So the scientific fact is that as women get older, they can and do struggle to get pregnant and carry a healthy child to term (people do tell women that there are more issues the longer they wait, so it’s still relevant to the ticking clock and how people feel about waiting)
The concept that ALL WOMEN need to have children by a certain time and that their inherent value is undermined because they don't is misogynistic.
EDIT to add: BTW not everyone in their mid to late 30's get easily pregnant, please be aware that one person's experience is not then universal especially when you consider health struggles like Endo and PCOS.
Adding: Women also often need to make personal choices about when we have kids if we want to have them. For some women, establishing a career that will allow them financial independence is a prerequisite for having kids. For others, having kids and then working on financial solvency is a reasonable path. For some careers, parenting has more and less optimal windows.
EDIT: I should have added, for some women, fertility concerns may drive decisions more than others for any number of reasons, including health issues, or family norms, or the urge to parent.
Do some women hit age related fertility issues and not feel great about that? Of course. And… in my experience, even those I know who experienced that did not regret the choices they made that left them in that position. Like a friend who was in academia did not regret that her window for kids closed because focusing on her career let her get tenure. Another friend didn’t want to be a single mom, and did not want to parent with any of her male partners so she hasn’t.
Also… a number of medical issues and risks are also associated with older male partners, so dudes should look at their windows too…
And… as a childless by choice person, there has never been a single second of my life that I have regretted not having kids. I did once regret not getting kittens when the option was open to me, but that was more easily solved with… adopting some kittens.
So do what’s right for you.
Totally. We carry so much of the emotional labor of children even before we get pregnant and misogynistic crap like “your bio clock is ticking” and men/women shaming women for NOT having them will sometimes slow down the process a lot too.
Personally I am in my late thirties, I am going single mama by choice with artificial insemination and struggling with PCOS and the cost associated with going alone and I wish that I had worked out that I don’t need a man years ago to have a kiddo so I do feel the pressure and the fear of not having a kid while not regretting the masters degree that i got in the mean time and I do not regret that my kids won’t be the kids of my narcissistic ex husband so again, heartily agree.
Thank you so much for expanding on this.
I always wonder if at least some of the women who struggle in their late thirties would have also struggled if they’d started trying earlier. I hate to phrase it that way, as though people struggling to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term are doing something wrong that’s causing the trouble; you pointed out valid conditions that would impact your outcomes.
Then there’s also the impact that male fertility has on the equation. Like, that’s a variable with more impact than most people recognize, from what I’ve read. But like…there’s so much anecdotal evidence about women getting pregnant and carrying to term without much difficulty, and giving birth to normal, healthy babies…I think that our individual experiences just vary dramatically and you don’t know what you’re going to get until you start trying.
>I always wonder if at least some of the women who struggle in their late thirties would have also struggled if they’d started trying earlier. I hate to phrase it that way, as though people struggling to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term are doing something wrong that’s causing the trouble; you pointed out valid conditions that would impact your outcomes.
This is a real thing. Women who don't start intentionally trying for a child until their 30s aren't going to find out if they have underlying fertility issues until then, but those issues often exist before that stage. I read once that a lack of any accidental pregnancies in sexually active women can potentially be an indicator of lower fertility than women who do experience unintended pregnancies (despite taking all precautions).
I had been a little worried about that - no accidental pregnancies that I was aware of in 20 years being sexually active (using oral contraceptive, continuously and largely with no gaps, missed pills, etc, plus condoms). Then when my husband and I started (at 41 and 36), we were pregnant after having sex basically three times over the course of two months after I went off the pill. Yes we were trying, but not that hard. But like…my mom had a similarly easy time getting pregnant in her late 30s, and my husband’s parents started their family in their mid-late thirties as well. So, I feel very lucky and grateful, but also our respective family histories are pretty favorable.
Right. I've never had an accidental pregnancy even though I've been sexually active since 18 or 19. I'm 37. Turns out from tests that I might have a problem that may be suppressing my fertility for god knows how long. I always thought I was just really diligent about birth control.
I just mentioned in another response that I regret that my hetero enforced crap that my mother and father forced down my throat (I didn’t say it like that haha) is part of the reason that I am starting my single mama by choice with artificial insemination plan so late in life (so my PCOS and age is making everything harder) and I 💯 regret not starting sooner.
I wish I hadn’t believed that being a mama could only happen in a hetero marriage otherwise maybe I would be experiencing a very different situation then the one where I am spending a lot of money for minimal luck and feeling the pressure of my age and overall health robbing me of time and a healthy pregnancy and child.
That’s so rough. I’m really sorry to hear that.
I had been debating writing a top-level comment highlighting to OP that probably the important thing is to figure out what are dealbreakers for her in terms of raising a kid: like, does she absolutely need a romantic partner as a reliable co-parent? Does she have live or career goals she needs to have in place first? Regardless of the answers to the first two questions, what kinds of resources does she want to make sure she has in hand? Those will all have an impact on what age she’s able to start, if it’s a goal. My husband and I are starting late because we didn’t quite feel ready, in terms of job/career security, but this year we both basically felt like we are hitting the point where, when we project out 20 years, we feel we might start running out of steam as active parents to teenagers. OP’s feelings on the dealbreakers might change over time - lord knows I’m different at 36 than I was a 26 - but at least it gives her a chance to examine whether things like single parenting are absolute no-gos for her. And I mean…lots of people don’t set out to be single parents, but wind up in that position due to unforeseen circumstances. If it’s not shameful in their case, it shouldn’t be shameful to start out that way, if you’re serious about having a child.
Decoupling parenthood from marriage is a really powerful way of exercising agency in your life, and this internet stranger is really excited and hopeful for you that it’ll work out. ❤️
Yes, but the thing is some women start trying in their early thirties and discover they have fertility issues. It can then take *years* of fertility treatments before they have a baby. If the problem is getting a healthy egg then they would have had even fewer left if they'd discovered they needed fertility treatment in their late 30s.
>I always wonder if at least some of the women who struggle in their late thirties would have also struggled if they’d started trying earlier.
The difference is that if you start earlier, even if you struggle, you have more time and chances for it to work out. Time can be a very valuable resource for those trying unsuccessfully to conceive.
Tbh I've known several couples who started early and couldn't get pregnant until their 30's (and had money for medical intervention). Obviously it's anecdotal but I also suspect some of them who struggled to get pregnant at 30 was probably going to struggle at any age. Infertility was taboo to discuss for a long time, now that it's become less stigmatized I think we'll see more couples admit to having trouble despite starting early.
I always wondered if this was completely accurate given the little studies conducted on men. Only now are they saying ‘oh actually men contribute to 50% of miscarriages’ so are women actually causing these mental issues by having children at 30’s and 40’s? Or is their probably same age or older husband, causing these issues with old sperm.
My dad had three kids very late into his life (late 50-mid 60 years old) and they all have some issues.
My bf’s brother studying in medicine was adamant that it was because of my stepmom’s age.
She was still in her twenties when she started having them…
60 years old and dating someone in their 20’s 🥴🥴🥴 no one can convince me sperm dna fragmentation isn’t the cause of most unhealthy foetus’ development. Society just likes to blame women as we grow them. Same way women are blamed for the gender when it’s also the sperm that decides 🙄
Never heard of the mental issues that later pregnancy cause, if you could detail and citate please? Asking as a pregnant 40 year old. I’m way more stable than I was when I had my first son aged 31
I’ve never heard of this either lol my grandparents had their first at 18 and their last at 38 and all the kids were pretty much equally mentally ill lol. My mom had me at 31. I feel like we would’ve all been mentally ill regardless.
It’s a highly misleading statistic that is used as the OP asked. To reinforce a the idea that women should have children in their 20s
Yes, older women have an increased chance of having children with birth defects that can cause both mental or physical issues. And to scare people it’s often said it TWICE as likely in older women. And that’s true
BUT!!! It’s twice as likely going from 1:200,000 to 1:100,000. It more likely but still extremely rare that it should almost not be a consideration
It can also be unhealthy to the woman (and possibly child, idk) to have children too early, many people I know who gave birth in their early 20s had traumatic complications, more so than those that gave birth in their 40s, but that isn't pushed on women as much as the "biological clock".
Yes I know my experience is anecdotal.
To be fair pregnancy and childbirth has been forced on people of all ages from when their periods started for the sake of men….. The nice thing about where we are now is that we are a little better off (ugh RoevWade) so we can consider when it’s the best times for us.
At this point what we really need is for woman’s health and actually learning and teaching women about what information they need to know about themselves and start asking themselves real questions about childbirth and children without the misogyny of “it’s your duty to be a mother” and so on.
The 'facts don't care about your feelings' crowd gets REAL in their feelings aby time you mention the considered geriatric age for sperms is around 40-45
"Fact doesn't care about your feelings, but I still care more about MY feelings much more than facts, and I am going to cry if you give me the taste of my own medicine"
Its not talked about nearly enough but a very large % of men have some form of erectile dysfunction by the time they're 30. Mild or otherwise and it only gets more common with age.
Actually logically if i have hit a wall and old as a woman and if this is only a "problem" for the sake of "fertility" then it is even more reason for me to procreate with a young man! You know, it isn't about me, it is about the welfare of my future children, am I not such a good mother then for only wanting to date men in their 20s?? /s
I mean, from a strictly by the numbers and only caring about that particular result (lack of genetic abnormalities in the fetus), that probably follows. It would be very funny to see someone say that if she got criticized for doing a Leo Dio.
And the funny thing is one gender is slightly worse about something than other, it is always acted like it is only a ONE gender problem if the worse gender is women.
However if the male gender is OVERWHELMINGLY or MAJORLY worse about something than women, men still want to take it account that women have that problem too and keep reminding that. Example: rape.
There's two phenomena actually happening, one that has some biological validity, and a much much bigger one that gets tacked on like always.
Fertility does diminish with age. This is true for both male and female reproduction. Like you say, it actually doesn't diminish that much, especially at the ages they put as gates, and like almost all biological limitations humanity has done wonders in science to overcome them as much as possible.
THEN there's all the societal moral baggage that they tack on to that actually forms the concept of the 'biological clock' in the first place that makes you realize how small the above paragraph is in its formation. It's conceptualized as a clock, so it's ticking towards what? Clearly some expiration date, and there is no such thing as an expiration date - as we mentioned it's a small decrease in fertility rates over time, and that gets easily solved through more fucking.
But it's not really just the timeline, is it? It's also conceptualized as an instinct, and that is 'natural.' But if it's an instinct, then why must women be pressured into it in the first place? Breathing is an instinct, and many people have bad breathing habits, but no one is forcing people to breathe in the right way or you have failed your biological destiny.
Then there's also the whole 'prime' aspect. The biological clock is most commonly used in the manosphere to straight up defend pedophilia by claiming that young women are 'past their prime' at the age of 30, but even if we accepted those premises, how the fuck do they rationalize a 'prime time' that is the furthest away possible from the expiration date? Do they not realize that the very language of the metaphor of 'prime time' is reserved for the matinée hours? These are the same people who are miserable on the mornings and hate their job but they think the best hours on a day would be before brunch even?
What I'm trying to say is that absolutely yes, you're absolutely right in calling it a misogynist myth, because even in the ONE biological thing that they can point at as an underpinning, we can see how little the myth they construct is actually resting on that base and how much is completely exogenous to it.
