October 13, 2021 - 7:00am
Earlier this week it was announced that Murray Edwards, an all-female college at Cambridge University, is now offering fertility seminars that warn women that they risk childlessness if they don’t start a family by their mid-thirties.
President Dorothy Byrne claims that the classes are about ‘empowering’ women, but the reality is that this is nothing more than scare-mongering. Yes, the birth rate is falling; from 1.92 children per woman in 2011 to 1.53 in 2021, to be precise. But we are not quite at the Children of Men stage yet. We do not need vaguely dystopian, ominous warnings about declining egg quality; instead, we need to consider why parenthood is not financially, professionally or socially viable for so many people.
Despite what Byrne may think, talking to women about their fertility is not ‘taboo’; in fact, quite the opposite. No young, highly educated woman is unaware of her biological clock — we are reminded by everyone from family members to Instagram influencers to medical professionals on an almost weekly basis. Only a few months ago one IVF expert publicly stated that “if you want to have the opportunity to have three children, you probably have to start trying when you’re 23.”
This advice is terrifying: at 23, my main skills were finding nights out and ordering Deliveroo; I could navigate night bus routes more easily than a nappy. It’s also misleading. A lot of data on declining fertility rates is horribly out-dated; one oft-quoted statistic, that one in three women between 35 and 39 will not be pregnant after a year of trying is based on French birth records from 1670 to 1830.
More recent studies paint a much more positive picture: one paper by Obstetrics and Gynaecology found that with sex at least twice a week, 82% of 35 to 39 year old women conceive within a year, compared to 86% of 27 to 34 year olds.
Furthermore, should we also not be talking to male students about how male fertility has been declining for decades, or how sperm concentration has fallen by 60%, or how men are responsible for half of all infertility problems?
There are so many other social and economic factors to consider. Yes, Byrne is right that it is a “woman’s right to choose to have a baby,” but it is hard to exercise that right when there are so many obstacles to overcome. If we really want to make parenthood more appealing (and more feasible), then there are three main areas we need to address.
Firstly, the crippling costs of childcare: only Slovakia and Switzerland have more expensive systems, and a recent survey found that 96% of parents believed these costs impacted their standard of living. Secondly, our extraordinarily expensive housing market: the average first-time home buyer is now 34 years old. In London, the average tenant spends half of their salary on rent, which is hardly conducive to starting a family. Finally, inflexible work policies: women are far more likely to take on part-time or lower-paid jobs, and one study by the EHRC found that 54,000 new mothers lose their jobs every year.
We should not bury our heads in the sand about biological realities. It is true, for example, that IVF is more successful in younger women, and the risk of chromosomal abnormalities does rise with a woman’s age. However, these facts should form part of a much wider, more holistic, more inclusive discussion, and should not be used as a stick to beat women with.
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Subscribe“at 23, my main skills were finding nights out and ordering Deliveroo” – well, that’s the level of a brainless teenager, not of a grown-up who graduated.
But graduates are not grown-up.
They have put their life on hold between ages 17-22 while everyone else has been learning life-lessons.
The article rationalises what is irrational, and the author herself provides the clue:
“at 23, my main skills were finding nights out and ordering Deliveroo,”
I had a friend who had her first baby at 14 yrs. With the help of her family she became a more than good enough mother of two fine children (she had another a few years later). I am not recommending this as the way to go, but it points to the naive, angsty, over intellectualizing of middle class women about motherhood. Instinct is a powerful thing, and it can be trusted way over and above thinking when you become a mother. You certainly do not need “skills”.
Have babies when you like but the healthiest time for both mother and baby is 18 – 25 yrs, that is a fact.
Yes, and also less disruptive to a career. Have babies at 18-25, go to work when you’re (say) 30, once the children are at school, and you’ll have over thirty years of uninterrupted career progression, smashing glass ceilings everywhere (should that be your heart’s desire). And (this applies to men too) don’t bother with university. This is a waste of time and money and is increasingly (as Sussex shows) a place of moral and intellectual corruption.
Quite right. Nor do her economic complaints stack up. Childcare costs a lot because childcarers need to be paid a living wage. But most people can manage to find friends or relatives who will help out and having children early helps in this. My wife and I had children late and I used to come back to change our son’s nappy during lunch time as his grandparents were not fit enough to do this.
The cost of housing and food have always taken up a large proportion of a married couples wages. The standard of living possible to married couples with children is likely to be much higher than their parents and grandparents enjoyed. Flexible working arrangements are more available today than they have ever been.
The author seems merely to be providing excuses as to why women need not grow up and abandon a more self centred and entitled lifestyle. If you want children you have to make some sacrifices.That has always been the case.
Agreed! Selfishness isn’t a good parenting quality. Unfortunately we sell careers better than we do motherhood. Maybe if we change our attitude towards motherhood, more women will chose to become one. Personally I found it to be the most satisfying thing I have ever done with my life.
How exactly does information about fertility and a recommendation to have think about planning important matters in your life constitute a stick to beat women with?
Because misery loves company. Over the hill cat ladies never warn the young chickadees about what awaits them.
Can be worse than that, I’m afraid.
A guest speaker (an American businesswoman) at the end-of-year address at my daughter’s school positively insisted that women must make their career their whole life. Anything less was betrayal of something, somehow.
And it’s so much harder for women (‘Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards, and in high heels’, she explained).
