right at 34 and half years. Congrats, you might even just avoid an amnio!) And it's not just something our elders "recommend" — we're smart enough to understand that it can be nearly impossible to get ahead in a career at age 26 if you've got an infant at home.* Most of us would at least like to try to get to a place of some stability in our careers before we upend the whole thing by having a kid. And let's face it — that IS what happens. You don't have to read Anne Marie Slaughter's infamous Atlantic article to know that as a woman, in our current culture, it is hella hard to keep your foot on the accelerator (thanks, Sheryl Sandberg for the analogy) while taking care of some wee ones. And it's the same for dads who assume primary caregiving roles. Unless you're independently wealthy, uber successful by the time you're 30 (read: Mark Zuckerberg) or you've carved out the perfect jobs that will let you take a breather to change a diaper, it's a complex, tricky little equation. Of course people are waiting to have kids until they feel a little more secure. And, frankly, their workplaces expect it. Why? Because look around. Celebrities, politicians, other public figures: they are the bastions of advanced parental age. At age 35, you've probably gained the respect to say: Not going on the work ski trip. Kid at home. At age 25? Please. You'd be told to suck it up.
In Jessica Valenti's Why Have Kids?, she talks a lot about how we had kids 100 years ago to get another set of hands on the farm or to work in the family store. Back then, you probably didn't wait until you were 30 to find "the one" — you married the first guy who asked. But that's not the world we live in anymore. We try to optimize for everything (have you noticed that?) and expect we might be able to "have it all" if things are timed just right. That may be part of the problem – earlier generations didn't even think they could have it all, so they didn't try. Personally, I'm still after "having it all," so I think we should keep striving for it. But if we're going to fundamentally change this trend toward older parenting (or figure out the best ways to accommodate it), we're going to have to make some social changes. As Shulevitz says:
"It won’t be easy to make the world more baby-friendly, but if we were to try, we’d have to restructure the professions so that the most intensely competitive stage of a career doesn’t occur right at the moment when couples should be lavishing attention on infants. We’d have to stop thinking of work-life balance as a women’s problem, and reframe it as a basic human right."
I couldn't agree more.
*Not to say that it can't be done! It most certainly can. It's just hard. That is all.
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