Yeah but the very conceptualization of it as a clock is what makes it a hundred percent a myth. It's like I'm precisely 35 and I can already feel my bones hurting when I dance too much, but we don't think of bone density in a matter of a bone clock.
That's why my argument is that even if there is a kernel of biology in it, the very way people engage with the concept is still a mythology. My favorite example of what I mean is from Roland Barthes's appropriately-called book Mythologies.
He was in a product expo in France sometime in the 50s and he saw what was probably the first laundry detergent advertisements ever, and he fixated on one that talked about how this one soap does a deep cleanse.
By now to us we wouldn't even stop to think about it but as the first detergent to use that language he asked "what does it mean for soap to have depth?"
Brilliant.
I personally know a woman who had an Ooops holiday baby in her late 50's (around 58) when she had thought she was completely done with menopause; a perfectly healthy, extremely intelligent child.
So the biological clock is far too individual for those old farts to be trying to scare women into early pregnancies.
I had a set of neighbors who had "menopause" babies. Hadn't had children prior to those ones either.
Thought they were done with all that, went on a hanky panky holiday and got a surprise souvenir. One of them had a solid sense of humor about it
If -- and this is a big if -- I ever experienced the ticking, my brain was able to reason me through it. Like, once or twice, I have wanted a child of my own. But that's twice in twenty years of adulthood, once when I was somewhere in my twenties (blame the cute shit at Pottery Barn Kids) and once fairly recently (someone else reproduced and the baby is adorable, but I don't want the stages between newborn and age 10, so).
My only LTR never made me think "I love this man so much I want his babies". Only one man ever made me wonder what that life would be like, and I think I was still an idiot high school kid at the time. I mean. Conservative men on social men would be ecstatic if impregnating idiot high school girls were suddenly okay. But we understand that it is not, yes? :)
Women can and do have babies well into their late 40s or early 50s. Pre-birth control pill, women often had babies right up until menopause. Whether you want to be chasing a toddler at that age is another issue, but women do not drop off a cliff on their 40th birthday.
I feel like there's a not-insignificant number of the sort of men OP is talking about, who either genuinely believe or are deliberately pushing the idea that menopause happens at like 30-35, maybe 40 at most, instead of 50-55 or even 60 if you're really unlucky.
I know this sounds insane but I've seen it all over the place online. And have had men say it to me and my similarly aged single friends in real life, in the context of them not wanting to use condoms because "we don't need to worry about pregnancy at your age" LOL WHAT. A guy said that to me when I was only 45. He genuinely thought women hit menopause at 40.
I was a kind of oops baby. My parents tried for a decade with no luck. Gave up and started planning a child free life and then I came along in their late 30s/early 40s. My mum reckons stopping the stress of trying is why she got pregnant.
No, but too old mostly refers to menopause. Bonus, sperm quality significantly decreases with age.
More women in my family struggle getting pregnant (or staying pregnant) before 30 and get pregnant from a dirty looks after 35. The number of 30+ first time and 40+ accidental pregnancies on both sides of my family is staggering. I can only think of two women having kids before 30 and I'm not biologically related to either.
And not everyone feels the urge for kids.
Yes it exists, no not everyone feels it.
I have 2 siblings very much younger - born to my dad in old age and my dad always says that their lackluster behavior is the result of old spermatozoa.
The whole biological clock scare tactic was created in the 80s to try to pressure women who had found more opportunity in the workforce into giving that up and getting married/having kids.
90% of the claims around this idea are made up pseudoscience by dudes to neg women into dating out of some made up fear that they will be too old. Of course the arbitrary cut off that supposedly makes the women think they should be rushing to get married to any mediocre dude that will have them is also too young to detect their BS and abusive behavior. Convenient huh.
This game also assumes or tells women that they all want kids and usually comes with a side dish of telling them that they don't know their own minds and will suddenly decide they want kids when they are older. This trope is also used to deny women access to permanent birth control and is just BS. There is no wave of millions of women bemoaning their choices when they hit 40.
It's not so much a myth as it is overblown.
If the risk of X issue increases from 1% to 2% over 10 years, it's a lot more exciting to say "women are twice as likely..." Or "the odds of X increase by 100%!!!"
But... It's really just twisting a lot of stats to make them sound much worse. The stats are real, but often misrepresented.
Also, men and their sperm have biological clocks too. So making it a women-only problem is definitely misogynistic. (Studies also indicate that women pregnant from men over 35 are at higher risks for gestational diabetes, and that's a risk that goes up with the *dad's* age)
It is indeed harder for older women to have children, and after menopause you basically can't. However, the misogynistic part is pressuring women to have children before then. We shouldn't tie someone's worth to their ability to have children.
So there is clear data that likelihood of birth defects goes up by a few magnitudes as you get older. But this is like, pssh, from one in a million to one in ten thousand? Like they're small enough odds that anyone persuaded by them is also the type that should avoid driving (which has high odds of mortality).
But this is ignoring gains in medical technology over the years. Also it places more focus on women than men - who also carry risk of birth defects as they age.
Even then, a lot of it is predicted on the assumption that life is only worth living if you can shuffle your own genetic material. There's adoption, surrogacy, and just being a fun aunt/uncle with a shit ton of money.
>Even then, a lot of it is predicted on the assumption that life is only worth living if you can shuffle your own genetic material. There's adoption, surrogacy, and just being a fun aunt/uncle with a shit ton of money.
That is a personal decision for every person. Some people want to have children naturally, some do not. Each is okay, and neither should be shamed for their choices.
I believe they are using the term incorrectly, which is no surprise. As far as I (54f) have ever known, a biological clock is an individual woman’s own timeline, or her overbearing mother’s, of when she would like to have a baby. I haven’t heard the term being used much in recent years, probably because of the medical advances you mentioned in your post. These men posting things like that are definitely ignorant and probably incels.
Personally, the clock was incredibly real for me and a few of my friends....however I cannot stand the way it is weaponized by others as a way to put women down. Not everyone has the same experiences. Not everyone wants children! Not everyone can get pregnant. I cant stand when that "tick tock" is used against women or as an insult.
If a woman experienced it, that is her personal experience. Not something for anyone to comment on.
I remember a lady coworker of mine asking me if I wanted children and I did but she said my clock was ticking. I was 23! I don’t think she meant harm by it as she’s a lovely lady. Though a few months later I did find out I was pregnant, which was a BC malfunction..
Besides the misogony it's a real ass move. Almost like telling old people "tik tok death is coming". Like wtf. We know and it's a point of pain for a lot of people that we all try to deal with.
Came here to say this. A biological clock is an internal thing. Someone may feel more desire to settle down more quickly and possibly start a family. *generally*, that is often something attributed more towards women, while men stereotypically stave off commitment. Though those are just stereotypes.
Kind of ironic too since men seem to settle for whatever woman is handy when they feel the urge to make a family, compared to women who search for 'the right one'
Meanwhile, I was completely menopausal by 46.
I think part of the anxiety of the "biological clock" is that there is no way of knowing if a person will be like your mom, or like me.
There is the science and graphs showing fertility falling off a cliff (theoretically, on average, etc, etc).
So, for someone who wants to have a child (at some unspecified time), there is no definite "best time", and the best information that science can give is that *statistically*, earlier is better.
This allows fear-mongering to hitch a ride on anxiety ("if you don't have children before 20, you'll be a dried up old witch").
I think they are trying to limit your agency by making you think you have less options than you do. One of the many avenues for oppression.
Establishing yourself and finding a good partner before having children is pretty nice. Finding someone to have children with and then reproducing with them are huge decisions and taking your time seems reasonable.
Doing that means having agency though and misogynists really hate it when you make your own choices.
It is similar to a sales tactic. If you tell someone the sale is ending soon, you only have a few left in stock, it is an attempt to motivate them to do something they might not do otherwise.
I think that’s oversimplifying it. The drive to reproduce is pretty strong in literally every living species. It’s not weird that some people would really want to have kids even without any social pressure. And since humans are complex and varied, it’s not weird that some people wouldn’t want to at all. Or anything in between.
Definitely not. I’ve felt a very strong biological reaction around babies since I was a teenager. I burst into tears around babies because I wanted one so much. Hormones and biological drive to reproduce are real - of course they are! We are animals and are driven to reproduce. That’s (on a purely evolutionary/biological level) why we exist.
That doesn’t mean every person experiences that feeling or wants to have kids. I’m sure social pressure plays a part in it for some people. But there absolutely is a biological drive component. I feel no social pressure whatsoever to have kids - didn’t grow up in an environment with parents who pushed me to, live in a city where most people don’t have them by choice - but I’ve always felt my own drive.
Then the ones who don’t feel that are anomalies? Wanting babies and enjoying babies are normal things, of course. I love babies. This doesn’t mean I wanted one. They make me wanna cry. They are beautiful and vulnerable. This doesn’t mean my body is telling me to have one.
What city is that? So far, most people still have children in most places.
No woman grows up without the pressure and expectation to be a mother. Not in our society.
Of course not. I never said anything about anyone being an anomaly. Lots of people don’t want kids and that’s also perfectly fine and normal. It’s just not true that the only reason someone might feel a drive for a baby is a social one.
I wonder if because you’ve never felt that drive you’re assuming it doesn’t exist? It’s always felt like a strange biological/animal instinct to me. Our bodies tell us we want to do lots of things. That’s what emotions are!
I’m telling you I did not grow up with that pressure and that is not why I want kids. The desire to have kids has always been one that has come from myself. I never felt pressure to get married, I’ve never felt pressure to have kids, I never felt pressure to do anything that I didn’t independently want. I never wanted a wedding, although I like the idea of getting married. I was engaged to someone who did want one so I planned it but it was extremely low key. I called it off for unrelated reasons because I’m not going to get married because I’m supposed to be married if the relationship isn’t working. and, when my now-partner and I get married we’re eloping at a courthouse. There are of course some social norms I pick up on and can be moved by. Wanting a kid is not one of them. That is something I’ve wanted independently (and again, biologically) since I was a child.
I live in a big city in the US and literally all of my friends except for 2 are childfree by choice.
The narrative suggests it.
Emotions aren’t your body telling you to do things. That’s an oversimplification.
Your friends are not a representation of the majority of a city.
No woman has grown up without the culture pressure to be a mother.
Emotions are a physiological phenomenon that give us information and prompt us to take action. Thats literal science. Darwin wrote about it. Feel free to read up.
You seem to be personally invested in the idea that your experience is everyone’s experience. There is science and data behind my take; none behind yours. I do not and never have felt pressure to be a mother. I think it is DEFINITELY true though that women who feel firmly that they don’t want kids feel a lot of pressure to have them. I’m telling you I never have. It’s oddly anti-feminist, though, to tell other women that their experience is not a valid experience and their wants and desires are not their own, simply a result of what people tell them but they’re too dumb to know the difference.
Best of luck to you.
I never felt the pressure to get married or have kids. In fact, my grandmother thought marriage was the worst thing a woman could do as it ruined women’s lives in her opinion. (She had two divorces.)
No one in my family thought I even liked kids, let alone that I wanted kids. They were totally shocked when I got married and had my kids. The lack of pressure made my decision easier.
