In less than ten
years I’ve done a complete 180 regarding my interest in and plans for children.
Through high school, college, and early marriage, I planned to do things the
way everyone now says you should. Finish college. Get a job. Get comfortable in
finances, career path, and marriage. Then, and only then—around age 35 or
so—grudgingly allow a baby or two to inhabit my body. Expel them as quickly as
possible. Then tie my tubes. Seriously, that was my plan.
Well, besides being horrifically naïve and narcissistic,
it was a stupid plan. Luckily life knocked me off the stupid train, but
meanwhile everyone else was hopping aboard. The Wall Street Journal reported
last week that the U.S. fertility rate has fallen to match its record low….
(Full text at
link below)
Look, your
biological clock starts
ticking at age 27. You can avoid all of this by getting it on by then. You
want to do it anyway. So just go with your body and not against it. It’s really
not that complicated.
I will say one last thing. I do realize that responsible
women and men need to find a husband or wife in order to make all this work. You owe your children married parents. I also know the
sexual revolution, besides our anti-fertility cultural life script, is just
crushing our ability to make that happen. Men are far less interested in
putting a ring on it a) if they can get sex without commitment and b)
because no-fault divorce is a horrible deal for them.
I get
these realities because all my lady friends talk about them constantly. If you
can’t start a family before age 30, don’t panic and do start one whenever you
can! Life isn’t perfect, and that includes fertility. Further, we need to
realize that we are not entirely at the mercy of our culture. We are our culture.
What we do and what we expect from each other is a culture-creating process. So
stop being defeatist and start being a culture entrepreneur.
Instead, I’m
arguing that this is the target to shoot for. If you’re not even aiming at the
target, you’re almost sure not to hit it at all. If you at least aim, your
chances go way up. So aim.