Educated Women Are Freezing Eggs Because Of “Missing Men”

Educated Women Are Freezing Eggs Because Of “Missing Men”

(Link): Educated Women Are Freezing Eggs Because Of”Missing Men“

Excerpt:

By Lauren Tousignant

July 5, 2017

Women with master’s degrees and doctorates are freezing their eggs because there are not enough educated men in the world, according to a new study.

Researchers interviewed 150 women who were having their eggs frozen at eight clinics in the US and Israel between June 2014 and August 2016. More than 80 percent of participants had college degrees.

Scientist Says People Will Stop Having Sex To Make Babies

Scientist Says People Will Stop Having Sex To Make Babies

(Link): Scientist Says People Will Stop Having Sex To Make Babies by Ruth Brown

Excerpt:

Humans will stop having sex to make babies within 30 years, a scientist predicts.

Instead of conceiving the natural way, parents will instead head to a lab for the decidedly un-sexy process of hand-picking embryos created with their DNA, says Professor Hank Greely, director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, (Link): according to an Atlantic report.

But at least one thing won’t change: One or both partners may be left unsatisfied by the experience.

Women In 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms in U.S.

Women In 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms in U.S. 

(Link):  American Women are Opting to Wait Longer to Have Kids

(Link): Women in Their 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms

Women in their early thirties are for the first time having more babies than younger moms in the United States, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to health experts, the shift was caused by more women choosing to wait longer to have children, as well as a steady national drop in teen births. Now, the birth rate for women in the 30-to-34 age group is about 103 per 100,000.

(Link):  For the First Time Ever, Thirty-Something Women Are Having More Babies Than Their Twenty-Something Counterparts

In many ways, this attitude, and the milestone marked by the new CDC data, represents a gain for women. As Rebecca Traister wrote in her 2016 book All the Single Ladies, the social permission to delay marriage and childbirth—as well the as the biological ability to do so, first through the use of reliable birth control, now with the help of the booming fertility industry—has given women the freedom to define themselves through means other than motherhood. As recently as 1970, the mean age of first birth was just 21, giving most women precious little time to pursue education, adventure, and professional achievement.

However, the rise of older parenthood is also a response to a workplace paradigm that levies penalties on mothers. The U.S. is (Link): the only wealthy nation in the world without a federal paid parental leave policy, and childcare in this country is (Link): exorbitantly expensive and (Link): frighteningly under-regulated. Together, these factors push many women to put off pregnancy in the name of professional success or financial stability.

In her 2012 book Ready: Why Women are Embracing the New Later Motherhood, University of Houston professor Elizabeth Gregory analyzed census data from 2000 and found that delaying motherhood measurably increased women’s earnings.

(Link): Women In 30s Now Having More Babies Than Younger Moms in U.S.  – May 2017

For the first time, women in their early 30s are having more babies than younger moms in the United States.

Atheists At Risk of Dying Out Due to Belief in Contraception

Atheists At Risk of Dying Out Due to Belief in Contraception

(Link): Atheists At Risk of Dying Out Due to Belief in Contraception by Rachel Hosie

Religious people are having more babies

A new study has suggested that atheism is doomed because religiouspeople have higher rates of reproduction.

58 Year Old Woman Gives Birth to Twins

58 Year Old Woman Gives Birth to Twins

(Link): 58 Year Old Woman Gives Birth to Twins

Excerpts

April 27, 2017

A 58-year-old woman who underwent fertility treatments gave birth to premature twins in northwestern Mexico last month.

The twins, a boy and a girl, were born at 33 weeks gestation and spent three weeksat Culiacan’s Regional General Hospital Number 1. They had been receiving specialized treatment for several medical conditions, including low birth weight, but are now reported to be in good condition.

They were born at 33 weeks and are in good condition, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) said in a statement.

 

Children Don’t Come Cheap: Cost of Raising One Hits $233,610 (2017 Findings)

Children Don’t Come Cheap: Cost of Raising One Hits $233,610

(Link):  Raising kids isn’t cheap — and the annual cost of a child is only going up by J. Dennin

Wondering if you can afford to have a kid? Here’s some sobering news.