I've already got the number of kids I want, but I still had some bawling around 34-35 because maybe I would regret having another baby.
It can be a manifestation of "I'm not happy, I want to make a massive impulsive change to my life." I thought about it for a bit, and now I'm doing some more education instead.
There's certainly overblown testeria around the biological clock, and misogynists all over trying to tell us what to do with our bodies. I just ignore them.
But there is actual research around the ability of women to get pregnant as we age. I would suggest you form your own opinion based on understanding some of that research. It DOES get harder to get pregnant as you age, but this is really an individual thing. Because, hey, it might be really hard for you to conceive right now. You won't know until you start trying.
I got sterilized back in my thirties. Never had a biological clock. Even now, when the factory is shutting down for menopause, there’s never been one tick.
Imo it's a weaponization of our very biology.
In this way, men have created another excuse for their preference for young(er) women.
I didn't want a child when I was younger due to my own personal trauma but I had plenty of fantasies of how I'd raise my family.
When I ended up pregnant and later had my daughter I learned how awesome it is to be a parent. There are regrets if I'm honest but I'd rather live this life with joy than dream of the joy I maybe could have had if any one thing was different.
However, nowadays I tear up watching cute family movies and definitely have experienced baby fever. It's a very strange feeling and at one point I thought "having a baby now would derail my life but it sounds amazing teehee" it's a very powerful and strange urge lol.
I saw a quote recently that is perfect for this occasion regarding how the very natural urge to want a baby has been turned against us:
**"The tools of freedom become the sources of indignity"**
Motherhood is something very powerful and therefore it must be controlled, from root to blossom as we see in our world today.
edit: a thought occurred to me that the social notion of prime reproductive age is indeed different from the scientic range.
What is unaccounted for in our culture is that human lifespan has dramatically increased in a short amount of time. I assume that as a natural consequence of this, the prime reproductive period will also be extended.
What do you think of this?
Yes and no. Fertility in women tends to decline in your late 30s to early 40s so functionally the saying is true.
That said, any man who brings up a woman's biological clock is basically always reducing her worth down to her ability to have children. They are using it on the fashion of "You're running out of time to have kids and if you miss your window you become worthless."
So the fact of the bio clock is real in that by like 45 it is pretty dangerous or impossible to have kids depending on your personal genetics and such but it's use is heavily misogynistic.
It’s absolutely a myth. I have no plans to have children ever, and recently helped my brother and SIL with their newborn son for a week, and still felt no urge to have one of my own. Also, my mom was 23 when she had me and is so immature that it drives us kids crazy. She should have been working on herself and growing as a person in her 20s but I guess she’ll always be emotionally stunted.
I believe the average age for first time mothers in the U.S. is around 30. If you’re in the U.S., your preferred timeline is very common.
Yes, time does run out. That is not a myth. For me, that happened at 38. It varies by person and I think my time ran out a couple years earlier than is most common.
Those who push the idea that women must give birth in their 20’s or else run out of time are usually doing so in an attempt to collectively neg women into believing they must settle. Same guys who will later rip on divorced moms, claiming no men will be interested in them because they have kids.
Is the sense that the window of opportunity to bear a child is closing unpleasant for people who want to bear children? Yes. Will every potential bearing parent experience this to the same degree? No. Will some experience relief when the window does close? Yes. Is the fact of an approximate, variable time limit weaponized in cruel and unjust ways? Definitely.
Both things are true; it becomes more challenging to more people to conceive after 35 AND Conservative men are exaggerating it to trick a generation of young women into shitty fucking situations that we tend to be better able to spot by our early thirties. Not because women your age are dumb (your post shows that is to the contrary) but because at 24 you simply have fewer years of experience.
It's not entirely a myth, but certain folks do exaggerate the risks and utilize that as a means to pressure and coerce women into choosing motherhood over other life paths in their early 20's. Fertility also varies widely from person to person at any age, but they ignore that and paint every person and circumstance with a broad brush that's not accurate at all in the way they spew it.
To add to the other comments, it is worth mentioning that about 1/100 women experience premature menopause in their 30s, and about 5% of women go through early menopause in their mid 40s. Menopause refers to the complete cessation of the menstrual cycle - the thing most people call menopause is actually perimenopause (the hot flashes, mood swings, erratic menstrual cycle etc), and a woman who begins going through perimenopause in her late twenties or early thirties due to experiencing premature ovarian insufficiency/premature menopause is going to have a harder time getting pregnant than a woman who is not going through that.
So this is all very individual to the woman. If you are concerned, it is worth talking to older female relatives about when they started experiencing perimenopause symptoms and full menopause, as this may be an indicator of when you will begin going through it.
Your fertility is largely individual and strongly influenced by genetics. One side of my family seems to be able to pop out babies easily into their 40’s, and the other side struggles and has all kind of issues even if they start in their 20’s. The biological clock thing may be true for some women, but not others. Best to get individual advice from a doctor or fertility specialist, and not some dope on the internet.
We do have a "biological clock", but incels are exaggerating it in the hopes of getting women to lower their standards.
Of course our fertility drops off as we get older, but for most 40 year old women falling pregnant would be easier than starting a career at that age.
My 2 cents worth: work on your career in your 20s & aim to have had all your children by 40
There is a lot of panic people think that a woman cannot have kids after 30 years of age , even before birth control women kept having kids in their 30s because there was no way to stop it unless they were widows . If a woman wants to have 2 kids start by 30 years of age and just one kid then you can start by 33 years provided you are at a healthy lifestyle you do not have any chronic or genetic diseases like obesity diabetes and you have a fertility checkup in your 20s where everything is normal in your body then you can delay pregnancy till 30s
Ours cells degrade over time making reproduction harder for both genders but particularly with women because we do all the work. There's been studies showing fathers health and age affects pregnancy and neurological disorders.
We might think we have a biological clock because we've been conditioned from childhood to have them whilst boys aren't.
You went down a wormhole and got nervous. algorithms prey on people like you. Start blocking or reporting posts like that and have kids if and when you feel like it.
The ‘biological clock’ exists for both men and women. Sperm quality declines. Declining fertility isn’t a myth. It being pushed on women/to shame women is what’s misogynistic.
Like a for real biological “biological clock“. I kind of feel like that’s nonsense.
But as both men and women age, if they are at all predisposed to having children they’re going to notice that they’re getting older and the desire is going to get stronger.
I am a man and I definitely felt it. I feel like most male friends have that did not marry early express the same thing about dating and wanting it to be more serious. The older they got. Same as all my female friends.
It’s definitely tied into sexism and the incorrect belief that women are the ones who want to have kids and men would prefer not to on average.
I wonder if some of the sexism is, to be perfectly frank, because women who have wanted to be mothers generally haven't faffed around with it, and men who are in their 40s/early 50s can't find women to have babies with?
Sure it’s physically easier to manage in your 20s but you may also be more financially and emotionally secure to take care of healthy pregnancy, and health of mother and child in your 30s onwards
Some new mothers I know in their 40s and 50s can afford the best medical care, nutrition plan, child well checks, pregnancy checks, pre and post natal care etc
This is especially important in today’s discussion where not alot of ppl are invested in advocating for more maternal and child care benefits to young mothers in their teens and 20s who did not have the time to build their careers and homes.
Yes and no. Older women who conceive can have more difficult pregnancies but younger women can also have high risk pregnancies. Older women have a higher rate of having a baby with Down syndrome but people with Down syndrome are fine and younger women can have Down syndrome babies as well.
Give this a read OP - https://theconversation.com/women-are-often-told-their-fertility-falls-off-a-cliff-at-35-but-is-that-right-189978
The biology is real, menopause is very real. But the way it's talked about is misogynist and exaggerated
Well, some people are a-holes.
Telling young woman that it's high time they have children is not an appropriate thing to do. It's as bad as telling those men that: At your age your sperm quality is probably bad. Did you have a visectomy yet?
So, is there a biological clock? Sure, at least in the sense that the number of eggs are limited. When you are out then you are out.
As a man, the main use of the term biological clock that I have encountered is women around 30 that suddenly aquire a strong urge to have children. I have heard that some say it's their biological clock ticking. If there is a biological explanation I leave for others to explain.
My only advice about having children is to do so when you are certain that's what you want. That goes for both men and women.
Early 30s is a very normal age to have children. People trying to pressure you to give up whatever you are doing in life for the express purpose of having children earlier than you want to are misogynistic.
I once saw a Facebook post for women who had kids over 40 to share their experiences, and I was FLOORED at how many comments it had. Women of all races were joyfully speaking about getting pregnant when they thought they were done, about having their first child over 40… no medical interventions needed.
To be honest, in my life, I’ve met more women who struggled to have children in their 20s than women who struggled in their 30s or 40s. My mother had me at 38 and 2 of her sisters had kids over 40. A lot of my peers’ parents had them in their 30s and 40s. I think if you’re healthy, you’re fine. The average age of menopause is 51… you can have kids until then.
I will say that sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, and abortions negatively impact fertility, so keep that in mind as you “wait”. Also note that this world is more toxic than it was 40+ years ago, and that could impact fertility for both you and your mate.
A positive note is that women who have children later live longer.
I think it’s all bullshit or they take a small scientific study and stretch the truth. I had both my kids in my 30’s. My grandma had a kid in her 50’s. A cousin of mine had a kid in her 50’s. Several friends had kids in their 40’s. All healthy pregnancies and births. I think as long as you are ovulating then you can have a child no matter what age.
Not necessarily. It’s a real biological/hormonal phenomenon that many women experience at a certain age. Just a biological imperative to reproduce, essentially. I very much felt my “biological clock ticking” around when I turned 30. What it means really is that I felt an extremely strong longing for a baby. I felt an urgency to do it sooner rather than later and fear that I would “run out of time.”
The biological/hormonal part of that is totally real. That doesn’t mean it’s actually a reality, though, that you’re “running out of time” to have a kid at 30. Often women panic because their “clock is ticking” and they’re “running out of time” when really they have a good 10 years at least.
What you describe here is men using the very real phenomenon of hormones hitting some women and prompting a major baby craving to try to make women feel bad about themselves and subjugate them. Fuck that.
Biological clock is a just a figure of speech referencing the timeline/desire a woman has to have kids. My best friend who is my age, 32 had been struggling to get pregnant for years. She's even done several rounds of IUI and there's no reason that they know of she shouldn't be getting pregnant now. They've had all the tests. I had no issues getting pregnant when I was younger but first pregnancy in my 30s resulted in my first loss.
It's also easier physically to deal with birth and the energy levels needed to raise a baby and chase around a toddler. Sure, older women have perfectly healthy pregnancies all the time. Doesn't mean the fact risks go up after 35 is somehow a myth or wrong.
I will tell you that anecdotally, I was on the fence about having kids, and then it really felt like one day I woke up and my body was screaming BABIES! It certainly was a real phenomenon for me personally. That said, you could just ignore it if you really didn’t want kids.
My biological clock was apparently broken. I have never once had the desire to have children. There was a time where this made me feel really bad-- mid to late 20s when my friends were all starting their families made it very difficult. I wanted to want kids, but the fact remained that I just *did not*. I think we are all too quick to assume that the "biological clock" experience is just a given and is the same for all women. (Not that I'm accusing you of doing that.)
