Waiting to Get Pregnant is Risky Business

As a woman approaching a certain age (I turn 30 in two months), I was horrified to read “Waiting to Have Kids: The New High Risk Sexual Behavior.” The article is a reality check on the negative consequences of waiting to have children that most people are unaware of, or at least underestimate. While we often associate high risk sexual behavior with unwanted pregnancy and STDs, infertility and difficult pregnancies are also risks that many take when they hold off having kids in order to pursue education and career.

Photo by Zuan used under Creative Commons license.

To be clear, in the article high risk is equal to high cost, both to the individual and to society. More and more couples are expecting to get expensive fertility treatments after waiting into their 30s and 40s to procreate. This is a class issue as much as it is a sex education one. Women and couples who decide to wait until they finish higher ed, establish careers, and buy houses basically age themselves out of their good childbearing years - and risk the savings and financial security they establish if costly fertility treatments are required.

This tragically reminds me of the movie Idiocracy, a satire in which highly educated professionals wait until their stock portfolios are perfect before they have children while their uneducated, working class counter parts breed with abandon until the world is overrun by morons.

The “you really can have it all” mantra of the feminist movement, while true, neglects to discuss at what cost. Women today see celebrities in their late 30s and 40s with their cute little baby bumps and think that they can put off the pregnancy decision forever. Knowing when you’re not ready to have a child is an important sex education issue; knowing when you’re ready enough might just be the next big one.