Children born in 2015 will cost about $380 more per year to raise than kids born in 2014, according to the Department of Agriculture’s latest report on the cost of raising a child in the United States, released Monday.

Overall, families spend between $12,350 and $13,900 annually on their kids, at least when you’re talking married couples with two kids in the middle third of income bands, the report found.

WHO: Single People Who Struggle to Find A Partner To Be Considered “Infertile”

WHO: Single People Who Struggle to Find A Partner To Be Considered “Infertile”

I’m taken aback by some of the cranky comments by people who disagree with this decision. Take for example this (source):

Josephine Quintavalle, from Comment on Reproductive Ethics added: “This absurd nonsense is not simply re-defining infertility but completely side-lining the biological process and significance of natural intercourse between a man and a woman.

Well, excuse the hell out of me, Ms. Quintavalle, but some of us find ourselves single by circumstance – we had hoped to be married in our 20s or 30s but just could not find the right guy. I cannot get pregnant now because I have no husband to have sex with to get pregnant, by, HELLO.

You’re saying women like me shouldn’t be able to get help we need or want in having a kid of our own, if that is what we want (I never cared if I had one myself or not, but some women really want one). There is just no sympathy from some people for the circumstances other people find themselves in in life. I didn’t plan on turning out single well into my 40s, lady.

I don’t think that adult singleness should be thought of in a derogatory fashion as a “disability” (God knows we get enough of that condescending attitude from churches as it is), but I don’t see anything wrong with it pertaining to allowing singles who want to have  kid.

I’m also seeing one or two commentators who assume that single adults are more “selfish” than married couples, which is untrue and is (Link): the reverse!

(Link):   People Who Can’t Find Sex Partners Should Be Classified as ‘Disabled,’ Says World Health Organization

(Link):  Being Single Is Now a Disability, According to the World Health Organization

By Rhett Jones

For the WHO’s Dr. David Adamson, one of the authors of the new standards, this move is about creating medical equality. He says, “(Link): The definition of infertility is now written in such a way that it includes the rights of all individuals to have a family, and that includes single men, single women, gay men, gay women.”

Former Pastor Tried to Strangle Infant in Store Check-Out Line

Former Pastor Tried to Strangle Infant in Store Check-Out Line

(Links to the news story – farther below)

Let’s run down the Christian tropes for the billionth time on my blog:

Many Conservative Christians teach that marriage and parenthood are necessary to make a person more “godly and mature.”

Many Christians assume that never-married adults over the age of 25 are weird, flawed, immature, or over-sexed horn dogs; they assume marriage is necessary to make a person ethical and sexually responsible.

Christians also tell Christian single women they are to only seek a mate from church – from Christians. The idiotic “be equally yoked” teaching.

The problem with all this is none of it is true. Married Christians who are parents are frequently in the news for abuse, rape, theft, drug addiction, and so on (examples here).

Inside the Growing Movement of Women Who Wish They’d Never Had Kids by S. Treleaven

Inside the Growing Movement of Women Who Wish They’d Never Had Kids by S. Treleaven

(Link):  Inside the Growing Movement of Women Who Wish They’d Never Had Kids

Excerpts

It’s unthinkable, and it’s definitely unspeakable, but women all over the world are coming forward to say it: I regret having my children.

The movement got its (arguable) start nearly 10 years ago when Corinne Maier, a French psychoanalyst, writer, and mother of two in Brussels, wrote candidly about her own regret in (Link): No Kids: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. (Among them: being forced to adopt the “idiot language” of children and inevitably being disappointed by your offspring.) The book was described by reviewers as “a selfish and cathartic display” and “incredibly distasteful.”

Italy’s Campaign for More Babies is Called Racist and Sexist

Italy’s Campaign for More Babies is Called Racist and Sexist

After having skimmed this page over, yes, this campaign sounds very sexist and very condescending towards women.