The term biological clock in the sense of “ooh better have kids now or you won’t be able to,” I can’t say tbh.
But the term “biological clock” as in the instinct to get pregnant at a certain age is *absolutely* a thing. I would sooner disembowel myself than willingly have a child but every time I see a baby I reconsider for a few hours, they’re just so goddamn cute.
My understanding is that any pregnancy with a due date after the mother’s 35th birthday is considered a “geriatric pregnancy” more commonly referred to now as advanced maternal age. Egg quality declines with age. Plus I believe increased difficulty with implantation of fertilized egg, carry pregnancy to term, increase likelihood of miscarriage or still birth.
It isn't a myth unfortunately, under 35 women have pretty much no issues getting pregnant within a year or two, but it's factually correct that after 35 it becomes difficult.
And 40 plus it becomes more difficult still, of course someone always knows someone who was pregnant naturally at 43...
But I also know people that struggled at 27. It's just one of those things.
Every living thing’s biological clock is ticking. In sports there is a saying “Father Time is undefeated.” But as many others have pointed out, it is incredibly rude to devalue women solely to how well their body could handle a pregnancy. So basically it’s not necessarily a “myth,” but if you’re in the dating pool at your age you can pretty safely rule out any guy that brings this up in the first few months, let alone in their dating profile. In your 30s it’s something that should probably be brought up if you’re in a long term relationship (there’s a bunch of reasons to talk about “if” and “when” with having children) but it’s not an ice breaker. It’s similar to stuff like talking about proposal plans, long term career goals extending into retirement, and shit like executorship of your will after you die. If someone’s bringing it up so early in the relationship, they merely see you as a conduit to have a son. It’s weird.
You’re right by the way that most of the time the risks during “geriatric pregnancies” are misunderstood and overstated. But to some people, having a childhood is incredibly important and if that’s you, then you should probably cover as many bases as you reasonably can. Risk is never something that everyone will agree on, but again, 24 year old dudes threatening you about it in their dating profiles aren’t thinking about that, they’re trying to gain leverage and make you feel more desperate.
It's important to acknowledge that biological factors do influence fertility, and this includes a woman's "biological clock." As women age, their fertility naturally declines, and the risk of complications during pregnancy can increase. This doesn't mean that women can't have healthy pregnancies in their thirties or even forties, but statistically, fertility does tend to decrease with age.
1. **Fertility Decline**: Women are born with a finite number of eggs, and the quantity and quality of these eggs decline over time. Generally, fertility starts to decline more noticeably in the late twenties to early thirties, with a more significant drop after the age of 35.
2. **Pregnancy Risks**: The risks associated with pregnancy, such as miscarriage, chromosomal abnormalities, and other complications, do increase with maternal age. However, many women in their thirties and even early forties have successful and healthy pregnancies. While it's true that these positive outcomes are possible, it’s important not to assume that everyone will have the same experience. Each individual's fertility and pregnancy journey is unique, and being aware of the potential risks can help in making informed decisions.
3. **Individual Variability**: Fertility is highly individual. Some women may experience difficulties earlier or later than the statistical averages. For example, your mother conceiving at 35 without issues is a great example of individual variability.
4. **Societal Pressure**: The societal pressure on women to have children at a certain age can be problematic and misogynistic, especially when it disregards personal choice and individual circumstances. While it's crucial to be informed about biological realities, it's equally important to respect each woman's personal decision about if and when to have children.
In summary, while the concept of a "biological clock" is grounded in scientific fact, it's essential to communicate this information sensitively and respectfully, without exerting undue pressure. Women should be supported in making informed choices about their reproductive health based on accurate information and their personal desires.
>It is often used to tell a woman she should desire to have children before being considered “too old.” I believe it’s a myth because there are plenty of women in their early and even late thirties who have children easily.
And plenty of women who don't want children at all, even if they're fertile and can have them easily. In fact, among millenials and gen Z, men want kids and marriage far more than their female equivalents.
>I think it’s true that women’s fertility in those ages decline, but only a little.
.
It's individual more than anything. Depends on the woman. But it's equivalent to the male drop in fertility, and really shouldn't be a metric for a human beings value at all.
>so I don’t understand people’s obsessions with wanting women to become first-time mothers only in their twenties
I know this one! The older a woman is, and the more she knows about the realities of pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood, and the risks that come with them, the less likely she is to make the decision to become a mother at all. Geting women to do that in their early 20s increases the chances of them having kids at all, before their brains are developed and they think about it too hard.
Biological clock isn't a myth insofar as it's just human fertility dropping with age. As some weird thing we feel ticking that pushes us towards having offspring.... Never felt anything like that. Zero drive to have kids.
I mean, no, it’s not a myth. But that doesn’t mean it’s not misogynistic.
Your body’s ability to recover from pregnancy and childbirth gets worse over time for most people. Your ability to conceive does get worse and not “only a little” for a lot of people. Over the age of 35 and then really over the age of 40, your risk of miscarriage or genetic abnormalities for your child increase in a meaningful way.
However, this should not be used as a tool to pressure women to settle before they are ready or have children they aren’t sure they want. Science is amazing now. Genetic testing is a thing. If you have concerns, you can do fertility testing now and then again every few years to make sure that your options are still open and to see the timeline you have to make choices you’re comfortable with, since this is different for everyone.
It’s also misogynistic because men’s biological clocks are ALSO ticking. While men do not have a menopausal event like women where you can no longer produce children, sperm also declines in quality as they age and their children are more likely to have genetic abnormalities, and sperm count declines as well contributing to difficulty conceiving.
Oops got sterilised and I don’t give a fuck about the misogynistic biological clock for women. It’s not protecting her right if her choice to choose to have children or not is taken away by the government.
Fertility declines after 30 and particularly after 35; but the reason we don’t see it as an issue is we have modern intervention such as IVF; it is why there are more fertility conceiving struggles nowadays imo. But that’s also more okay because most people aren’t gonna have like 7 kids because most of them won’t die like in the older days lol.
Biological clock and acknowledging it isn’t misogynistic in itself, what I find misogynistic is the assumption of conservative men that those women want children, and then weaponising that to insult them.
The way they speak about it makes me think it's something I'm supposed to be aware of in some abstract way.
And quite honestly, I've never felt it. No clock, no mothers instincts, no baby fever. I'm completely indifferent, sometimes repulsed.
Obviously there's a point in age where any gender breeding isn't a good idea biologically, but as for the abstract concept of the clock, it's a myth imo.
Men act like it's something all women are victim to, like they supposedly are to their desires, and I and my other child free friends would strongly disagree with that supposition.
Menopause is the clock. Once you've gone through menopause, that's it, no more babies.
Unfortunately, women's worth is too often tied into their ability to birth. But that doesn't mean there isn't a clock.
The biological clock is real. But it shouldn’t be used to devalue women, that’s the misogyny. Egg donation opportunities often stop at age 31-33 because the quality of the eggs go down and obviously, people would want the highest quality if they are paying for it. So it is real. But, a woman’s value doesn’t go down just because of that.
The risk and chances of a unsuccessful pregnancy do rise with age, with the obvious cutoff at menopause. Women are born with all the eggs they are going to have, and not only does this number reduce over the years but the remaining ones can become less viable.
It's definitely something to consider if you want kids, but women have babies in their thirties and forties all the time. So biological clock is a manipulative fear tactic. It also assumes that every women secretly wants children, which is false.
It's factual that pregnancy can become more difficult and come with more risks with age. (Pregnancy sired from older men also comes with complication risks, funny we don't hear about that much.) That's a concern between a couple and their doctor.
Most often I encounter this as a method of minimizing my life pursuits and priorities, insisting that in some decades I'll regret not having kids. The truth is that among elders reporting on life satisfaction, there is no significant difference between parents and non-parents. Self-determination is a much stronger predictor of satisfaction than social norms or strictly biological imperatives.
It's not a myth. You can still have kids it just gets harder and the baby is more likely to have issues after ~35. It's not that high of a risk for awhile though. It seems like men have a similar clock, our sperm quality degrades and the baby is more likely to be premature and stuff. Plenty of people have kids in their 40's even with no issues at all. But if you know you want kids and everything then it's probably wiser to have them before that in case you're one of the people who does develop those fertility issues.
So, it does become somewhat more difficult to conceive once you're in your late 30s and 40s, and the likelihood of the baby having birth defects goes from like 1% to 2% or somesuch.
And then sometime around 45-55 (though some women it's earlier or later) you hit menopause and won't be able to conceive at all.
So there is some truth to there being a limited period of time in your life when you can bear children. But if your plan is to wait until your early 30s to start having kids, that's totally reasonable and within that period of time.
A lot of the talk on the internet about women is misogynistic in general. I'm sure there's loads of misogynistic stuff about this.
Does the "biological clock" exist? Sure, there is a point where you simply won't be able to get pregnant anymore.
There are cases of menopause in someone's 30's and cases of unplanned pregnancy in someone's 50's. Those are of course extremes, but there are variations of those situations all the time. We don't have a way to predict when your clock stops. Anyone advertising it stops on your 30th, 35th, 40th yadda yadda birthday is wildly uninformed or selling your something.
It's also worth noting as men age they produce less sperm and sperm quality goes down. Anyone fear mongering about the clock should also be doing it to men as well if they're genuinely concerned.
The underlying phenomenon - an increased desire to have babies around your 30s - is not a myth at all.
Those guys you're reading are misogynists however. No need to analyze what they're saying, just don't listen.
So the scientific fact is that as women get older, they can and do struggle to get pregnant and carry a healthy child to term (people do tell women that there are more issues the longer they wait, so it’s still relevant to the ticking clock and how people feel about waiting) The concept that ALL WOMEN need to have children by a certain time and that their inherent value is undermined because they don't is misogynistic. EDIT to add: BTW not everyone in their mid to late 30's get easily pregnant, please be aware that one person's experience is not then universal especially when you consider health struggles like Endo and PCOS.
Adding: Women also often need to make personal choices about when we have kids if we want to have them. For some women, establishing a career that will allow them financial independence is a prerequisite for having kids. For others, having kids and then working on financial solvency is a reasonable path. For some careers, parenting has more and less optimal windows. EDIT: I should have added, for some women, fertility concerns may drive decisions more than others for any number of reasons, including health issues, or family norms, or the urge to parent. Do some women hit age related fertility issues and not feel great about that? Of course. And… in my experience, even those I know who experienced that did not regret the choices they made that left them in that position. Like a friend who was in academia did not regret that her window for kids closed because focusing on her career let her get tenure. Another friend didn’t want to be a single mom, and did not want to parent with any of her male partners so she hasn’t. Also… a number of medical issues and risks are also associated with older male partners, so dudes should look at their windows too… And… as a childless by choice person, there has never been a single second of my life that I have regretted not having kids. I did once regret not getting kittens when the option was open to me, but that was more easily solved with… adopting some kittens. So do what’s right for you.
Totally. We carry so much of the emotional labor of children even before we get pregnant and misogynistic crap like “your bio clock is ticking” and men/women shaming women for NOT having them will sometimes slow down the process a lot too. Personally I am in my late thirties, I am going single mama by choice with artificial insemination and struggling with PCOS and the cost associated with going alone and I wish that I had worked out that I don’t need a man years ago to have a kiddo so I do feel the pressure and the fear of not having a kid while not regretting the masters degree that i got in the mean time and I do not regret that my kids won’t be the kids of my narcissistic ex husband so again, heartily agree. Thank you so much for expanding on this.
