[quote] There are no real choices for women when it comes to starting a family. It all boils down to circumstances, and luck.” [/quote]
Health journalist Charlotte MacNeil is riled by an irresponsible ad campaign
The television presenter Kate Garraway is fronting a new campaign called Get Britain Fertile. It’s accompanied by a photograph of her made up to look like a pregnant 70-year-old, an image presumably designed to grab our attention, although it actually rather contradicts the campaign message, which is that women might not manage to conceive if they Leave It Too Late.
On the website, launched by First Response (manufacturers of ovulation and pregnancy tests), we’re told Kate, who had her children at 38 and 42, is encouraging women to think about their fertility earlier in life. “I know careers and finances seem important but you only have a small fertility window,” says Kate.
Maybe a woman somewhere is thanking her lucky stars Mrs Derek Draper popped up with that advice to take time out from smashing the glass ceiling and listen to the biological tick-tock. But somehow I doubt it. I don’t believe that women a) are unaware their fertility is declining by the year or b) are deliberately putting off motherhood until they’ve reached the top of the corporate ladder.
For the majority who want children but don’t yet have them, the reason is beyond their control – it’s that they haven’t met a suitable partner at the biologically optimal time. I don’t know any ‘career women’ calculatingly putting off conception, but I know many, many women in their thirties and forties struggling to find a stable relationship. And, when you’re 35+ and reluctantly single, being bombarded with patronising pleas not to delay motherhood is likely to fill you with despair and heartache.
Speaking of men – and we really should, because we can’t get pregnant without them – why aren’t they ever targeted in these campaigns? Why does Kate only want women to think about their fertility? Conception takes two. Instead of castigating these fabled career girls for playing Russian roulette with their fertility, perhaps campaigners should be talking to the guys. In relationships, it’s often men who want to delay starting a family – maybe, if they were more educated on the subject of female fertility, there wouldn’t be so many men telling their 30-something partners that they want children “one day, just not yet”.
Aside from making a positive decision not to have children at all (which, thank goodness, is now within our control), there are no real choices for women when it comes to starting a family. It all boils down to circumstances, and luck. Society and the medical profession need to understand this, and, rather than hector women with incessant messages that time is running out, support them if they are not in a position to start a family in that tiny golden sliver of time between ‘too young’ and ‘too old’.
Words: Charlotte MacNeil
Charlotte Macneil is a health journalist and trained counsellor. Follow her on @chahamac
11 thoughts on “Why It Matters: Busting the delayed motherhood myth”
Thanks for this, I agree that engendering panic in 30- or 40-something women is not really not a helpful way to go with this. It puts all the onus on women making the wrong ‘choices’, as if there is actually any choice for many. As you say, the barriers are much more complex than women’s ignorance or selfishness. If we really want to increase fertility in Britain we need to start educating both women AND men much earlier, for example, in their 20s. But who honestly is thinking of starting a family when they’re 20-something and doing all they can to hold down a job just to pay the rent? And what models of parenthood do we have at that age? I can’t see the situation changing anytime soon.
Surely a better idea would’ve been to campaign for more affordable childcare?
Absolutely – I didn’t go into the support women need at all ages when having children (as that is another big issue!) but cheaper childcare, creches at work, more affordable housing etc should all be part of it.
Surely the real issue here is that this “campaign” is actually an “advertising campaign” dressed up as a public awareness campaign. It is effectively an informercial to sell more ovulation and pregnancy testers. It uses provocation and celebrity endorsement to hone in on its target market, all done in a way to mask its true inention – to increase demand whilst strengthening brand awareness and brand loyalty. It’s a private company apeing public health awareness campaigns.
That’s an issue, certainly, but the point is this (advertising) campaign is just the latest of these messages and is one small part of a broader movement. Women are harangued about ‘delaying’ motherhood all the time by public health bodies, fertility experts, GPs, the media, etc. Some of the messages may be well intentioned, but there’s a complete failure to understand that women *know* the facts; it’s just that, very often, they’re not in a position to start a family. So the constant reminders to ‘get on with it’ before their fertility goes into freefall are incredibly painful and leave them feeling helpless and panic-stricken.
I am so pleased someone has finally said this publically. I am 34 and haven’t met a man since my long-term boyfriend (who didn’t want children yet) and I broke up a few years ago. According to the media and health experts, my not having a baby was a ‘decision’. I have so many friends who have been with their partners for years and it’s the men who don’t want babies yet.
For a lot of people I know, they’ve put off having kids till their mid 30s (or later) because it takes them that long to achieve some kind of financial stability.
Between needing multiple degrees to get a good job, to the spiralling cost of housing, to the high cost of childcare, to the disintegrating social safety net, there’s a lot of structural factors making 20 somethings like they aren’t ready to have children. I don’t really think an advertising campaign aimed at making women feel crap about themselves is really going to fix any that.
Is this is a particularly KT problem?
Well put charlotte and agree wholeheartedly. i have always wanted children, still do even though I’m now 40. I’m an intelligent woman I know about the biological clock and I know the risks of being an older mother. And i would take that chance in a nanosecond. But i’ve been single longer than I’ve been in relationships. I would gladly have a child on my own – if only I could win the lottery. It’s about 1200 to buy the sperm (for one insemination) and then another 3000K for the treatment etc. That’s before you buy a nappy. And no, I’m not going to pick up some random bloke who could be disease-ridden to impregnate me. The only choices I’m making is to wait to have a father for my child or in the absence of a father (choose a doner), but have the means to raise it without being a burden on my family and society. Because to do so would be irresponsible and i would be lambasted by all and sundry for sponging off the state. So you can’t have it both ways! These campaigns make me SO angry, it’s hurtful they way they make me feel like it’s all my fault, that I’ve wasted my life and that i deserve to be childless. And I don’t have a career that I care about. So I didn’t pick that over babies! And how many women are in the Board room or high up the career ladder? Are they all childless? They make you think like we’ve taken over the world and having a high time getting paid the same salary as a bloke equally qualified in the same role. As if.
As a mum who uses the local playgroups I do see a lot more older mothers with their babies even tho I’m not that young I’m 28 I’m considered a young mum according to them. I no longer ask the question are you the grandmother anymore no matter how old the mother looks. I have no problem with them I get on we’ll with them in play group circles. It’s hard to have anything else in common with them there’s such an age gap and are into different things.
Like several of the women above I’d like to thank Charlotte for writing what I’ve been thinking for many years. I spent most of my 20s and early 30s single despite (or, some might cruelly say, because of) having always wanted children more than anything else. Nothing to do with me being some ball-breaking career woman. Luckily enough I met a man (a good one, though not Ryan Gosling) and we now have two children. But I have enough friends who haven’t and who are now reassessing what their lives will be without the children they always imagined they’d have, to see the acute pain that this campaign will have caused.