The NPR story I referred to the other day is, “For Prospective Moms, Biology and Culture Clash.” The link gives a summary of the radio piece or you can listen to it. The piece generally focuses on the fact that as we age, women have a more difficult time getting pregnant. Never mind the fact that the story is completely focused on the experience of straight women, I also had a problem with how much blame, for lack of a better word, it puts on women in general for fertility problems. To my ears, the reporter, Brenda Wilson’s, tone came off as mournful for and a little judgmental of all the women squandering their fertile years. I generally think of NPR stories as pretty solid and thought-provoking, but this just seemed to fall short.

It starts off by citing that women are having babies later and later in life with the average now at 25 years old and more than a third of US moms not having their first baby until after 30. They profile a 25ish year old married woman who accidentally got pregnant and a 38 year old woman who started trying later in life and has “endured fertility treatments for the last 2 years.” They portray the 38 year old as angry and helpless and the 25 year old as lucky that she stumbled into the pregnancy.

They say that most women only have a “vague sense” of their biological clock as they make their way through their 20s and 30s. This is where Brenda Wilson’s tone grows increasingly regretful and it just seems like rubbish. It seems like a story focused on fear - trying to scare women into having babies while they’re young.

What really got me was when they said that a few years ago the American Society for Reproductive Medicine “tried to warn women” that they were waiting too late but women “just didn’t get it.” It seems so arrogant to say that women don’t understand the nuances of their own bodies and should plan their whole lives around optimal fertility regardless of their personal finances, maturity, career, relationships or any other factor. It’s nonsense to imply that women don’t understand the trade-off between having a child young and being potentially unprepared and having a child later and potentially having a hard time getting pregnant. Sure, some women might not realize this but I hardly think that there is a sea of women wandering through their 20s and 30s banking on a baby on try 1 at age 40. Maybe it’s not that women “just didn’t get it,” but do get it and choose to wait a few years anyway.

Towards the end of the piece they used my least favorite argument - set-in-stone, programmed biology. They say that socially women want one thing but biologically “we are programmed to do what we did when our human ancestors climbed down from the trees millions of years ago.” They say that back in the stone ages, women’s bodies didn’t mature and become child-bearing-ready until about age 20 which gave them about 10 years to experiment with sex and love before starting to have children. Again with the mournful tone they conclude, “nowadays young women are experimenting with sex and love in their 20s at the risk of losing out on motherhood.” It almost sounds like they’re advocating for girls to start having sex at 14 so that they can start having babies at 22.

They continue to say (like it’s a bad thing) that women aren’t marrying the boy from high school or college because they’re concerned now with getting a career first and this takes time, “time on the biological clock that cannot be recaptured.”

I don’t want to minimize anyone’s struggles with fertility problems and I don’t deny that fertility does decline with age, but this story seems to border on fear-mongering. Also, it gives no mention of male fertility and how it declines as well. Additionally, there’s no mention of environmental factors that impact fertility and how natural therapies can help. The one conclusion seemed to be that women need to have children younger and men and the world of work need to adapt - perhaps allowing women to work from home.

It’s possible I reacted strongly to this story because of where I am in my life and baby-making right now. I’m curious to know if anyone else has an impression.