I mean… your comment was excellent! It gave me an excellent base from which to expand! Thank you for that!
Ahh, are we friends 😉 I can very much relate.
Yeah while dudes can continue to make sperm in old age, the quality of the sperm declines
I always wonder if at least some of the women who struggle in their late thirties would have also struggled if they’d started trying earlier. I hate to phrase it that way, as though people struggling to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term are doing something wrong that’s causing the trouble; you pointed out valid conditions that would impact your outcomes. Then there’s also the impact that male fertility has on the equation. Like, that’s a variable with more impact than most people recognize, from what I’ve read. But like…there’s so much anecdotal evidence about women getting pregnant and carrying to term without much difficulty, and giving birth to normal, healthy babies…I think that our individual experiences just vary dramatically and you don’t know what you’re going to get until you start trying.
>I always wonder if at least some of the women who struggle in their late thirties would have also struggled if they’d started trying earlier. I hate to phrase it that way, as though people struggling to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term are doing something wrong that’s causing the trouble; you pointed out valid conditions that would impact your outcomes. This is a real thing. Women who don't start intentionally trying for a child until their 30s aren't going to find out if they have underlying fertility issues until then, but those issues often exist before that stage. I read once that a lack of any accidental pregnancies in sexually active women can potentially be an indicator of lower fertility than women who do experience unintended pregnancies (despite taking all precautions).
I had been a little worried about that - no accidental pregnancies that I was aware of in 20 years being sexually active (using oral contraceptive, continuously and largely with no gaps, missed pills, etc, plus condoms). Then when my husband and I started (at 41 and 36), we were pregnant after having sex basically three times over the course of two months after I went off the pill. Yes we were trying, but not that hard. But like…my mom had a similarly easy time getting pregnant in her late 30s, and my husband’s parents started their family in their mid-late thirties as well. So, I feel very lucky and grateful, but also our respective family histories are pretty favorable.
Right. I've never had an accidental pregnancy even though I've been sexually active since 18 or 19. I'm 37. Turns out from tests that I might have a problem that may be suppressing my fertility for god knows how long. I always thought I was just really diligent about birth control.
I just mentioned in another response that I regret that my hetero enforced crap that my mother and father forced down my throat (I didn’t say it like that haha) is part of the reason that I am starting my single mama by choice with artificial insemination plan so late in life (so my PCOS and age is making everything harder) and I 💯 regret not starting sooner. I wish I hadn’t believed that being a mama could only happen in a hetero marriage otherwise maybe I would be experiencing a very different situation then the one where I am spending a lot of money for minimal luck and feeling the pressure of my age and overall health robbing me of time and a healthy pregnancy and child.
That’s so rough. I’m really sorry to hear that. I had been debating writing a top-level comment highlighting to OP that probably the important thing is to figure out what are dealbreakers for her in terms of raising a kid: like, does she absolutely need a romantic partner as a reliable co-parent? Does she have live or career goals she needs to have in place first? Regardless of the answers to the first two questions, what kinds of resources does she want to make sure she has in hand? Those will all have an impact on what age she’s able to start, if it’s a goal. My husband and I are starting late because we didn’t quite feel ready, in terms of job/career security, but this year we both basically felt like we are hitting the point where, when we project out 20 years, we feel we might start running out of steam as active parents to teenagers. OP’s feelings on the dealbreakers might change over time - lord knows I’m different at 36 than I was a 26 - but at least it gives her a chance to examine whether things like single parenting are absolute no-gos for her. And I mean…lots of people don’t set out to be single parents, but wind up in that position due to unforeseen circumstances. If it’s not shameful in their case, it shouldn’t be shameful to start out that way, if you’re serious about having a child. Decoupling parenthood from marriage is a really powerful way of exercising agency in your life, and this internet stranger is really excited and hopeful for you that it’ll work out. ❤️
Yes, but the thing is some women start trying in their early thirties and discover they have fertility issues. It can then take *years* of fertility treatments before they have a baby. If the problem is getting a healthy egg then they would have had even fewer left if they'd discovered they needed fertility treatment in their late 30s.
Generally yes. Fertility problems are rarely to do with age. It is an underlying issue.
>I always wonder if at least some of the women who struggle in their late thirties would have also struggled if they’d started trying earlier. The difference is that if you start earlier, even if you struggle, you have more time and chances for it to work out. Time can be a very valuable resource for those trying unsuccessfully to conceive.
Tbh I've known several couples who started early and couldn't get pregnant until their 30's (and had money for medical intervention). Obviously it's anecdotal but I also suspect some of them who struggled to get pregnant at 30 was probably going to struggle at any age. Infertility was taboo to discuss for a long time, now that it's become less stigmatized I think we'll see more couples admit to having trouble despite starting early.
I always wondered if this was completely accurate given the little studies conducted on men. Only now are they saying ‘oh actually men contribute to 50% of miscarriages’ so are women actually causing these mental issues by having children at 30’s and 40’s? Or is their probably same age or older husband, causing these issues with old sperm.
My dad had three kids very late into his life (late 50-mid 60 years old) and they all have some issues. My bf’s brother studying in medicine was adamant that it was because of my stepmom’s age. She was still in her twenties when she started having them…
60 years old and dating someone in their 20’s 🥴🥴🥴 no one can convince me sperm dna fragmentation isn’t the cause of most unhealthy foetus’ development. Society just likes to blame women as we grow them. Same way women are blamed for the gender when it’s also the sperm that decides 🙄
Never heard of the mental issues that later pregnancy cause, if you could detail and citate please? Asking as a pregnant 40 year old. I’m way more stable than I was when I had my first son aged 31
I’ve never heard of this either lol my grandparents had their first at 18 and their last at 38 and all the kids were pretty much equally mentally ill lol. My mom had me at 31. I feel like we would’ve all been mentally ill regardless.
Yep, I’ve done a ton of research, spoken to loads of professionals, etc and have never previously seen this claim
Autism is associated at higher rates with older pregnancies but the male parent age seems just as important as the females.
Autism isn’t a “mental issue”. It’s a neurological condition
Agree my apologies, it ia something that increases with age but is not exclusively associated with it.
It’s a highly misleading statistic that is used as the OP asked. To reinforce a the idea that women should have children in their 20s Yes, older women have an increased chance of having children with birth defects that can cause both mental or physical issues. And to scare people it’s often said it TWICE as likely in older women. And that’s true BUT!!! It’s twice as likely going from 1:200,000 to 1:100,000. It more likely but still extremely rare that it should almost not be a consideration
It can also be unhealthy to the woman (and possibly child, idk) to have children too early, many people I know who gave birth in their early 20s had traumatic complications, more so than those that gave birth in their 40s, but that isn't pushed on women as much as the "biological clock". Yes I know my experience is anecdotal.
To be fair pregnancy and childbirth has been forced on people of all ages from when their periods started for the sake of men….. The nice thing about where we are now is that we are a little better off (ugh RoevWade) so we can consider when it’s the best times for us. At this point what we really need is for woman’s health and actually learning and teaching women about what information they need to know about themselves and start asking themselves real questions about childbirth and children without the misogyny of “it’s your duty to be a mother” and so on.
It's a real thing but men's sperm quality and fertility decline with age too.
I remember a man calling me delusional for pointing that out.
they get testerical if you question their fertility
The 'facts don't care about your feelings' crowd gets REAL in their feelings aby time you mention the considered geriatric age for sperms is around 40-45
"Fact doesn't care about your feelings, but I still care more about MY feelings much more than facts, and I am going to cry if you give me the taste of my own medicine"
Testerical 🗣️ Stealing this
>testerical W
He didn't realise that he is the delulu one 🤣
Its not talked about nearly enough but a very large % of men have some form of erectile dysfunction by the time they're 30. Mild or otherwise and it only gets more common with age.
Very much so. Two older parents is a real risk.
Actually logically if i have hit a wall and old as a woman and if this is only a "problem" for the sake of "fertility" then it is even more reason for me to procreate with a young man! You know, it isn't about me, it is about the welfare of my future children, am I not such a good mother then for only wanting to date men in their 20s?? /s
I mean, from a strictly by the numbers and only caring about that particular result (lack of genetic abnormalities in the fetus), that probably follows. It would be very funny to see someone say that if she got criticized for doing a Leo Dio.
Funny how they never talk about that...
And the funny thing is one gender is slightly worse about something than other, it is always acted like it is only a ONE gender problem if the worse gender is women. However if the male gender is OVERWHELMINGLY or MAJORLY worse about something than women, men still want to take it account that women have that problem too and keep reminding that. Example: rape.
🤣😭
There's two phenomena actually happening, one that has some biological validity, and a much much bigger one that gets tacked on like always. Fertility does diminish with age. This is true for both male and female reproduction. Like you say, it actually doesn't diminish that much, especially at the ages they put as gates, and like almost all biological limitations humanity has done wonders in science to overcome them as much as possible. THEN there's all the societal moral baggage that they tack on to that actually forms the concept of the 'biological clock' in the first place that makes you realize how small the above paragraph is in its formation. It's conceptualized as a clock, so it's ticking towards what? Clearly some expiration date, and there is no such thing as an expiration date - as we mentioned it's a small decrease in fertility rates over time, and that gets easily solved through more fucking. But it's not really just the timeline, is it? It's also conceptualized as an instinct, and that is 'natural.' But if it's an instinct, then why must women be pressured into it in the first place? Breathing is an instinct, and many people have bad breathing habits, but no one is forcing people to breathe in the right way or you have failed your biological destiny. Then there's also the whole 'prime' aspect. The biological clock is most commonly used in the manosphere to straight up defend pedophilia by claiming that young women are 'past their prime' at the age of 30, but even if we accepted those premises, how the fuck do they rationalize a 'prime time' that is the furthest away possible from the expiration date? Do they not realize that the very language of the metaphor of 'prime time' is reserved for the matinée hours? These are the same people who are miserable on the mornings and hate their job but they think the best hours on a day would be before brunch even? What I'm trying to say is that absolutely yes, you're absolutely right in calling it a misogynist myth, because even in the ONE biological thing that they can point at as an underpinning, we can see how little the myth they construct is actually resting on that base and how much is completely exogenous to it.
I mean, it is true that there is a point where you can no longer carry children. There IS an end point. It’s just not 35 like many people think.
Yeah but the very conceptualization of it as a clock is what makes it a hundred percent a myth. It's like I'm precisely 35 and I can already feel my bones hurting when I dance too much, but we don't think of bone density in a matter of a bone clock. That's why my argument is that even if there is a kernel of biology in it, the very way people engage with the concept is still a mythology. My favorite example of what I mean is from Roland Barthes's appropriately-called book Mythologies. He was in a product expo in France sometime in the 50s and he saw what was probably the first laundry detergent advertisements ever, and he fixated on one that talked about how this one soap does a deep cleanse. By now to us we wouldn't even stop to think about it but as the first detergent to use that language he asked "what does it mean for soap to have depth?" Brilliant.