(Link): Italy’s Campaign for More Babies is Called Racist and Sexist

Excerpts:

by E. Lyman, Sept 2016

ROME — Italy launched a program Thursday aimed at reversing one of the world’s lowest birthrates, but the first “Fertility Day” initiative produced a backlash with charges of sexism, racism and comparisons to wartime dictator Benito Mussolini.

The Ministry of Health campaign focuses in part on measures to combat sterility, but the notion of encouraging women to think about having children earlier produced the most fire.

One ad, for example, showed a smug pregnant woman holding an hourglass with a tagline that reads, “Beauty doesn’t have an age. Fertility does.” Another showed the outline of a long-beaked bird reading, “Hurry up! Don’t wait for the stork.”

“It’s incredibly condescending to think that Italian women don’t understand how their biological clock works,” said Rebecca Winke, 45, a Chicago native operating a bed and breakfast in the central Italian town of Assisi. “What women here need is the same opportunities men have in the workforce, affordable child care and a generation of Italian men who can do their fair share at home.”

FYI: Childless Women Aren’t Villains by M. Crum

FYI: Childless Women Aren’t Villains by M Crum

(Link):  FYI: Childless Women Aren’t Villains

Excerpts

Belle Boggs, author of ‘The Art of Waiting,’ talks fertility treatments, and the problem with how childless women are portrayed in literature.

…The Art of Waiting explores negative portrayals of childless women and families in popular culture (as sinister, resentful). It manages also to delve deeply into the scientific and political processes of IVF, a treatment that’s much more accessible to some communities than it is to others. Boggs gracefully touches on her own brush with infertility, and by sharing stories of those in her support group, she shows that the experience of yearning for children is multifaceted, not so easily whittled down to a harsh stereotype.

…What was one of the biggest myths you encountered while writing this book, and while undergoing IVF yourself?

I think there are so many myths and preconceptions and stereotypes that inform all of our thinking, whether we are experiencing infertility or planning to get pregnant, or planning a family in some other way, that it’s hard to just choose one.

I suppose the biggest myth would be the stereotype of the infertility patient. I was familiar with that stereotype from the media, from literature, from being a person in the world. Infertility is so often described as a woman’s problem, and typically an older, privileged woman’s problem. Women who put off having children until it was too late. And that’s really not the case. It’s just as likely to be a male problem as it a female problem. It’s also more likely to affect women with lower levels of education, it’s more likely to affect poorer women and men. That was something I thought about a lot as I researched this book.

Dad from TLC’s Conservative Christian ‘Willis Family’ TV Series Arrested for Child Rape

Dad from TLC’s Conservative Christian ‘Willis Family’ TV Series Arrested for Child Rape

The guy in this story, Willis, is a married father who was on a “family values” type TV show, where he was passing himself off as being a good, Christian guy. He has been arrested for having raped a child years ago.

As someone who can be pretty critical of lots of Christians and “family values” rhetoric, I do think I should periodically mention when blogging about these news stories I do realize that not all Christians (or people who have traditional values) are scum bags.

However, these sorts of stories are common enough – stories about guys who claim to be Christ-followers or who are big advocates of “Family Values” who do end up being child molesters or wife beaters – that maybe Christians who are heavily vested in the culture wars might want to take a step back.

I will also remind readers how this story about a married man who is father to numerous biological children who raped a person shows that the Christian propaganda and stereotype that being married and a parent is necessary to being a good, godly, mature, or ethical person is a bunch of nonsense.

(Link):  Father-of-12 Toby Willis from TLC’s The Willis Family is charged with raping an underage girl after attempting to flee from police

(Link):  Dad from TLC’s Conservative Christian ‘Willis Family’ TV Series Arrested for Child Rape by D. Ferguson

Excerpts:

Toby Willis — patriarch of the conservative Christian family featured on TLC’s reality show The Willis Family — has been arrested and charged with the rape of an underage girl.

(Link): The New York Daily News reported Saturday that Toby Willis, 46, was arrested and charged by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) for raping an underage girl 12 years ago.

