I was talking to another mom in my daughter’s homeschool program the other day, when she happened to mention her age. She has kids just a bit younger than mine, and she’s still in her twenties. No wonder she’s so much fun, I thought. Her back isn’t killing her yet!
Seriously: I have never regretted my choice not to have kids when I was young — not only was I probably incapable of being a good parent, but I was with someone who wouldn’t have worked out as my co-parent.
But sometimes I ponder how it would be different if I had gotten the kid thing over with and found myself with half a life left when they were grown and gone. The main reason my husband and I stopped at two is our strong belief in controlling the human population so we don’t consume ourselves out of a planet. But the other reason was the calculation we did when I was pregnant with our daughter. At her high school graduation, we would be… oh, let’s not even THINK about the age we’ll be!
Studies of parental age have shown a number of correlations — good and bad — with parents who wait to have children. The good is borne out by my experiences: the children of older parents tend to be psychologically healthier, since older parents are likely to have worked through their problems and are probably more likely parents by choice rather than circumstance. Also, older parents are more likely to be in a relationship started later in life and thus less likely to dissolve when the kids are small.
Finally, older parents have a lot longer to make money and establish careers, so their children come into a more stable financial situation. My husband and I bought a house and fixed it up while we still had two incomes. Our income dropped when we had children, but since we’d already put together a home and done the really expensive things, we were pretty much set. It’s definitely the easier way to do it. When my husband was struggling to find a first house he could afford the payments on, he was single, and real estate was a lot cheaper.
Then there’s the flip side. When I think about how this mom is going to be younger than I am now when her children are grown, I’m envious! She’ll have time for a whole new career, the energy for travel — so many more options than those who will be able to draw Social Security before our kids are out of the house. (Luckily, my husband and I are not quite THAT advanced in age…)
I remember talking to a mom in my daughter’s preschool who had twins by artificial insemination when she was fifty. She was telling me how, now that they were energetic preschoolers, she wasn’t quite sure what she was thinking at the time. “The thing is,” she told me, “I’d been through it all before. My first set of kids is already grown.”
So she was a mom who had both experiences, both the joys and the drawbacks. She was better able to care for her younger children, born in middle age when she had a secure financial situation and had sorted out her own particular personal agenda. But, she confessed, they just tired her out!
I think that a lot of criticisms of feminism is disingenuous — that is, the person making the criticism started with a negative conclusion and is trying to find a way to justify that position. So I have read all that “backlash” stuff about how women have started to make the “unfeminist” decision to become mothers early and not seek a career.
The thing that this criticism misses is that feminism has allowed this choice to exist. In the past, women didn’t choose between kids now or kids later — they had to choose between kids now or being a very unpopular “spinster” who fights for a career. I’m a staunch feminist (the back of my van does, in fact, have a NOW sticker on it…), and I just love that women are making choices based on what’s right for them.
The other common criticism of feminism is that having mothers with their own lives is not good for children, who were better served by women who were forced to stay home. But again, what I see looking at the moms I know is that feminism has simply offered them options. No matter what choice they end up making, they will be emotionally healthier just for the fact of having had a choice. Mothers who want to be mothers, who feel like they made the choice when they were ready, are always going to be happier, and thus better, mothers.
I envy my young friend, but I couldn’t have been her. I did the right thing by waiting, and from the looks of how much fun she’s having with her kids, she did the right thing too. Choice…ain’t it cool?
