Earlier this week Forbes ran an anxiety-provoking piece titled “When Should You Become a Mom,” exploring when working women should have children. The article seemed to come to the conclusion that there is simply never a good time. If you have kids in the “prime” of your fertility — between 25 and 30 or so — you lose valuable years of work experience. If you wait until you are established to have babies, you may find that your biological clock has ticked away leaving you unable to conceive. What’s a working woman to do?
The interesting thing about this piece is that, for all of it’s expert opinions and “data,” it doesn’t really help us to make decisions. Knowing that 90% of my eggs are gone by the age of 30 doesn’t make childbearing before then any more practical if I haven’t found a partner or don’t have the resources to raise a child. It’s also a fairly meaningless statistic — it would be much more useful to know how many eggs a woman has at various ages, and how many she needs to have a reasonable chance at conception. It’s a flashy topic, but like much of working mother journalism, not very helpful for those of trying us to make decisions on the front lines.
Based on an internet survey conducted jointly by Forbes and TheBump.com, Carley Roney editor of The Bump suggests that it’s preferable to have children in your late 20s because you’ve likely been in the workforce a few years, established your identity beyond motherhood, built some financial resources and have the health and energy of youth. (Those of us in our early thirties apparently have lost much of our vitality.)
I’m not sure that all of these things are true for most women in their late twenties, or how seriously we should take advice based on an online survey. Based on other kinds of data, there’s good reason to disagree with the conclusion that younger is better for career and family. Every year a woman ages, her income decreases relative to her male counterparts. According to the US Department of Labor, after 55 years old, women earn on average half of men the same age. It’s not entirely clear why this is; motherhood probably plays a role, but it’s also likely that the cult of age and beauty factor more heavily into a woman’s success.
If we recognize the reality that a woman’s chances for raises, promotions and equal pay decline as they age, it seems like a better bet to advise women to wait a little longer. We know that a woman’s earning power declines after she has children; assuming that health is not a factor, wouldn’t it make more sense to defer just a few years more to bank money and political capital?
In addition to the economic benefits, there may be another reason to wait. Women in their twenties are frequently still searching for their professional passion. Passion and love of your job is a critical indicator of professional and financial success, and is key to maintaining your career momentum after motherhood. When you have children, a job that was once merely tolerable can turn to terrible very quickly. It would be ideal to find meaningful jobs before having kids — because the many struggles we face as working parents have to seem worth it for the job.
The inconvenient truth is that there’s never a good time to have kids if you are a working woman. That’s the fallacy of the experts and surveys and data quoted in the Forbes piece. No matter what our age, we face a motherhood penalty. And while age may be a factor in combatting this penalty, it’s likely that motivation, passion and determination are even more important. Here’s hoping that women can look beyond Forbes’ online survey to see that age isn’t the real issue here.
Related links:
- The Motherlode promoted the Forbes/Bump survey last month with more fear-mongering around autism. The piece talks about an 18% increase in autism for every five years maternal age goes up, but doesn’t say what the original numbers are. So what is the real risk at 25 or 35 or 45? Is it 1 in 100, 1 in 1000 or 1 in 100,000? Not sure there’s enough info here to make an informed choice.
- Jessica Grose at Slate’s Double X blog responds to The Motherlode piece with her post on “The Mythical Best Age to Have a Child.”
- The British Medical Journal says that, from a medical perspective, the best ages for childbearing are 20 to 35 years old; however, it notes that “most pregnancies in women older than 35 have good outcomes.”
- Parents.com polls mothers on why their age was the best to have a child. At least this article admits to being about personal opinions and not data.
It’s like people saying they’ll wait to have kids until they can “afford it.” Which is never. I just wanted to have ‘em before I became less fertile. It all worked out, but my career didn’t weigh into things much at all.
This article summarizes my current dilemma around having children.
I am now 29 and still struggling with when exactly will be the right time to have children, due to the “penalty” described in the article. I have so many goals, recently found my passions and like a kid on a scavenger hunt I am on a journey to securing them.
I don’t know when I will “settle down”, my husband seems to be patient but with each year that passes that clock gets louder and part of me wants to just opt out, have babies and then at some point later on get back in the game.
