Going Off-Topic Today

I'm headed off topic today (and you feel free to do so as well, whenever your please!) because something I read with my morning coffee really got me to thinking.  That doesn't happen very often, because my morning reading isn't normally very 'deep'!

But today I picked up the newest copy of Newsweek and read an article entitled "Ice Queens: They Save Their Eggs And Thrive At Work.  Diane Sawyer's Secret To Resetting The Biological Clock."  The gist of the story is that anchorwoman Diane Sawyer is encouraging the younger women who work for her to go to a fertility clinic in New York and have some of their eggs frozen, so that if they reach their forties without having had children (because of work pressures or because of not having met a potential father) they can still have a chance at having a child of their own.  As we all know, biology plays a cruel trick on women. While men can sire kids up to Strom Thurmond age, the window for ladies generally only lasts (naturally) until the late 30s.  And those years---the 30s in particular---are also the years in which a woman builds her career.  If she is in a profession that requires years of post-graduate work (like the academy, law, or medicine), she often can not afford to take time off to be a mom in this decade.

Freezing eggs is not a new technology, but the doctor featured in the article has developed a different process with a much higher rate of success.  It is expensive---$15,000 for a single cycle that freezes 10 to 20 eggs---but the article predicts that the cost will come down as more and more working women choose this option.  The article virtually urges people to become missionaries of this new technique, getting the word out to younger working women that they do have a choice and even more control over their own fertility.

As I read the article a couple of things jumped out.  One was this sentence about some of the women who come to this clinic are sent in by their parents--"I know you want to work, but I want grandkids someday."  Excuse me, are we still living in the 1950s?  I believe parents should be honored and respected, but I don't believe they should have any control over their adult child's fertility!    Yuck.  It's one thing for mom and dad to drop hints, another thing entirely for them to send you to the clinic.  I suddenly had this image of parents handing their daughters appointment slips for egg freezing as graduation presents.  So much for the car or a trip to Europe, Missy, we are going to make damn sure we get grandkids whether you really want to have kids or not.

But then, on a more serious note, I began to wonder how---if this process does become common---would it change things for American women.  As my veterans of women's history class know, the pill certainly changed everything.  Reliable birth control gave women control over more than just when or if they would have kids, it gave them greater control over their entire lives because it freed them from a biological game plan.  Would this technology go even further?  Imagine if this became as common in 20 years as the pill is now.  What if the 'normal' age of motherhood got pushed back from mid 20s-30s to mid-40s, or even (gulp!) late 40s early 50s?  Would this be a good thing?

Well, in some ways, it could be a good thing.  A woman would have time to build a career (same for daddy) and maybe by their 40s the couple could BOTH take time off to spend as intensive parents.  With advances in health care, exercise, and nutrition, a couple in their 40s might feel like a couple in their 20s. Plus, with age comes (hopefully) wisdom and maturity.  Plenty of people in this world have grown up with older parents and have benefitted from it.

But I also wonder if we aren't looking at this from only one side.  How will kids fare if their parents are nearing retirement age as the kids graduate from high school?  If you're the last of the litter, so to speak, your parents might need you to care for them rather than to go on to college---is that fair to the child?  Most kids today have moms and dads who can be active with them; what if most kids in the future grow up with parents who were financially well off, but physically less able?  Does having more money make up for tossing around a ball or playing together on the slide?

All of those, of course, are big questions that only time and technology would answer.  But here's one we could be addressing right now: is having kids right for everybody?

Obviously, this is why this article hit home to me.  I've never thought I wanted to have children.  Even growing up, I never played with baby dolls (I went straight for Barbies and the soap operas that I could create around them).  When I was in my 20s and 30s, the guys I knew and dated were definitely NOT the type of dudes any women would want to have children with.  I was 45 years old before I met a man I truly fell in love with and could have ever envisioned having a child with.  But 45 (well, 48 now) is waaaaaayyyyyyy too old to think about having a kid.  Would my life have been better if this technology had existed back in my FSU days and I could be 'expecting' right now?

I don't think so, because I have always known I didn't want kids.  It's just something I've understood about myself.  And what I think we should be doing, as a society, is having more open and honest discussions about why/when/how we bring children into this world.  Children are a blessing---please don't think I hate kids (though I will admit to being scared of them to a large degree---so germy!) ---and I have such admiration for great parents (like Jeremy!) who put so much love, time and effort into raising a child.

But what worries me and why that article set me off is that I think children are becoming a commodity.  They're more and more of a status symbol, a trophy, a thing to check off the list.  Got my college education (check), my great job (check), my fabulous house (check)...now on to my designer baby.   Or, couples who aren't ready for kids get pressured into having kids, either from their parents or community factors.   A friend of mine once told me that if a childless couple moved into their neighborhood they were 'shunned' by the rest of the neighbors, that they 'didn't want people like that' in their cul-de-sac.

Having a child is probably the most important decision a person ever makes (because, let's face it, in this day and age you don't have to have two people involved!).  But if our world is advanced enough to put childbearing off until late middle age, why aren't we mature enough to recognize that for some people going without kids is the right decision?  Why those without children judged as either pitiful or selfish or pariahs?  Why can't we recognize and respect all the different paths in life, and that people with and without kids (or with and without partners, for that matter) have such a diversity of good things to offer?

Why is technology always ahead of honest, thoughtful talk about life's most important decisions?