NPR had a story on this morning about the increasingly popular practice of "professional," single women in their thirties and forties having their eggs frozen for future use.
Not to perpetuate stereotypes, but the women doing this are generally single, in their mid-to-late 30's or a little older, and they don't want to be forced to take a "mate" before they find Mr. Right, just to accommodate the urgent demands of their biological clock.
It is an expensive and speculative process. Hormones are taken to promote egg production; the extraction is a (minor) surgical procedure; the eggs don't always survive; and in-vitro is not always successful. The number, US$12 thousand was mentioned to complete the process (not sure whether that includes the fertilization, and it certainly doesn't cover the costs of pregnancy and so on). And for the $12K, the woman gets "a pretty good chance" of being able to have a baby at some future time.
I believe, as my Grandmother did, that "there is someone out there for everybody." That is to say, no matter how unattractive one might be to the world at large, if one looks in the right place, one will find someone who finds them attractive enough to marry. And the women considering and pursuing this avenue (Egg Freezing) are presumably not profoundly ugly or unattractive, but they have chosen to put their careers on the "front burner" during the time when social custom would favor finding a life-partner, and now find themselves running out of time, because they find that a successful professional career is just one of the checkmarks on their bucket list, and not the ONLY checkmark that they find imperative.
Western Culture, as it has evolved over the past couple hundred years, favors women marrying in their late teens, having multiple children, then helping to care for their grandchildren in their 40's and beyond. The husband-father works the farm or works otherwise outside the home to support the woman and their joint offspring, basically for her entire lifetime.
Artificial birth control ("ABC"), however, has turned this paradigm on its ear, because having children can be delayed or totally avoided as a matter of personal choice.
The women now harvesting and storing their eggs are the vanguards of the religion of Choice, and they have found to their dismay that they fucked up. Rather than seeking a mate when they are young, attractive, and sexy, they are doing so when their personal attractiveness is on the wane, and yet their selectiveness is at an absurdly high level. They want someone who, at 40-some years old, is educated, accomplished, debt-free, handsome, has no bad habits, and no "baggage." Good luck with that. One would have better chances finding a Unicorn.
If their plan is "successful," they will have children, not when they are young and energetic themselves, but when they are on the wrong side of 40, and their kids will, in effect, be raised by a combination of daycare workers, baby-sitters, teachers, coaches, and with the occasional help of an aging grandparent or two. The kids will go to private schools and expensive colleges and generally be dull as cardboard.
It's not nice to fuck with Mother Nature.
Not to perpetuate stereotypes, but the women doing this are generally single, in their mid-to-late 30's or a little older, and they don't want to be forced to take a "mate" before they find Mr. Right, just to accommodate the urgent demands of their biological clock.
It is an expensive and speculative process. Hormones are taken to promote egg production; the extraction is a (minor) surgical procedure; the eggs don't always survive; and in-vitro is not always successful. The number, US$12 thousand was mentioned to complete the process (not sure whether that includes the fertilization, and it certainly doesn't cover the costs of pregnancy and so on). And for the $12K, the woman gets "a pretty good chance" of being able to have a baby at some future time.
I believe, as my Grandmother did, that "there is someone out there for everybody." That is to say, no matter how unattractive one might be to the world at large, if one looks in the right place, one will find someone who finds them attractive enough to marry. And the women considering and pursuing this avenue (Egg Freezing) are presumably not profoundly ugly or unattractive, but they have chosen to put their careers on the "front burner" during the time when social custom would favor finding a life-partner, and now find themselves running out of time, because they find that a successful professional career is just one of the checkmarks on their bucket list, and not the ONLY checkmark that they find imperative.
Western Culture, as it has evolved over the past couple hundred years, favors women marrying in their late teens, having multiple children, then helping to care for their grandchildren in their 40's and beyond. The husband-father works the farm or works otherwise outside the home to support the woman and their joint offspring, basically for her entire lifetime.
Artificial birth control ("ABC"), however, has turned this paradigm on its ear, because having children can be delayed or totally avoided as a matter of personal choice.
The women now harvesting and storing their eggs are the vanguards of the religion of Choice, and they have found to their dismay that they fucked up. Rather than seeking a mate when they are young, attractive, and sexy, they are doing so when their personal attractiveness is on the wane, and yet their selectiveness is at an absurdly high level. They want someone who, at 40-some years old, is educated, accomplished, debt-free, handsome, has no bad habits, and no "baggage." Good luck with that. One would have better chances finding a Unicorn.
If their plan is "successful," they will have children, not when they are young and energetic themselves, but when they are on the wrong side of 40, and their kids will, in effect, be raised by a combination of daycare workers, baby-sitters, teachers, coaches, and with the occasional help of an aging grandparent or two. The kids will go to private schools and expensive colleges and generally be dull as cardboard.
It's not nice to fuck with Mother Nature.