TBI agents carried out a days-long investigation of the charges against Willis, who is the father of 12 children, all of whose names begin with the letter J. The Duggar-like musical family were the stars of their own reality show about traveling the country spreading the Christian gospel and performing country music. However, due to poor ratings, TLC canceled the show in April.

Willis was apprehended in Kentucky where he fled in an attempt to evade arrest. He will be extradited to Tennessee’s Cheatham County Jail, where he will be held without bond.

Willis and his wife Brenda — like Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar — are (Link) Quiverfull parents, adherents to a Christian dominionist sect that encourages married couples to produce as many offspring as possible in order to raise an army of believers.

Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late by A. Ellin

Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late

(Link):  Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late by A. Ellin

Excerpts:

August 5, 2016

SPARKY CAMPANELLA never heard the thrumming of a biological clock. But his “sociological clock” — his sense that he was missing out on something important in life — boomed mightily. At the age of 54, he decided to do something about it. He became a father.

He was single, but so what? “I decided I could either do it myself, or wait for the right partner to come along,” said Mr. Campanella, a Los Angeles fine arts photographer whose son, Rhys, is a little over 1 year old. Over the years he had dated women who had children of their own, but he realized that he didn’t want to be a stepdad.

….It’s a question many childless people over 50 are asking themselves. Of course, dealing with night feedings and rambunctious 2-year-olds are not for the faint of heart. But with their finances in order and their careers in place, with their life spans extended, some older people are concluding: Why not start — or continue — raising children in later life?

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

(Link): With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

The hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness characteristic of menopause may no longer also signal the end of a woman’s fertility thanks to a blood treatment used to heal wounds.

Presenting their findings at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting in Helsinki, Finland, this month, researchers in Greece said they were able to reverse menopause in roughly 30 women, including one who entered menopause at 40 but five years later menstruated again, reports (Link): New Scientist.

Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion? by E. Day

Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion?

(Link): Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion? by E. Day

Excerpts:

• Remarks like Leadsom’s go far beyond the usual cut-and-thrust of the political arena and reveal how (Link): childless women are still viewed with innate suspicion. This, in spite of the fact that women in their mid-40s are now almost twice as likely to be childless as their parents’ generation. One in five women born in 1969 is childless today, compared with one in nine women born in 1942.
• But there remains a taboo, a retrograde belief that (Link): we are in some way unnatural for not fulfilling our biological destiny. How else to explain the fact that the first question many people ask when I meet them is whether I have children, followed by an uncomfortable pause when I say that I don’t. “But why?” I can see them thinking. “What’s wrong with her?”

The Eclipse of White Christian America

The Eclipse of White Christian America

(Link): The Eclipse of White Christian America

Excerpts:

• A once powerful demographic group is losing ground in American politics.
• For most of the country’s history, white Christian America—the cultural and political edifice built primarily by white Protestant Christians—set the tone for our national conversations and shaped American ideals. But today, many white Christian Americans feel profoundly anxious as their numbers and influence are waning.
• ..The key question is not why one white Protestant subgroup is faring worse than another, but why white Protestantism as a whole—arguably the most powerful cultural force in the history of the United States—has faded. The answer is, in part, a matter of powerful demographic changes.
  

Actress Jennifer Aniston Responds to Media’s Constant Fixation on her Reproductive Status

Actress Jennifer Aniston Responds to Media’s Constant Fixation on her Reproductive Status

I’ve said it before, but women face much more scrutiny and pressure to have children than men do.

This is by actress Jennifer Aniston:

(Link): For The Record 

Excerpts:

• Let me start by saying that addressing gossip is something I have never done.  I don’t like to give energy to the business of lies, but I wanted to participate in a larger conversation that has already begun and needs to continue. Since I’m not on social media, I decided to put my thoughts here in writing.
• For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism,” the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news.”
• …If I am some kind of symbol to some people out there, then clearly I am an example of the lens through which we, as a society, view our mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, female friends and colleagues. The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing. The way I am portrayed by the media is simply a reflection of how we see and portray women in general, measured against some warped standard of beauty.
• …But I really can’t tell myself that anymore because the reality is the stalking and objectification I’ve experienced first-hand, going on decades now, reflects the warped way we calculate a woman’s worth.