Right now I am looking at starting around age 33 which isn’t so bad I guess. I really just want to do this motherhood thing on my terms, not ont hat of my biological clock or society’s expectations of when’s the right time for me to have children.
The truth is if I can wait until I am finished with my doctoral program then I will be happy but just not sure when that will be so I need to plan in the mean time.
I agree that you’ll never have kids if you wait until you can “afford it.” My current quandary is when to have baby #2. It was a career hurdle to have the first, but I REALLY think my career will take a toll when I have two. I’d love to see comments/articles on that issue.
Bea, I had baby #2 last summer and it really changed my perspective on things. I ended up quitting my job and now work from home (self-employed). Definitely gives me the flexibility I need with 2 kids. But I still have full-time childcare, FYI.
I love this post. Thank you for naming the “motherhood penalty.” I would argue that there is no “right time” to have kids, but there are pluses and minuses to different phases in life.
I strongly agree that we should all find reward and passion in our work for career sustainability. I have spoken to many women who to reach the career goals that they envisioned in their early twenties, but don’t want to keep climbing that ladder after kids. In some cases their priorities or interests have changed, in others their career track/industry has changed dramatically.
These are very personal questions. I think we do ourselves a major disservice by claiming we have the “right” answers to share. Instead, we often reinforce the notion that all women are constantly judging each others’ choices with regards to work and family.
I also want to push the dialogue about men’s desire & responsibility to make career choices around family. By excluding them, we are reinforcing the impossible position women are in. Look forward to continuing the conversation…
Right. It’s never a good time to have kids. But we have ‘em anyway. We go back to work or we don’t. It seems crazy to me to determine whether or not to bring a human being into the world based on whether or not your career trajectory will be interrupted. It’s an issue certainly. But it’s not “the thing.” At least as far as I’m concerned. I love my job. I love being an educator. But my kids are my kids and they’re my priority. No matter what. I think that’s the piece women miss when they start deciding when to get pregnant. Because once that baby comes out, you looking through an entirely new lens.
Though yes, the idea that we’d choose to bring a human being into the world based on when it was “convenient” is preposterous, personally, I think it’s better from a career perspective to have your kids younger. Then you build your career in a way that works for all of you, as opposed to going full-steam and then having a big bump after a decade or more of this. It is a bump many people never recover from, and thus entirely switch how they work (or whether they work) after investing a great many years in building something. Have your kids earlier, though, and the ramp up can happen without the big bump.
Of course, to have your kids in your 20s, you generally have to get married in your 20s, which is somewhat harder to make happen in our society these days.
@Susan- thanks for the info. In many ways I think #2 will strongly push me towards a different job. I don’t think I’d like being self-employed, but I’m going to need a more flexible employer than I currently have if I have 2 kids.
@Kami- I do not think about my timing for children based solely upon my career trajectory, but it would be foolish not to consider my life as a whole before timing when I’d like to try to have another child. I never said anything about convenience. It’s about what’s best for us as a family, which includes me as a mother who has a career and supports her children financially via that career. I also happen to be happier and a better mother because I’m also pursuing a career. That’s just my personality. I don’t think considering your career as well as your children automatically means your children aren’t your priority.
Hi, I just stumbled across your blog, and am happy to find another happy working mom.
My answer to the question of “when is it the right time to have kids” is “when you want them”. I know that sounds trite, but there are ups and downs to any timing you choose, and somehow, we make it work out.
Personally, I had my kids sort of late (35 and 37), but that was primarily because I didn’t marry their father until I was almost 33.
@Bea- if you’re still reading: I found the adjustment to having 2 kids far, far easier than the adjustment to having 1 kid. I switched jobs between the two, so would definitely have waited until I would have full maternity benefits again even if I’d wanted another baby sooner, but I found that it was the home life that made me delay more than work issues- I waited until my first was sleeping fairly well, and I had the emotional energy to think about having another little baby to care for.
So far, having the second baby hasn’t really impacted my career. But she is only 5 months old.
@Cloud- I’m still here- thanks for your insight!