Sex and Tampa Bay

From the “No Shit Sherlock” department comes this story from The Boston Globe “Want to Have a Baby? Now’s the Time”.

Ok, I’ll get right on that.

Even better, the story was in the career section. See, us single gals in our 20’s need to devote as much attention to finding a guy and having kids as we do to our career. Because at 35 we all become infertile.

At least that’s that latest scare tactic the media seems to be using.

OK, it is true that fertility drops after 35. But that doesn’t mean that we need to have a child before then. If we based our life decisions on when we were most fertile we’d all have gotten knocked up at 16.

The idea that women just need to look at dating like a career path may be logical, but it lacks common sense. Because the dating world isn’t anything like the job world. In the job world you are encouraged to take any position you can with the hope that you can gain on-the-job experience that would translate into better prospects down the road.

In the dating world that same mindview makes you a social climbing tramp.

The career build is based on the idea that what you do today determines your success tomorrow.

In the dating world things like chemistry and trust are usually based on things that happened in childhood, and can’t be changed today.

Most importantly, the career world wants us. The dating world hasn’t been that kind. Because while the media is pressuring women into the a reproductive mania, it is also telling guys that they don’t need to settle down. Magazines like Maxim and Stuff keep up the idea that the happiest man is a single man, and that marriage will just cramp their style.

Is it any wonder that the dating world is so tough with all these mixed messages?

So, for my fellow 20 and 30 year old women who are feeling their biological clock going off, consider these words, “So what?”

So what if you have a harder time getting pregnant? So what if you aren’t able to have children? Would you rather be miserable as the wife and mother in a marriage based on desperation or happy in a life you picked for yourself.

It was almost a year ago when I learned that I probably can’t have children. My hormones are fucked up, my uturus is hostile, and I don’t even ovulate most of the time.

When I first heard that I might not be able to have kids I lost it. It was the lowest point in my life. And then the next day I felt free. I didn’t have to fit my life into some timetable of fertility. I didn’t have to try and fall in love with someone who’s genes I wanted to pass on.

Oh, I still want to be a mother. But it isn’t as if there is a lack of parentless children in this world. When the time is right I can always adopt. Although, honestly, fostering appeals to me more. If only so that I could help as many kids as possible.

Don’t let someone scare you into changing your life. Just be happy and try to do good in every moment. Stop looking down the road at some dream that might or might not happen. Right now is the only thing that matters, and so that’s where your attention needs to be.

And join me in writing a letter to the Boston Globe to let them know that we don’t appreciate having stories about female reproduction in the career section. At least not until they have similar scare stories focused on the men.