Being Pregnant
“The Aniston Syndrome”…Is The Waiting The Hardest Part?
Babble’s new feature on Getting Pregnant is chock full of food for thought. For example, this story on “The Aniston Syndrome“, about women who wait too long to get pregnant. I felt a twinge of pity at the name (hasn’t that poor beautiful billionairess suffered enough?) but Rachel Lehmann-Haupt hits the nail on the head in a lot of ways. The author wants children, but she’s worried she’s waited too long and isn’t sure she’ll be able to make it happen. In this piece and in her book, she asks herself, and other women in the same state:
Why did we wait so long?
The article brings up many of the same issues raised by the recent controversial story on freezing embryos, but from another angle.
We seem to believe parenthood is a state we can only enter in from a perfect place. If we don’t reach this magical intersection of financial security, personal fulfillment, romantic connection and commitment at the proper time, we’re told that technology is the answer. But this is flawed logic. Even Dr. Eleanora Porcu, who pioneered the egg-freezing technology, takes issue with its message. “It means that we’re accepting a mentality of efficiency in which pregnancy and motherhood are marginalized,” she said. “We’ve demonstrated that we are able to do everything like men. Now we have to do the second revolution, which is not to become dependent on a technology that involves surgical intervention. We have to be free to be pregnant when we are fertile and young.”
Pre-kids, I might have been annoyed by this idea, dismissed it as a high-falutin echo of “barefoot and pregnant”. But now I hear it very differently.
In my 20s, motherhood was a vaguely outsider choice. The youngest person I knew who had a baby on purpose was 27, and I was so far away from that lifestyle (in grad school, starting a business) that I couldn’t even maintain a friendship with her at that point. It took another five years, or more, for more of my circle to start turning their wheels toward marriage and babies. Then, we were driven by the same kinds of things Lehmann-Haupt calls out in her article: personal ambition and the idea of finding a more perfect union from which to sprout our families. When I see my friends suffering through the pain of infertility, do I wonder what the hell we were thinking? Yes, but then I remember.
We were thinking about ourselves, true. But we were also thinking about our children, the ones we hadn’t had yet—and might never get to, if our bodies didn’t comply—the lives we wanted for them, the mothers we wanted to be.
Dr. Eleanora Porcu’s “second revolution” could come from a change in personal priorities. But why are we asking women to make sacrifices, instead of looking for other ways they won’t have to? If it wasn’t so hard to have a child AND a career, would women be waiting so long? If shared parenting was seen as more of a given and less of a gift? If we didn’t get the message that parenthood was a laborious, meticulous process requiring constant vigilance and optimization? If motherhood was less marginalized, and more a part of the rest of the working, thinking, eating and drinking world? Rachel Lehmann-Haupt doesn’t get into this stuff in her Babble piece, maybe because it’s not her main point, and maybe because she’s not in the thick of it yet. I know it came as a shock to me when I had kids that the equalities of feminism did not seem to apply to mothers. If women are going to make the move into motherhood sooner rather than later, maybe we should be thinking about how to make it easier once they get there.
Go Back To Being Pregnant
6 Comments
Paula Bernstein commented on Jul 19 10 at 8:37 pmI really enjoyed reading this thoughtful analysis of Rachel’s essay. You’re so right — perhaps women wouldn’t feel as if they had to choose between careers and motherhood if companies (and really society) was more supportive of working mothers.
Jen M commented on Aug 09 10 at 1:20 pmI completely agree. I was one of those women who waited, and fortunately was blessed with 2 boys. I did feel like I had to chose. My workplace has some managers and some offices where you can do both – be a mom and an outstanding employee – but where I work right now it’s not possible. I’m moving on to a new job so I can excel in both areas – or at least not feel so damn guilty when I want to be with my kids for school events or even a doctor appt!
LK commented on Aug 27 10 at 4:11 pmI actually thought the article and Dr. Porcu’s quote did make the point that there needs to be more support in our society for women to achieve both their career goals and motherhood in their fertile years. I thought they were saying that part of moving past the initial feminist era where the focus has been on women advancing as equals in the workplace is for employers and society generally to institute programs and policies that support working mothers so that women don’t feel like they have to choose between having children when they are young and fertile and establishing themselves professionally or excelling in their careers.
Alexis commented on Sep 27 10 at 4:15 amI am not sold on women being able to be a mother and a careerist successfully. There are too many factors that inhibit success and the feminist mentality is a small portion. Plus when your multitasking you cannot give everything your invested in your full attention. Have you not noticed how woman become stressed out because they are trying so hard to be everything to everyone that they lose themselves in the process?
My personal take on this is motherhood is important, but it also means one less woman to make a difference in the community and world. That difference doesn’t always mean bringing another child into the world, it changing the ones who are already born here.
michy commented on Oct 12 10 at 4:58 pmI think something that science could help us with here is some way to be able to predict our future fertility, so we didn’t have to be so anxious about it. I’m one of the people who got pregnant easily at 39, and I have a friend who did so at 42. I have other friends who suffered mightily with infertility in their early and mid-30′s. Couldn’t there be some way of measuring how fertile (and for how long) we all are, so we don’t have to leave this to chance? I expect in 50-100 years we will have such a breakthrough, but so far, I haven’t even heard of anyone asking for it.
Chenoa Cesco commented on Nov 06 10 at 11:48 pmI think that there is something to be said for mothers of all incomes and that the focus of women only with careers is an anxiety-provoking argument for all mothers. Until there is some respect or acknowledgement of the amount of work and the respect mother’s deserve we are no better off than in the fifties. Look at the divide among women as the real challenge and not be feathered by the money issue! It’s time to stand up united and make some progress regardless of the choice to work or NOT.
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