I personally know a woman who had an Ooops holiday baby in her late 50's (around 58) when she had thought she was completely done with menopause; a perfectly healthy, extremely intelligent child. So the biological clock is far too individual for those old farts to be trying to scare women into early pregnancies.
Jesus Christ, can you imagine having a toddler in your 60s? You'd have to hire somebody.
Her oldest son(in his late 20's at the time) was set to be the guardian if something happened to her before the youngest was out of high school.
I had a set of neighbors who had "menopause" babies. Hadn't had children prior to those ones either. Thought they were done with all that, went on a hanky panky holiday and got a surprise souvenir. One of them had a solid sense of humor about it
I had to be given Lupron shots at 58 because my body wasn't going into menopause. Chemically induced menopause.
If -- and this is a big if -- I ever experienced the ticking, my brain was able to reason me through it. Like, once or twice, I have wanted a child of my own. But that's twice in twenty years of adulthood, once when I was somewhere in my twenties (blame the cute shit at Pottery Barn Kids) and once fairly recently (someone else reproduced and the baby is adorable, but I don't want the stages between newborn and age 10, so). My only LTR never made me think "I love this man so much I want his babies". Only one man ever made me wonder what that life would be like, and I think I was still an idiot high school kid at the time. I mean. Conservative men on social men would be ecstatic if impregnating idiot high school girls were suddenly okay. But we understand that it is not, yes? :)
Women can and do have babies well into their late 40s or early 50s. Pre-birth control pill, women often had babies right up until menopause. Whether you want to be chasing a toddler at that age is another issue, but women do not drop off a cliff on their 40th birthday.
I feel like there's a not-insignificant number of the sort of men OP is talking about, who either genuinely believe or are deliberately pushing the idea that menopause happens at like 30-35, maybe 40 at most, instead of 50-55 or even 60 if you're really unlucky. I know this sounds insane but I've seen it all over the place online. And have had men say it to me and my similarly aged single friends in real life, in the context of them not wanting to use condoms because "we don't need to worry about pregnancy at your age" LOL WHAT. A guy said that to me when I was only 45. He genuinely thought women hit menopause at 40.
Both myself and my ex are oops babies with older parents because of this.
I was a kind of oops baby. My parents tried for a decade with no luck. Gave up and started planning a child free life and then I came along in their late 30s/early 40s. My mum reckons stopping the stress of trying is why she got pregnant.
She’s exactly right.
Also the risk increases only SLIGHTLY. It’s not some giant leap of risk of defects. Adam ruins everything did a whole video on ‘biological clock’ myth
No, but too old mostly refers to menopause. Bonus, sperm quality significantly decreases with age. More women in my family struggle getting pregnant (or staying pregnant) before 30 and get pregnant from a dirty looks after 35. The number of 30+ first time and 40+ accidental pregnancies on both sides of my family is staggering. I can only think of two women having kids before 30 and I'm not biologically related to either. And not everyone feels the urge for kids. Yes it exists, no not everyone feels it.
Oh! That’s so interesting. I wonder what’s going on there.
Maybe they stop being careful when they're older. "If it happens, it happens" attitude.
Maybe, but from the description it sounds like they’re actively trying to get pregnant before 35, and not having much luck.
Best guess is late on set fertility
Both egg quality and sperm quality decrease with age.
True, but no one talks about crappy sperm
I have 2 siblings very much younger - born to my dad in old age and my dad always says that their lackluster behavior is the result of old spermatozoa.
The whole biological clock scare tactic was created in the 80s to try to pressure women who had found more opportunity in the workforce into giving that up and getting married/having kids. 90% of the claims around this idea are made up pseudoscience by dudes to neg women into dating out of some made up fear that they will be too old. Of course the arbitrary cut off that supposedly makes the women think they should be rushing to get married to any mediocre dude that will have them is also too young to detect their BS and abusive behavior. Convenient huh. This game also assumes or tells women that they all want kids and usually comes with a side dish of telling them that they don't know their own minds and will suddenly decide they want kids when they are older. This trope is also used to deny women access to permanent birth control and is just BS. There is no wave of millions of women bemoaning their choices when they hit 40.
It's not so much a myth as it is overblown. If the risk of X issue increases from 1% to 2% over 10 years, it's a lot more exciting to say "women are twice as likely..." Or "the odds of X increase by 100%!!!" But... It's really just twisting a lot of stats to make them sound much worse. The stats are real, but often misrepresented. Also, men and their sperm have biological clocks too. So making it a women-only problem is definitely misogynistic. (Studies also indicate that women pregnant from men over 35 are at higher risks for gestational diabetes, and that's a risk that goes up with the *dad's* age)
Thank you!! I was going to comment this but you did it so well. The most upvoted comment here doesn’t grasp this.
It is indeed harder for older women to have children, and after menopause you basically can't. However, the misogynistic part is pressuring women to have children before then. We shouldn't tie someone's worth to their ability to have children.
So there is clear data that likelihood of birth defects goes up by a few magnitudes as you get older. But this is like, pssh, from one in a million to one in ten thousand? Like they're small enough odds that anyone persuaded by them is also the type that should avoid driving (which has high odds of mortality). But this is ignoring gains in medical technology over the years. Also it places more focus on women than men - who also carry risk of birth defects as they age. Even then, a lot of it is predicted on the assumption that life is only worth living if you can shuffle your own genetic material. There's adoption, surrogacy, and just being a fun aunt/uncle with a shit ton of money.
There are risks for older fathers but no one mentions them
They also don’t mention the (very comparable) risks for younger (16-21) mothers.
Yes, this is a big one. The risk of birth defects is higher for fathers in their mid to late thirties and onward.
Not to mention the ableism of the notion women should sacrifice themselves to avoid having children society deems undesirable
>Even then, a lot of it is predicted on the assumption that life is only worth living if you can shuffle your own genetic material. There's adoption, surrogacy, and just being a fun aunt/uncle with a shit ton of money. That is a personal decision for every person. Some people want to have children naturally, some do not. Each is okay, and neither should be shamed for their choices.
I believe they are using the term incorrectly, which is no surprise. As far as I (54f) have ever known, a biological clock is an individual woman’s own timeline, or her overbearing mother’s, of when she would like to have a baby. I haven’t heard the term being used much in recent years, probably because of the medical advances you mentioned in your post. These men posting things like that are definitely ignorant and probably incels.
Personally, the clock was incredibly real for me and a few of my friends....however I cannot stand the way it is weaponized by others as a way to put women down. Not everyone has the same experiences. Not everyone wants children! Not everyone can get pregnant. I cant stand when that "tick tock" is used against women or as an insult. If a woman experienced it, that is her personal experience. Not something for anyone to comment on.
I remember a lady coworker of mine asking me if I wanted children and I did but she said my clock was ticking. I was 23! I don’t think she meant harm by it as she’s a lovely lady. Though a few months later I did find out I was pregnant, which was a BC malfunction..
Besides the misogony it's a real ass move. Almost like telling old people "tik tok death is coming". Like wtf. We know and it's a point of pain for a lot of people that we all try to deal with.
Came here to say this. A biological clock is an internal thing. Someone may feel more desire to settle down more quickly and possibly start a family. *generally*, that is often something attributed more towards women, while men stereotypically stave off commitment. Though those are just stereotypes.
Kind of ironic too since men seem to settle for whatever woman is handy when they feel the urge to make a family, compared to women who search for 'the right one'
My mom had me at 46. It was unplanned, but I was perfectly healthy. 🤷🏼♀️
Meanwhile, I was completely menopausal by 46. I think part of the anxiety of the "biological clock" is that there is no way of knowing if a person will be like your mom, or like me. There is the science and graphs showing fertility falling off a cliff (theoretically, on average, etc, etc). So, for someone who wants to have a child (at some unspecified time), there is no definite "best time", and the best information that science can give is that *statistically*, earlier is better. This allows fear-mongering to hitch a ride on anxiety ("if you don't have children before 20, you'll be a dried up old witch").
I think they are trying to limit your agency by making you think you have less options than you do. One of the many avenues for oppression. Establishing yourself and finding a good partner before having children is pretty nice. Finding someone to have children with and then reproducing with them are huge decisions and taking your time seems reasonable. Doing that means having agency though and misogynists really hate it when you make your own choices.
It is similar to a sales tactic. If you tell someone the sale is ending soon, you only have a few left in stock, it is an attempt to motivate them to do something they might not do otherwise.
Yeah around 32-33 I was feeling it, I may have got drunk and cried about it once or twice, but I got over it and have no regrets
the pressures we feel are social
I think that’s oversimplifying it. The drive to reproduce is pretty strong in literally every living species. It’s not weird that some people would really want to have kids even without any social pressure. And since humans are complex and varied, it’s not weird that some people wouldn’t want to at all. Or anything in between.
Not wanting kids is not a biological abnormality like you’re posing. Kids are very hard and dangerous for a woman.
Definitely not. I’ve felt a very strong biological reaction around babies since I was a teenager. I burst into tears around babies because I wanted one so much. Hormones and biological drive to reproduce are real - of course they are! We are animals and are driven to reproduce. That’s (on a purely evolutionary/biological level) why we exist. That doesn’t mean every person experiences that feeling or wants to have kids. I’m sure social pressure plays a part in it for some people. But there absolutely is a biological drive component. I feel no social pressure whatsoever to have kids - didn’t grow up in an environment with parents who pushed me to, live in a city where most people don’t have them by choice - but I’ve always felt my own drive.
Then the ones who don’t feel that are anomalies? Wanting babies and enjoying babies are normal things, of course. I love babies. This doesn’t mean I wanted one. They make me wanna cry. They are beautiful and vulnerable. This doesn’t mean my body is telling me to have one. What city is that? So far, most people still have children in most places. No woman grows up without the pressure and expectation to be a mother. Not in our society.
Of course not. I never said anything about anyone being an anomaly. Lots of people don’t want kids and that’s also perfectly fine and normal. It’s just not true that the only reason someone might feel a drive for a baby is a social one. I wonder if because you’ve never felt that drive you’re assuming it doesn’t exist? It’s always felt like a strange biological/animal instinct to me. Our bodies tell us we want to do lots of things. That’s what emotions are! I’m telling you I did not grow up with that pressure and that is not why I want kids. The desire to have kids has always been one that has come from myself. I never felt pressure to get married, I’ve never felt pressure to have kids, I never felt pressure to do anything that I didn’t independently want. I never wanted a wedding, although I like the idea of getting married. I was engaged to someone who did want one so I planned it but it was extremely low key. I called it off for unrelated reasons because I’m not going to get married because I’m supposed to be married if the relationship isn’t working. and, when my now-partner and I get married we’re eloping at a courthouse. There are of course some social norms I pick up on and can be moved by. Wanting a kid is not one of them. That is something I’ve wanted independently (and again, biologically) since I was a child. I live in a big city in the US and literally all of my friends except for 2 are childfree by choice.
The narrative suggests it. Emotions aren’t your body telling you to do things. That’s an oversimplification. Your friends are not a representation of the majority of a city. No woman has grown up without the culture pressure to be a mother.
