In Fact, Sometimes Later is Better
In today’s Plain Dealer, New York Times columnist David Brooks takes on the subject of declining fertility among women over 40 (registration required). The problem Brooks presents is that more women are finding themselves mourning their childlessness because they spent their youth getting educated and launching a career instead of having babies. One solution, Brooks suggests, is for society — or even government — to make it easier for women to “sequence” their lives so that the child-bearing happens sooner, and the career-building later.
On the surface, I could not be in more agreement with Brooks on this. Not everyone has the skill or the desire to raise children. It’s hard on individuals and hard on society when people who have both qualities never find themselves in a position to apply them.
I can also identify with the situation he describes of a mother considering re-entering the workforce, but finding that in the years during which she has raised her children, her priorities and interests have shifted away from the field in which she received her training.
The fundamental flaw I find in Brooks’ analysis is that it ignores a number of compelling arguments in favor for putting off having children. While he sees an advantage to a woman’s waiting until 35, “now that she knows herself better,” to pursue a graduate degree, he neglects to acknowledge that waiting until we know ourselves better would also help many of us avoid unwise marriages, which might result in fewer children experiencing the trauma of divorce.
Brooks also fails to give a nod to the many benefits that accrue to children born to more mature parents. Of the truly top-notch mothers I know, perhaps one in ten had their babies before their mid-twenties. By “top-notch,” I mean “relaxed, confident, knowledgeable and attentive.” A much larger percentage of the great moms I know were 35 or older when they gave birth. True, children born to women at that age are at statistically higher risk of certain birth defects - an issue not to be taken lightly. But neither should we dismiss the enriching effects of being raised by a mother who has had a lot of life experiences.
Were Brooks merely arguing that women ought to find support for choosing to start a family before starting a career, I would agree. But the end of his column reveals that this is not merely about helping individual women follow the path that suits them best. Rather, Brooks warns that “we don’t have enough young people to support our old people.”
When making child-bearing decisions about whether, when, and how many, it’s reasonable to consider who will care for the parents as they age, but it’s unwise to make that a deciding factor. As adults, we parents are obliged to look to and plan for our own future security, just as childless adults do, and not gamble on our children’s willingness and ability to take care of it for us. Similarly, while the future of Social Security is vital to our country’s ongoing stability, simply encouraging a larger population won’t fix what’s broken there.
The more compelling reason to support “a diversity of sequence options” (for men as well as women) is that people are happier when their lives flow in the way that seems to suit them best at each stage. To bring about a change like this will require not just tweaking policies regarding tuition, child care, and flexible leave, but also - and this is far more difficult - fundamentally altering our society’s definition of what constitutes a successful, productive adult.