Women Increasingly Freezing Their Eggs To Pursue Their Careers

Lasrick (2629253) writes "Really interesting piece by Emma Rosenblum about women freezing their eggs in order to take 'biological clock' pressure off while they pursue careers: 'Not since the birth control pill has a medical technology had such potential to change family and career planning. The average age of women who freeze their eggs is about 37, down from 39 only two years ago... And fertility doctors report that more women in their early 30s are coming in for the procedure. Not only do younger women have healthier eggs, they also have more time before they have to use them.'"

It's not a doll

[Anonymous Coward]

Babies are people, not toys that you lay away for.

Don't delay too long

[Chelloveck]

For purely financial reasons both men and women probably want their kids to be out of college and self-supporting before they retire. That kind of means you really want to have them by the time you hit your early 40s.

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Making a Safer World...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, cause 60-year-olds make great parents for teenagers.

Re:Making a Safer World...

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, but freezing your eggs doesn't freeze the rest of your aging. As somebody with 3 kids, I'm glad that I had kids young, because I would not have the energy to deal with kids when I was 50 or 60. There's people who are having babies when they are 45. I would not want a teenager in the house when I'm 60. I guess everybody is entitled to their own way of doing things, but it takes a lot of energy to raise kids. Also, I'd like to point out that kids cost exactly as much to raise as you want them to. Sure you could buy $200 shoes for your kid, but they definitely don't need any of that stuff. My kids get plenty of enjoyment from going out for a walk in the woods, which is free, and don't need to go to amusement parks all the time to be entertained.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

everything we've see recently suggests fetal development, nutrition, and education make such tremendously larger difference that the "idiocricy effect"

Except for twin studies which indicate a heritability for IQ between .7 and .8:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

So, you know, there's that.

Of course environment has an impact. It's similar to height in that regard - malnourish a child and they won't grow into their genetic destiny. But to therefore suggest that height isn't strongly heritable is just absurd.

Soft Eugenics

[Anonymous Coward]

Women delaying having children does one thing, it selects out their genes for people who decide to ultimately have lots of children in their prime. A "strong, independent, woman TM" not having children while she's of a fertile age will not be able to carry her genes onto another age. I also doubt that the majority of these SIW types will be able to afford the $6,500 and $15,000 costs of freezing and then the added costs of finding a surrogate and artificial insemination. So congrats feminism, you've selected yourself out of the gene pool in at least two or three generations.

Which is fine, they can always raise someone else's unwanted offspring. Everyone needs a loving family. It just won't be your genes you're helping raise to another generation.

Mod me down, but no amount of "nah nah nah" head burying in sand will change this fact.

Re:Obligatory

[ArhcAngel]

If both your parents are morons then the likelihood of you receiving good fetal development, nutrition, and education are slim to none. There are exceptions but the reason they are called exceptions is they are RARE! That said growing up extended family would frequently commented on how much I was like my grandfather (he died when I was an infant) because I had his smarts (He taught himself chemical engineering and was part of the development of polymers). My take on our society is today's typical highly intelligent couple are too self absorbed to embark on a life of selfless giving by having children. Of those that do have children a large percentage offload the actual parenting to paid support so they can continue to be self absorbed while patting themselves on the back for having pro-created. Having said all that I believe a child raised by morons that love the child has a far superior life to a child raised by intellectuals or affluent parents who see the child as a trophy or burden.

Re:why not just have a baby earlier?

[Lumpy]

You are correct. having a kid at any age is a huge mistake if you want to do things with your life that is outside the raising a child idea. To some people raising children IS Their career, and more power to them. to Others, it's retarded to blow that time and money that children require to just have them because of societal or parental pressures.

Then you have the nutjobs that think they HAVE to have kids so they have a LEGACY... If you really want to raise children for the right reasons, go do it, but all these people need to STFU to people that dont want to have kids, and dont think it's important to devote 100% of your resources for 18-25 years to raising one.

Re:Or foregoing kids altogether

[lorinc]

My wife and I are in the same situation, and I never understood the selfishness argument. Why is it selfish? To whom? What harm does it bring and to what?

The more I have this discussion with family and friends, the more it turns out to be pure jealousy towards us better enjoying our life. Most of them didn't expect it is that hard to raise children, and especially the many things you have to give up due to the lack of time to do it.