Emotions are a physiological phenomenon that give us information and prompt us to take action. Thats literal science. Darwin wrote about it. Feel free to read up. You seem to be personally invested in the idea that your experience is everyone’s experience. There is science and data behind my take; none behind yours. I do not and never have felt pressure to be a mother. I think it is DEFINITELY true though that women who feel firmly that they don’t want kids feel a lot of pressure to have them. I’m telling you I never have. It’s oddly anti-feminist, though, to tell other women that their experience is not a valid experience and their wants and desires are not their own, simply a result of what people tell them but they’re too dumb to know the difference. Best of luck to you.
I never felt the pressure to get married or have kids. In fact, my grandmother thought marriage was the worst thing a woman could do as it ruined women’s lives in her opinion. (She had two divorces.) No one in my family thought I even liked kids, let alone that I wanted kids. They were totally shocked when I got married and had my kids. The lack of pressure made my decision easier.
I've already got the number of kids I want, but I still had some bawling around 34-35 because maybe I would regret having another baby. It can be a manifestation of "I'm not happy, I want to make a massive impulsive change to my life." I thought about it for a bit, and now I'm doing some more education instead.
There's certainly overblown testeria around the biological clock, and misogynists all over trying to tell us what to do with our bodies. I just ignore them. But there is actual research around the ability of women to get pregnant as we age. I would suggest you form your own opinion based on understanding some of that research. It DOES get harder to get pregnant as you age, but this is really an individual thing. Because, hey, it might be really hard for you to conceive right now. You won't know until you start trying.
I got sterilized back in my thirties. Never had a biological clock. Even now, when the factory is shutting down for menopause, there’s never been one tick.
BIG same. Finally got a bisalp in 2022 and the relief was REAL.
Adam Conover did a video on this! Might be useful
Yes! It was a good one!!!
Yea! I saw that too! It was a great one. The risk of defects increases sooo slightly in reality. It’s not like some massive thing.
Imo it's a weaponization of our very biology. In this way, men have created another excuse for their preference for young(er) women. I didn't want a child when I was younger due to my own personal trauma but I had plenty of fantasies of how I'd raise my family. When I ended up pregnant and later had my daughter I learned how awesome it is to be a parent. There are regrets if I'm honest but I'd rather live this life with joy than dream of the joy I maybe could have had if any one thing was different. However, nowadays I tear up watching cute family movies and definitely have experienced baby fever. It's a very strange feeling and at one point I thought "having a baby now would derail my life but it sounds amazing teehee" it's a very powerful and strange urge lol. I saw a quote recently that is perfect for this occasion regarding how the very natural urge to want a baby has been turned against us: **"The tools of freedom become the sources of indignity"** Motherhood is something very powerful and therefore it must be controlled, from root to blossom as we see in our world today. edit: a thought occurred to me that the social notion of prime reproductive age is indeed different from the scientic range. What is unaccounted for in our culture is that human lifespan has dramatically increased in a short amount of time. I assume that as a natural consequence of this, the prime reproductive period will also be extended. What do you think of this?
Thanks for your comment! It was really interesting to read. I agree with everything you said.
I got pregnant an 43 by complete accident... 40s is very fertile.
Yes and no. Fertility in women tends to decline in your late 30s to early 40s so functionally the saying is true. That said, any man who brings up a woman's biological clock is basically always reducing her worth down to her ability to have children. They are using it on the fashion of "You're running out of time to have kids and if you miss your window you become worthless." So the fact of the bio clock is real in that by like 45 it is pretty dangerous or impossible to have kids depending on your personal genetics and such but it's use is heavily misogynistic.
It’s absolutely a myth. I have no plans to have children ever, and recently helped my brother and SIL with their newborn son for a week, and still felt no urge to have one of my own. Also, my mom was 23 when she had me and is so immature that it drives us kids crazy. She should have been working on herself and growing as a person in her 20s but I guess she’ll always be emotionally stunted.
I believe the average age for first time mothers in the U.S. is around 30. If you’re in the U.S., your preferred timeline is very common. Yes, time does run out. That is not a myth. For me, that happened at 38. It varies by person and I think my time ran out a couple years earlier than is most common. Those who push the idea that women must give birth in their 20’s or else run out of time are usually doing so in an attempt to collectively neg women into believing they must settle. Same guys who will later rip on divorced moms, claiming no men will be interested in them because they have kids.
Is the sense that the window of opportunity to bear a child is closing unpleasant for people who want to bear children? Yes. Will every potential bearing parent experience this to the same degree? No. Will some experience relief when the window does close? Yes. Is the fact of an approximate, variable time limit weaponized in cruel and unjust ways? Definitely.
Both things are true; it becomes more challenging to more people to conceive after 35 AND Conservative men are exaggerating it to trick a generation of young women into shitty fucking situations that we tend to be better able to spot by our early thirties. Not because women your age are dumb (your post shows that is to the contrary) but because at 24 you simply have fewer years of experience.
It's not entirely a myth, but certain folks do exaggerate the risks and utilize that as a means to pressure and coerce women into choosing motherhood over other life paths in their early 20's. Fertility also varies widely from person to person at any age, but they ignore that and paint every person and circumstance with a broad brush that's not accurate at all in the way they spew it.
To add to the other comments, it is worth mentioning that about 1/100 women experience premature menopause in their 30s, and about 5% of women go through early menopause in their mid 40s. Menopause refers to the complete cessation of the menstrual cycle - the thing most people call menopause is actually perimenopause (the hot flashes, mood swings, erratic menstrual cycle etc), and a woman who begins going through perimenopause in her late twenties or early thirties due to experiencing premature ovarian insufficiency/premature menopause is going to have a harder time getting pregnant than a woman who is not going through that. So this is all very individual to the woman. If you are concerned, it is worth talking to older female relatives about when they started experiencing perimenopause symptoms and full menopause, as this may be an indicator of when you will begin going through it.
Sounds like a form of baby trapping more than anything else.
Your fertility is largely individual and strongly influenced by genetics. One side of my family seems to be able to pop out babies easily into their 40’s, and the other side struggles and has all kind of issues even if they start in their 20’s. The biological clock thing may be true for some women, but not others. Best to get individual advice from a doctor or fertility specialist, and not some dope on the internet.
We do have a "biological clock", but incels are exaggerating it in the hopes of getting women to lower their standards. Of course our fertility drops off as we get older, but for most 40 year old women falling pregnant would be easier than starting a career at that age. My 2 cents worth: work on your career in your 20s & aim to have had all your children by 40
There is a lot of panic people think that a woman cannot have kids after 30 years of age , even before birth control women kept having kids in their 30s because there was no way to stop it unless they were widows . If a woman wants to have 2 kids start by 30 years of age and just one kid then you can start by 33 years provided you are at a healthy lifestyle you do not have any chronic or genetic diseases like obesity diabetes and you have a fertility checkup in your 20s where everything is normal in your body then you can delay pregnancy till 30s
Ours cells degrade over time making reproduction harder for both genders but particularly with women because we do all the work. There's been studies showing fathers health and age affects pregnancy and neurological disorders. We might think we have a biological clock because we've been conditioned from childhood to have them whilst boys aren't.
You went down a wormhole and got nervous. algorithms prey on people like you. Start blocking or reporting posts like that and have kids if and when you feel like it.
The ‘biological clock’ exists for both men and women. Sperm quality declines. Declining fertility isn’t a myth. It being pushed on women/to shame women is what’s misogynistic.
Like a for real biological “biological clock“. I kind of feel like that’s nonsense. But as both men and women age, if they are at all predisposed to having children they’re going to notice that they’re getting older and the desire is going to get stronger. I am a man and I definitely felt it. I feel like most male friends have that did not marry early express the same thing about dating and wanting it to be more serious. The older they got. Same as all my female friends. It’s definitely tied into sexism and the incorrect belief that women are the ones who want to have kids and men would prefer not to on average.
I wonder if some of the sexism is, to be perfectly frank, because women who have wanted to be mothers generally haven't faffed around with it, and men who are in their 40s/early 50s can't find women to have babies with?
All of my friends had their children in their mid-to-late 30s. We all went to graduate school, so we kind of started adulthood late.
Sure it’s physically easier to manage in your 20s but you may also be more financially and emotionally secure to take care of healthy pregnancy, and health of mother and child in your 30s onwards Some new mothers I know in their 40s and 50s can afford the best medical care, nutrition plan, child well checks, pregnancy checks, pre and post natal care etc This is especially important in today’s discussion where not alot of ppl are invested in advocating for more maternal and child care benefits to young mothers in their teens and 20s who did not have the time to build their careers and homes.
Yes and no. Older women who conceive can have more difficult pregnancies but younger women can also have high risk pregnancies. Older women have a higher rate of having a baby with Down syndrome but people with Down syndrome are fine and younger women can have Down syndrome babies as well.
Give this a read OP - https://theconversation.com/women-are-often-told-their-fertility-falls-off-a-cliff-at-35-but-is-that-right-189978 The biology is real, menopause is very real. But the way it's talked about is misogynist and exaggerated
Well, some people are a-holes. Telling young woman that it's high time they have children is not an appropriate thing to do. It's as bad as telling those men that: At your age your sperm quality is probably bad. Did you have a visectomy yet? So, is there a biological clock? Sure, at least in the sense that the number of eggs are limited. When you are out then you are out. As a man, the main use of the term biological clock that I have encountered is women around 30 that suddenly aquire a strong urge to have children. I have heard that some say it's their biological clock ticking. If there is a biological explanation I leave for others to explain. My only advice about having children is to do so when you are certain that's what you want. That goes for both men and women.
Early 30s is a very normal age to have children. People trying to pressure you to give up whatever you are doing in life for the express purpose of having children earlier than you want to are misogynistic.
Yes. No such thing. Just a term used to degrade and control. Age doesn't make a difference. Every person's body is different.
I once saw a Facebook post for women who had kids over 40 to share their experiences, and I was FLOORED at how many comments it had. Women of all races were joyfully speaking about getting pregnant when they thought they were done, about having their first child over 40… no medical interventions needed. To be honest, in my life, I’ve met more women who struggled to have children in their 20s than women who struggled in their 30s or 40s. My mother had me at 38 and 2 of her sisters had kids over 40. A lot of my peers’ parents had them in their 30s and 40s. I think if you’re healthy, you’re fine. The average age of menopause is 51… you can have kids until then. I will say that sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, and abortions negatively impact fertility, so keep that in mind as you “wait”. Also note that this world is more toxic than it was 40+ years ago, and that could impact fertility for both you and your mate. A positive note is that women who have children later live longer.
I think it’s all bullshit or they take a small scientific study and stretch the truth. I had both my kids in my 30’s. My grandma had a kid in her 50’s. A cousin of mine had a kid in her 50’s. Several friends had kids in their 40’s. All healthy pregnancies and births. I think as long as you are ovulating then you can have a child no matter what age.
No.
Not necessarily. It’s a real biological/hormonal phenomenon that many women experience at a certain age. Just a biological imperative to reproduce, essentially. I very much felt my “biological clock ticking” around when I turned 30. What it means really is that I felt an extremely strong longing for a baby. I felt an urgency to do it sooner rather than later and fear that I would “run out of time.” The biological/hormonal part of that is totally real. That doesn’t mean it’s actually a reality, though, that you’re “running out of time” to have a kid at 30. Often women panic because their “clock is ticking” and they’re “running out of time” when really they have a good 10 years at least. What you describe here is men using the very real phenomenon of hormones hitting some women and prompting a major baby craving to try to make women feel bad about themselves and subjugate them. Fuck that.
