Better To Be A Teen Mom? Author Hilary Mantel Says Maybe
in early adolescence.There were predictable howls of outrage, and Mantel was quick to say that she was in no way implying that girls should be having babies at 14 or 15. But there is substantial truth to her argument that "it is men's lives have set the timetable...[and] there is a breed of women for whom society's timetable is completely wrong."
Throughout the long centuries before the introduction of effective contraception (and even today in areas of the world where contraception is not readily available), women started having babies in their teens and early 20s. From a biological standpoint, it couldn't be another other way: we become fertile in our earliest years, and as recent studies have shown, we may lose that easy fertility when we're in our early 30s.
Now that the majority of Western women are fully engaged in edu cations and careers, we spend most of our 20s and 30s pursuing degrees and starting careers, and often end up putting off motherhood until our late 30s or 40s -- exactly at the biological moment when it is hardest. Complicating the issue, many professional women are penalized for taking time off to have children, and those who time out to raise their children during their most formative years frequently find themselves shut out of the job market when they try to return.
This is not to say that women shouldn't pursue higher education or careers, or that it's wrong to use birth control or delay motherhood until later in life. But, says Mantel, "[i]mitating men can't be the way forward for women. That way they are bound to fail."
Men and women both suffer by clinging to "the assumptions of a former era about how men and women should behave," she says. "We haven't thought them through, even though we have gone through huge social changes. "We have to think out our own way. I'd like to imagine we are doing it, bit by bit."
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Comments
Most women who are fertile have way excess fertility. For the average woman, fertility might be on the wane in her 30s, but she can get pregnant pretty easily. The story changes in a woman's 40s, and for some, late 30s.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of women can put off child-bearing until after her 30th birthday without any negative consequences.
At what age did start feeling like you wanted to be a mother?
For me, it was around 20 or 21.
I think it is valid to say that society is forcing women to wait too long to have children, but it is hyperbole to suggest that teenagers should be having them. It would certainly be better if our society made it easier to have babies in at least the mid to late twenties.
Not saying teenagers should have kids, just pointing out that it used to be the norm and is not uncommon even now.
I wish more women would chose not to have kids. They're bad for the environment, especially first world children.
I'd also like to respond to RSG when she says the younger you have kids, the more likely there are grandparents around the help care for them. That's assuming you live anywhere near the grandparents! My daughter is 14, her grandparents are 86 and 87 but don't travel and we live half a country away.
Finally, if having children is important, perhaps society should do a much better job of working around WOMEN'S clocks and not men's. Novel idea.
Considering how many people take until their late 20s to hit on their career goals, it makes some sense to have kids earlier, and then hit the career path, rather than hit the career stride and face enormous penalties and difficulties when you decide to step away and raise children. It is something worth considering, especially as so many mothers today are facing the nightmare scenario of dealing with teenagers while also looking after failing parents.
The difficulty in all of this is how much less mature men are at this age, and also how unwilling to have children.
I have a few friends who delayed having children and then faced great physical obstacles once they were ready to turn their attention to family. As one friend said: "We spend our 20s trying not to get pregnant and our 30s-40s trying to."
I know daughters of two different mothers who gave birth to them when they were teenagers. Both mothers poured guilt into their daughters for ruining their lives.
Fantastic reporting, as always, Heather.
To answer your question in the comments section. I've wanted to be a mother, and acted like one towards my brothers and my friends, for my whole life. I'm still not sure that I'm ready to biologically have my own baby. The whole pregnancy thing has always freaked me out.
Children are life-long decisions, and we are now in a position to make those decisions rather than leave it to fertility. Teenagers are not of a state of mind to make these choices, they can't even make decent decisions about tattoos and drinking! Very few are capable of making a living, some can't even drive yet (depending on actual age and location). Yeah, 50, 100, 1000 years ago it was different, but then isn't now.
At 30 I know what I didn't at 20, I fully understand what I would be getting into with a child and I require a means of caring for said child before making that decision. No teenager grasps that, they simply don't have the experience with their own health care, transportation, education, and financial decisions to make them for another human being. It's not that a teenager can't be a good parent, it's that it isn't practical in today's world for them to think they could be the parent they would be if they waited 10 years. Biologically we may peak early, but mentally it takes another decade or so. Nevermind the fact that a person isn't even able to make their own legal choices until they're 18 or 21 (and can't rent a car until they're 25), how can they be responsible for another human being? Society has shifted from teenage responsibility, biology just hasn't caught up.
Mantel is suggesting we should be slaves to biology, and that women should be slaves to their fertility, considering the effect their education and career choices have on their ability to have children. There is so much more to women than the ability to reproduce. For women to move forward, we need to move past fertility as the standard of determining a woman's importance.
Sure, we shouldn't be slave to our "clocks" but jeez we can only mess with biology so much before things become dangerous. (ie 60 yr mothers)
Interesting topic.
For example, my great-grandmother gave birth to 14 children. 7 survived past age 5. Most of those lived into their 80s. 80x7=560; 7x2=14; 560+14=574; 574/14=41. The average life expectancy for my grandmother's generation was thus 41. Note that everyone who made it past age five lived to at least 70.
This is one of the reasons genealogy is interesting. You find out what a sample of people in history really did.
For women, after childhood, the next challenge was surviving childbirth, which might be harder in the teens or 40s, but giving birth at 18 or 28 doesn't substantially change your risk of a difficult birth.
People had no need to start reproducing early because of a low life expectancy. However, in the days before wide-spread and effective birth control, there was strong societal pressure on women to not have sex outside of marriage and failure could lead to a woman's life prospects being ruined. This created a strong incentive for marriage at a younger age and without birth control, marriage lead to children.
I've also come to learn that our fear of infertility in the late-30s has really gone out of whack with reality. Did you know that for women under 35 the chances of conceiving within 1 year of trying are about 85%, while for women 35-40 its 75%? That's not a huge drop. 1 in 5 mothers in the US are now having their first kid after 35, so, very very not impossible. Infertility is talked about like its only a problem for those of advanced maternal age, but the reality is at least 15% of couples of any age will have trouble conceiving.
Pregnancy complications can also come at any age, but teen moms have a much higher incidence of low birth weight babies, contributing to higher infant mortality rates.
So, should you have kids at 14? Yes, if you want to marry a man significantly older than you so he has financial security already, or if you want to have as many kids as the Duggars. Otherwise, its okay to wait.
I do think motherhood teaches more important lessons than college, business school, law school or the typical corporate career.
I am a mother, but never wished to become one as a teen. Did become a mother at 23, sooner than originally planned.
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