We tend to think of later motherhood in personal terms – often focusing on the story of each woman’s journey to having kids at what is still sometimes considered an advanced age. But when all these personal choices are added together, they have enormous ripple effects, unraveling the old social fabric and moving us all toward a very different tomorrow.
Delay of kids, made possible by the advent of reliable birth control and our expanded life-spans, gives women in the 21st century a voice in shaping society that we’ve never had before in history—a voice that the world is only beginning now to hear from. And it creates a more equal family dynamic, shaping personal relationships in powerful, positive ways.
So no wonder increasing numbers of women choose to start their families later. Even in recessionary times, when birth rates overall have been falling, births to women age 40 and over rose by 4% in 2008, adding their bit to the overall 80% rise in births in this age band since 1990.1 Add in later moms in the 35-39 age band (also burgeoning in recent decades), and that’s one in seven babies born to a later mom, and one in 12 first babies (up from one in 100 in 1970). Add to those the many later adoptive and step moms (for which there are no firm stats), and you’ve got a substantial portion of the population mothering later than their mothers did, and from a very different cultural access place.
The new human ability to control fertility offers women who want kids the chance to wait to start their families until they feel personally and professionally ready for them. For many, that means waiting until after they’ve finished their educations and established at work. In our current family-unfriendly work world, delay works as a shadow benefits system, providing women with access to higher wages and flexibility, perks often not available to workers who start their families earlier.
This isn’t always a conscious choice, and many other factors may also affect individual women’s decisions (like waiting to find the right partner, or to accept that the right partner isn’t on the horizon, or deciding that you do want a family when initially you thought otherwise, or moving on to adoption or egg donation after a history of infertility that may or may not have been age related, or suddenly finding yourself a step-mom because you fell in love with a divorced dad, or just finally feeling ready to focus on family!).
But whatever your back-story, the economic, educational, and work-history benefits are there. And your children, your partner, and the world gain from your increased cultural and economic capital. You get a hearing now when you stand up for them.
Which doesn’t mean delayed motherhood is right for everybody. Many women feel ready to start their families earlier. But a growing group of later moms has been and continues to be crucial to changing the options for all. Women who move up in the worlds of education, work and government have been changing the work world and the world of government policy from within, gradually improving the options available and bringing women’s interests and concerns to the table. Not coincidentally, many of these ladies either have no kids or become moms late in their careers. What makes sense for them also benefits the rest of us.
Media stories often present later motherhood as a problem – set to the ticking of an infertility alarm clock. But that leaves out the big social and personal gains that women experience individually and as a group when they delay their families until they’re ready – either by a few years, or by many.
The real story is the happy tale of how much positive control women do now have over an aspect of our lives that ran roughshod over us for millennia. While long delay does lead to infertility, many women address that through treatment or continued trying, or they find alternate routes to a happy family through adoption, egg donation or fosterage. And once they get there, they’re fully present in ways many of them would not have been earlier when they were focused on exploring the world and building their careers.
Rocking the cradle and the world at once, later moms’ are among the faces future generations will look back on with love. Thanks to Cyma for documenting them so beautifully here.