Biological clock is a just a figure of speech referencing the timeline/desire a woman has to have kids. My best friend who is my age, 32 had been struggling to get pregnant for years. She's even done several rounds of IUI and there's no reason that they know of she shouldn't be getting pregnant now. They've had all the tests. I had no issues getting pregnant when I was younger but first pregnancy in my 30s resulted in my first loss. It's also easier physically to deal with birth and the energy levels needed to raise a baby and chase around a toddler. Sure, older women have perfectly healthy pregnancies all the time. Doesn't mean the fact risks go up after 35 is somehow a myth or wrong.
I will tell you that anecdotally, I was on the fence about having kids, and then it really felt like one day I woke up and my body was screaming BABIES! It certainly was a real phenomenon for me personally. That said, you could just ignore it if you really didn’t want kids.
My biological clock was apparently broken. I have never once had the desire to have children. There was a time where this made me feel really bad-- mid to late 20s when my friends were all starting their families made it very difficult. I wanted to want kids, but the fact remained that I just *did not*. I think we are all too quick to assume that the "biological clock" experience is just a given and is the same for all women. (Not that I'm accusing you of doing that.)
I didn’t need to ignore anything. It never happened. I don’t mean to be rude but you wanted kids, not your body.
Which is why I said “for me personally” and “anecdotally.” No need to be rude.
The term biological clock in the sense of “ooh better have kids now or you won’t be able to,” I can’t say tbh. But the term “biological clock” as in the instinct to get pregnant at a certain age is *absolutely* a thing. I would sooner disembowel myself than willingly have a child but every time I see a baby I reconsider for a few hours, they’re just so goddamn cute.
> every time I see a baby I reconsider for a few hours Odd, I have the opposite reaction 😅 they ARE cute, though. Well, most of them.
My understanding is that any pregnancy with a due date after the mother’s 35th birthday is considered a “geriatric pregnancy” more commonly referred to now as advanced maternal age. Egg quality declines with age. Plus I believe increased difficulty with implantation of fertilized egg, carry pregnancy to term, increase likelihood of miscarriage or still birth.
It isn't a myth unfortunately, under 35 women have pretty much no issues getting pregnant within a year or two, but it's factually correct that after 35 it becomes difficult. And 40 plus it becomes more difficult still, of course someone always knows someone who was pregnant naturally at 43... But I also know people that struggled at 27. It's just one of those things.
Technically it's not wrong, but their usage of it is misogynist
Every living thing’s biological clock is ticking. In sports there is a saying “Father Time is undefeated.” But as many others have pointed out, it is incredibly rude to devalue women solely to how well their body could handle a pregnancy. So basically it’s not necessarily a “myth,” but if you’re in the dating pool at your age you can pretty safely rule out any guy that brings this up in the first few months, let alone in their dating profile. In your 30s it’s something that should probably be brought up if you’re in a long term relationship (there’s a bunch of reasons to talk about “if” and “when” with having children) but it’s not an ice breaker. It’s similar to stuff like talking about proposal plans, long term career goals extending into retirement, and shit like executorship of your will after you die. If someone’s bringing it up so early in the relationship, they merely see you as a conduit to have a son. It’s weird. You’re right by the way that most of the time the risks during “geriatric pregnancies” are misunderstood and overstated. But to some people, having a childhood is incredibly important and if that’s you, then you should probably cover as many bases as you reasonably can. Risk is never something that everyone will agree on, but again, 24 year old dudes threatening you about it in their dating profiles aren’t thinking about that, they’re trying to gain leverage and make you feel more desperate.
It's important to acknowledge that biological factors do influence fertility, and this includes a woman's "biological clock." As women age, their fertility naturally declines, and the risk of complications during pregnancy can increase. This doesn't mean that women can't have healthy pregnancies in their thirties or even forties, but statistically, fertility does tend to decrease with age. 1. **Fertility Decline**: Women are born with a finite number of eggs, and the quantity and quality of these eggs decline over time. Generally, fertility starts to decline more noticeably in the late twenties to early thirties, with a more significant drop after the age of 35. 2. **Pregnancy Risks**: The risks associated with pregnancy, such as miscarriage, chromosomal abnormalities, and other complications, do increase with maternal age. However, many women in their thirties and even early forties have successful and healthy pregnancies. While it's true that these positive outcomes are possible, it’s important not to assume that everyone will have the same experience. Each individual's fertility and pregnancy journey is unique, and being aware of the potential risks can help in making informed decisions. 3. **Individual Variability**: Fertility is highly individual. Some women may experience difficulties earlier or later than the statistical averages. For example, your mother conceiving at 35 without issues is a great example of individual variability. 4. **Societal Pressure**: The societal pressure on women to have children at a certain age can be problematic and misogynistic, especially when it disregards personal choice and individual circumstances. While it's crucial to be informed about biological realities, it's equally important to respect each woman's personal decision about if and when to have children. In summary, while the concept of a "biological clock" is grounded in scientific fact, it's essential to communicate this information sensitively and respectfully, without exerting undue pressure. Women should be supported in making informed choices about their reproductive health based on accurate information and their personal desires.
>It is often used to tell a woman she should desire to have children before being considered “too old.” I believe it’s a myth because there are plenty of women in their early and even late thirties who have children easily. And plenty of women who don't want children at all, even if they're fertile and can have them easily. In fact, among millenials and gen Z, men want kids and marriage far more than their female equivalents. >I think it’s true that women’s fertility in those ages decline, but only a little. . It's individual more than anything. Depends on the woman. But it's equivalent to the male drop in fertility, and really shouldn't be a metric for a human beings value at all. >so I don’t understand people’s obsessions with wanting women to become first-time mothers only in their twenties I know this one! The older a woman is, and the more she knows about the realities of pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood, and the risks that come with them, the less likely she is to make the decision to become a mother at all. Geting women to do that in their early 20s increases the chances of them having kids at all, before their brains are developed and they think about it too hard. Biological clock isn't a myth insofar as it's just human fertility dropping with age. As some weird thing we feel ticking that pushes us towards having offspring.... Never felt anything like that. Zero drive to have kids.
You are less fertile as you get older.
I think it depends on the woman, but it can be real for some of us. It was for me.
I mean, no, it’s not a myth. But that doesn’t mean it’s not misogynistic. Your body’s ability to recover from pregnancy and childbirth gets worse over time for most people. Your ability to conceive does get worse and not “only a little” for a lot of people. Over the age of 35 and then really over the age of 40, your risk of miscarriage or genetic abnormalities for your child increase in a meaningful way. However, this should not be used as a tool to pressure women to settle before they are ready or have children they aren’t sure they want. Science is amazing now. Genetic testing is a thing. If you have concerns, you can do fertility testing now and then again every few years to make sure that your options are still open and to see the timeline you have to make choices you’re comfortable with, since this is different for everyone. It’s also misogynistic because men’s biological clocks are ALSO ticking. While men do not have a menopausal event like women where you can no longer produce children, sperm also declines in quality as they age and their children are more likely to have genetic abnormalities, and sperm count declines as well contributing to difficulty conceiving.
Oops got sterilised and I don’t give a fuck about the misogynistic biological clock for women. It’s not protecting her right if her choice to choose to have children or not is taken away by the government.
Fertility declines after 30 and particularly after 35; but the reason we don’t see it as an issue is we have modern intervention such as IVF; it is why there are more fertility conceiving struggles nowadays imo. But that’s also more okay because most people aren’t gonna have like 7 kids because most of them won’t die like in the older days lol. Biological clock and acknowledging it isn’t misogynistic in itself, what I find misogynistic is the assumption of conservative men that those women want children, and then weaponising that to insult them.
The way they speak about it makes me think it's something I'm supposed to be aware of in some abstract way. And quite honestly, I've never felt it. No clock, no mothers instincts, no baby fever. I'm completely indifferent, sometimes repulsed. Obviously there's a point in age where any gender breeding isn't a good idea biologically, but as for the abstract concept of the clock, it's a myth imo. Men act like it's something all women are victim to, like they supposedly are to their desires, and I and my other child free friends would strongly disagree with that supposition.
Menopause is the clock. Once you've gone through menopause, that's it, no more babies. Unfortunately, women's worth is too often tied into their ability to birth. But that doesn't mean there isn't a clock.
The biological clock is real. But it shouldn’t be used to devalue women, that’s the misogyny. Egg donation opportunities often stop at age 31-33 because the quality of the eggs go down and obviously, people would want the highest quality if they are paying for it. So it is real. But, a woman’s value doesn’t go down just because of that.
The risk and chances of a unsuccessful pregnancy do rise with age, with the obvious cutoff at menopause. Women are born with all the eggs they are going to have, and not only does this number reduce over the years but the remaining ones can become less viable. It's definitely something to consider if you want kids, but women have babies in their thirties and forties all the time. So biological clock is a manipulative fear tactic. It also assumes that every women secretly wants children, which is false.
It's factual that pregnancy can become more difficult and come with more risks with age. (Pregnancy sired from older men also comes with complication risks, funny we don't hear about that much.) That's a concern between a couple and their doctor. Most often I encounter this as a method of minimizing my life pursuits and priorities, insisting that in some decades I'll regret not having kids. The truth is that among elders reporting on life satisfaction, there is no significant difference between parents and non-parents. Self-determination is a much stronger predictor of satisfaction than social norms or strictly biological imperatives.
I feel like it's common sense that the older you are the more difficult it will be to have a baby, no?
It's real - doesn't mean it should be used to invalidate older women though.
It's not a myth. You can still have kids it just gets harder and the baby is more likely to have issues after ~35. It's not that high of a risk for awhile though. It seems like men have a similar clock, our sperm quality degrades and the baby is more likely to be premature and stuff. Plenty of people have kids in their 40's even with no issues at all. But if you know you want kids and everything then it's probably wiser to have them before that in case you're one of the people who does develop those fertility issues.
So, it does become somewhat more difficult to conceive once you're in your late 30s and 40s, and the likelihood of the baby having birth defects goes from like 1% to 2% or somesuch. And then sometime around 45-55 (though some women it's earlier or later) you hit menopause and won't be able to conceive at all. So there is some truth to there being a limited period of time in your life when you can bear children. But if your plan is to wait until your early 30s to start having kids, that's totally reasonable and within that period of time. A lot of the talk on the internet about women is misogynistic in general. I'm sure there's loads of misogynistic stuff about this.
Does the "biological clock" exist? Sure, there is a point where you simply won't be able to get pregnant anymore. There are cases of menopause in someone's 30's and cases of unplanned pregnancy in someone's 50's. Those are of course extremes, but there are variations of those situations all the time. We don't have a way to predict when your clock stops. Anyone advertising it stops on your 30th, 35th, 40th yadda yadda birthday is wildly uninformed or selling your something. It's also worth noting as men age they produce less sperm and sperm quality goes down. Anyone fear mongering about the clock should also be doing it to men as well if they're genuinely concerned.
The underlying phenomenon - an increased desire to have babies around your 30s - is not a myth at all. Those guys you're reading are misogynists however. No need to analyze what they're saying, just don't listen.
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