Re:Or foregoing kids altogether

[trparky]

It is projected that within the next fifteen to twenty years, if global population growth rates don't slow down we will simply not be able to grow enough food to feed the world's population. Global famine will be a result. Already we're seeing the effects of over-fishing, fish populations are at the lowest seen in years. The giant water aquifer under the Great Plains of the United States (sometimes referred to as the Breadbasket of the World) is losing water, we're taking out water faster than nature can replace it.

So yes, even we in the United States, need to start worrying about over-population.

Re:Making a Safer World...

[Luckyo]

Sadly, not tongue in cheek. Nowadays many parents view that parenting like many other business tasks can be outsourced.

It's a major problem with modern schooling for example. Traditionally schools were mainly about providing education. Now they are widely expected, especially by older parents to provide at least partial parenting.

This is causing a large amount of friction in many countries that are seen the phenomena of older parents.

Re:Or foregoing kids altogether

[asylumx]

My wife and I are also on this band wagon, and not only do I not think it is selfish, but frankly I think some of the people I know with 5 or 6 kids are actually the selfish ones because they seem to think the rest of the world should praise them for their efforts raising a big family. Yes, raising a child is work, but if you didn't want the job you didn't have to have the child. Don't complain about the crappy hours and poor pay -- instead go get a better paying job with decent hours and then pay for daycare.

Ug.

Re:Useless without a surrogate

[popo]

It's only one particular class of humans on earth that is waiting longer. The uneducated, the religious and the poor (which are often one and the same group) are actually having babies at an increasing rate, starting at a younger age.

The global effects of "waiting" on overall population are actually very small when measured against the overall metrics of global population. It's a big world out there. The effects on demographics and culture are actually profound though -- but they are opposite to the intent of those who wait: Populations are dumbing down precisely because the educated have decreased their rate of reproduction.

What is good for the individual family, may be fatal for the society.

It is jealousy

[Sycraft-fu]

Most people who say "Oh it is selfish not to have kids," are jealous. Kids are a big commitment, you have to trade off a lot to have them, at least if you are going to be a good parent. Now there are benefits, of course, it can be extremely rewarding emotionally. But there are tradeoffs and some people don't like them. So they see childless couples and see all the extra money and time they have and get jealous, and thus hateful.

It is, in fact, not a selfish position. It is a very pragmatic one. If we are to have a sustainable future, we need population growth to level off. Now I suppose we could go about it all draconian like China and force people to have a certain amount of children. However a better solution is for people who don't wish to have children to not do so. That allows those that want to have more children to do so and yet maintain a consistent population level.

Re:Or foregoing kids altogether

[jma05]

Personally, I thought that the opposite is true...that people who have kids are selfish (and I may yet be one among those selfish people - not decided yet)... since they are adding kids to a planet that can do with a lot fewer of them.

The "replenishment" argument has not made sense in centuries. Not having a baby is the most green thing one can do. Babies have bigger carbon footprints than *anything* else you can have and most probably (unless some revolution of green technologies hits soon) more than everything else you do.

Parents having children later in life also exerts some downward pressure on population growth, even if we retain fertility rates. So more power to those who choose this technology.

Re:Don't delay too long

[Algae_94]

Kids being out of college and self-supporting is becoming a myth for many people as well.

The good ol' days were a historical anomaly

[Xaedalus]

What you are referring to is the post-World War II era of twenty years that applied really just to the United States, Britain, and a few other select nations. The rest of humanity's history is very similar to the present: both parents working and trying to find low-cost alternatives for child-care, education rapidly approaching unattainable levels of cost for all but the very elite, and a resurrection of the landowner/landlord aristocracy. We're moving to a form of Feudalist Capitalism, only instead of lords and mandarins, we have Corporations and oligarchic republics. Even during the Industrial revolution, we STILL had aristocracies, merchants, and peasants. It was just that technology was redefining who was who. Right now the entire planet is reverting back to the *standard* way of life, the way it used to be before World War I. We just happen to have higher living standards and better technology to assist us.

Re:Making a Safer World...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the kid follows the education of his parents, he'll be completely unfit for modern society.

Wow, what a heap of shit. Education and training are two totally different things. Education - the ability to reason, the fundamentals of logic and of scientific thought, of language, of history, of politics, of rhetoric - is timeless.

Re:Making a Safer World...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear 20-something:

It's pretty unlikely that a 60-year-old would be in a walker, or on heart meds. You're thinking of someone in their 80s.

I know everyone over 30 looks the same to you, but we're not.