The speaker did warn us that not everyone would like what she was going to say. She was right there, at least.
Yes, but I understood she is saying that women don’t need to be reminded about their falling fertility, because they know that already. I would say that’s true.
Men should just leave them alone to make up their own minds. What’s wrong with that? Women aren’t thick or something
The person doing the ‘reminding’ (read the article) is not a man, but a woman, the head of a women-only college at Cambridge.
She has a personal interest in the life-choices and happiness of the students, because she herself left having a baby late in her own life (age 45 by IVF). I imagine she hopes those of her students who wish to be mothers can, by planning their lives, avoid the anxiety she presumably went through. That seems reasonable and kind-hearted to me.
And it certainly doesn’t sound like ‘a stick to beat women with’, which was the phrase used by the writer of the article.
My point still stands. They know this already. There is a great deal of peer pressure for women to have children. It’s unkind, and potentially causes mental health problems, especially if they can’t have children
I beg to differ, they actually don’t know or mistakenly believe science will save them. Look up trying to have a baby over 40, you will see a lot of desperate women who are draining their bank accounts to get pregnant with one child.
Not entirely true, or at least a lot don’t understand the real implication of declining fertility.
Back during the Obama era, the AMA wanted to do a public information campaign because of the large numbers of women who seemed surprised that they were having trouble conceiving in their late 30s or early 40s. Women’s media and magazines have had lots of stories about women becoming pregnant at the drop of a hat aged 42, they hardly ever covered the many thousands crying into their pillows every night because they’d simply left it too late.
Btw, the National Organisation of Women successfully lobbied the government to put a stop to the proposed campaign – they couldn’t allow anything that implied that women may have culpability in outcomes not to their liking!
The arrogance of human beings!! We are going further and further from nature. Absolute control of our lives is necessary from day 1. Why do we feel that we will benefit from this control?
Middle class intellectuals (contributors to UnHerd) want to plan the lives of their children – education, jobs, health, etc. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is reproducing like rabbits. I think those middle-class children will not be protected by the police in future and their parents will not allow any preparation (risk) to toughen them up. Therefore, they won’t survive.
The insanity of thinking having a baby is something you slot in between career promotions, once you’ve got the cost of childcare sorted out. What culture in history has ever been so blind to the realities of life?
Marriage, and at the very least monogamy, was an institution that was specifically designed to care for children.
Feminists destroyed marriage, because it’s “slavery” or something like that, and now they are even rejecting monogamy.
So of course having children is not a viable option for them. Now the same feminists who destroyed the institutions that cared for children, are offering the solutions for the crisis they created. More government assistance.
If you aren’t going to be married to a man, you are going to be married to the state (and your cats). So like it or not, you are going to be married. But you are going to raise those kids alone.
I’m in my late thirties and I know of three couples who are trying for babies. It ain’t happening for them, however, and it’s making them miserable.
My generation’s women were sold a lie.
Yes it happened to my second wave gen too
My wife and I made this mistake and waited too long and then it was too late! We eventually adopted a lovely daughter so it worked out fine in the end but I still wish someone had shaken us up more when we were out partying in our 30s.
Don’t put it off! By all means have fun in your teens and early twenties but then get on with the real business of life – marriage and family. You are so much more capable of raising a child when you are young. Over 40 a baby is exhausting. And don’t worry about your career – no one looks back with any pride that they managed to climb an extra rung in the firm. They do about their children.
And on the author’s other points:
1. Childcare costs. Do whatever it takes for one parent to stop work and raise the kids. The benefits are incalculable.
2. Housing costs. Move far away from London to where property is cheap. Maybe you can work remotely in your current job, maybe you need to find another job. The job market is on fire at the moment so there is no better time.
It is amazing how unimportant things like career progression and trendy postcodes seem once you have kids.
An important topic to report. Many of the factors you argue are vital, particularly affordable housing.
There are many other reasons against having children later I feel, apart from just fertility: fitness, tolerance, broad mindedness and as the child ages being able to share their life experiences in a meaningful way. When your children get married do they want 70+ aged parent hobbling down the isle with them let alone being able to help with childcare and participate actively as a grandparent.
You may have a point but I take exception to the assumption that one would automatically be hobbling at 70. And 70 year olds can remember being young especially with the issues that matter.
Unfortunately you cannot assume anything about aging.
My father proudly walked me down the aisle at 90, and lived – without dementia- until 103.
My husband is 56 and entering advanced Parkinson’s, with all the attendant physical and mental woes of that awful disease.
Carpe diem.
I was brought up to believe that you should not have children until you had somewhere stable to live and could afford all costs of their upbringing – maybe I am just a dinosaur !
Nobody would have kids if they followed that advice. You just have to dive in and make it work.
If you wait to be able to afford kids, you’ll never have kids. Kids need love, attention, food in their tummy and a roof over their heads, everything else is a bonus. Do it right and it’s incredibly satisfying and joyful.
Your saying it’s selfish to not have kids? How so? To whom?
I think she’s meaning self-absorbed.
I mean if you’re a selfish person who will always put your own needs and desires before others then by all means do not have kids. Selfish people do not make good parents.
personally, I’m a quality over quantity person, I would like to see good parenting encouraged rather than mass parenting regardless of the quality. I work with young people in residential care, trying to undo some of the damage done by bad parenting.
Thanks for the clarification. Sounds like very worthwhile work
I apologise for my lack of clarity in my initial post too.