Many Parents Will Say Kids Make Them Happier. They’re Probably Lying. by A. Swanson

Many Parents Will Say Kids Make Them Happier. They’re Probably Lying. by A. Swanson 

(Link): Many Parents Will Say Kids Make Them Happier. They’re Probably Lying. by A. Swanson 

Excerpts:

• Ask the vast majority of American parents, and they will tell you that having kids has made them happier.
• The problem with this claim, as common as it is, is that (Link): research suggests it just isn’t true. People who have kids in the United States and in many countries around the world report being less happy than people who don’t have kids. Being a parent gives people a sense of purpose and meaning, as well as lifelong social connections. But for some reason, it doesn’t appear to bring American parents more happiness.
• Now, new research has shed light on why this might be.
• …The key to their findings is that not every country experiences a “parenting happiness gap” like the United States does. On average, an American parent reports being 12 percent unhappier than a non-parent in America – the biggest gap in the 22 countries the researchers looked at, followed distantly by Ireland. In 12 other countries, non-parents also described themselves as happier than parents.
• ..The researchers examined the differences among these countries to figure out what might be causing the happiness gap. They conclude that U.S. policies – or, more accurately, the lack of them – are likely to be the fundamental cause, by increasing the cost and the amount of stress and anxiety that parents feel.

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Related Posts:

(Link):  ‘It’s a break from the kids’: Why parents cheat more than childless couples

(Link):  Mommy Blogger Confesses in Blog Post that Mommy Blogging is a Bunch of Fake, Happy-Clappy B.S. – Kind of Like Most Christian Adult Singleness Blogs

(Link): Marriage Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread)

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

 

Please Stop Asking Me When I’m Getting Married and Having My Own Kids – by E. Barnes

Please Stop Asking Me When I’m Getting Married and Having My Own Kids – by E. Barnes

I believe I first saw this link on Melanie Notkin’s Twitter:

(Link):  Please Stop Asking Me When I’m Getting Married and Having My Own Kids – by E. Barnes

Excerpts:

• I’m a PANK. Yeah, you’re reading that right. I’m a PANK, a Professional Aunt No Kids.
• ….I recently shared something on my personal Facebook page that reads, “I’m tired of hearing, ‘When are you going to get married and have kids?’ Let me tell you, I could have done that already and chose not to.

Tokophobia – Too Afraid To Have A Baby by A. Lauretta

Tokophobia – Too Afraid To Have A Baby by A. Lauretta

(Link):  Too Afraid to Have a Baby

• Tokophobia—a pathological dread of giving birth—might be causing some women to avoid pregnancy.
• ….Though there aren’t statistics in the United States for a pathological anxiety over pregnancy and childbirth—known as tokophobia— (Link): studies in Australia and Britain have found that 6 percent of pregnant women report a disabling fear of having babies, while 13 percent of women who are not yet pregnant are afraid enough to postpone or avoid pregnancy altogether.
• ….Pregnancy and childbirth do come with feelings of anxiety, of course: hopes that the mother and child will be safe and healthy, that there will be little to no complications during childbirth, that the first days and months at home will go smoothly.
• So when do common pregnancy jitters cross the line into a clinical phobia? And, if the phobia is as prevalent as some research suggests, why isn’t it more widely recognized? The answer may have to do with the difficulty of being open about not looking forward to something that most people consider a miracle—especially when more than six million women in the U.S. alone have problems getting or staying pregnant and may dream of having children.
• …Tokophobia is categorized in two forms: primary and secondary. The former can be understood through the lens of Mirren’s fear—often happening at a young age—when seeing disturbing images of birth or even resulting from sexual assault. The latter is often described similarly to post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting from a traumatic past birth experience.