Life's like that
From Mrs Barbara Black
Sir: I am heartily sick of articles such as that by Michael Hanlon (`Baby gloom'. 19 October) warning women of the dangers of postponing childbearing. In view of numerous articles on the topic in a wide variety of publications, it seems remarkable that anyone could imagine educated women were ignorant of the facts. Certainly as a woman in her late thirties trying to conceive over the past 12 months I have been made painfully aware of my stupidity in failing to become pregnant in my twenties, or even earlier. Although there has been no biological barrier to my becoming a mother at any time since I entered puberty, that I failed to do so was quite simply because I did not meet my husband until my early thirties. It had nothing to do with finances, or my career or my lifestyle, but simply my rather old-fashioned belief that children should be born into a stable and loving relationship. Attempts to increase fertility rates in developed countries will require more than articles berating women for wanting to have it all: the role of young men should also be considered. In the recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Survey conducted by the Australian federal government, more than 25 per cent of young men said they did not expect to have children for a number of reasons, including those usually ascribed to professional women.
I have recently become a mother at the age of 37, and I continue to be irritated by the assumption that I took on the role of elderly primigravida with all its accompanying risks and complications because of personal motives, rather than it being simply the result of circumstance.
Barbara Black
Linden Park, Southern Australia
Previous page
