Why are (Most) Successful Women in the USA Childless?

A recent blog post published in The Huffington Post attempts to explain why (most) successful women in the USA are childless. While the author  Kristen Houghton doesn't cover all the reasons why this appears to be true, she does make an important point:

to succeed, you need to focus on what you want without distraction. To do that, you need to put what needs to be done high on your list of priorities. Men have been doing it for years without anyone thinking less of them. Whether in the corporate, financial or even artistic realms, to reach the top in your career requires a single-minded drive, dedication and passion.

True. And that single-minded drive is often, intentionally, not directed to the role of parent. However, there are mothers who have developed very successful careers as Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg effectively documents in her recent best-seller Lean In. However, Sandberg has this to say:

Women rarely make one big decision to leave the workforce. Instead, they make a lot of small decisions along the way," Sandberg wrote, according to a book excerpt on Time.com. "A law associate might decide not to shoot for partner because someday she hopes to have a family. A sales rep might take a smaller territory or not apply for a management role. A teacher might pass on leading curriculum development for her school. Often without even realizing it, women stop reaching for new opportunities."

In my interview's for the Childless by Choice Project, I saw evidence of this series of "small decisions" in the process of ultimately deciding to remain childfree. Women deciding to postpone childbearing. Women turning down a proposal from a man who clearly wants to start a family. Women rejecting the idea of being a single mom.

Women who intend to be mothers make the same series of decisions that limit their ability to compete or succeed in the top ranks. Some women have been quick to blame the glass ceiling or discrimination for the lack of women CEOs or COOs in the USA, but that's only one piece of it according to Sandberg. I tend to agree. As a coach I help my clients make these decisions and we go through a process of overt discernment when covering all the options. The trick to values-based decision-making is to make these decisions consciously with a clear sense of your wants and values, with eyes wide open, knowing that every choice you make excludes another competing option.



 

Mother Speaks About Her Regret Over Agreeing to Have Two Children She Didn’t Want

Because the source is the UK's Daily Mail, I am not sure this "first person account" attributed to Isabella Dutton is entirely true as they have a tendency at this paper to misquote for effect. However, this article is making the rounds of the childfree blogs and creating quite a stir. Sure, some of us love it because it validates our decision to remain childfree and makes up for all the times we have been told "You will regret not having kids."

Yet, somehow I can't take any pleasure from this. The life and reproductive decision making coach part of me just wishes this woman would have had the help and support of a coach. The residual guilt, regret, and the assumption of parenthood is evident and it's clear these emotions and assumptions influenced her decision making.

Here's the opening paragraph of this article:

My son Stuart was five days old when the realisation hit me like a physical blow: having a child had been the biggest mistake of my life.

Even now, 33 years on, I can still picture the scene: Stuart was asleep in his crib. He was due to be fed but hadn't yet woken.

I heard him stir but as I looked at his round face on the brink of wakefulness, I felt no bond. No warm rush of maternal affection.

I felt completely detached from this alien being who had encroached upon my settled married life and changed it, irrevocably, for the worse.

When she tells her husband she has is sorry she had given birth to her infant son, He just said, “Well we have him now. There's nothing we can do about it. You just have to get on with it as best you can.”

It’s hard to read this article without wincing. And if you scroll down and read the comments many of them are brutal. I feel bad and sad that this woman agreed to have two children she clearly didn’t want out of a sense of obligation and guilt. I admire her because, despite her aversion to the role of parent, she fulfilled her duties as mother as best she could. I admire her honesty too.

I wish this 57-year-old woman would have had the support and courage to say “No” back then. She would have been happier, she wouldn't have to live with these terrible feelings, and she likely would have experienced the "peace" she so longed for. Her daughter Jo, 31, has chosen not to have kids. She has MS and is being cared for by her parents, and I understand that even without her debilitating illness she would be inclined to make this choice for herself.

Because she can.

A Norwegian study on Well-being and Childlessness Challenges the Myths

Recently, a team of researchers looked at the relative psychological well-being of parents and those who remained childless and this is what they found:

Contrary to popular beliefs, having children doesn’t increase the overall quality of life – not even in old age. A Norwegian survey of 5,500 individuals aged 40-80 shows no indication that childless adults have reduced well-being compared to adults with children. In the subsequent paper they wrote:

"Both the results reviewed and those presented do not support the old myth that children make people substantially happier or that not having children jeopardizes well-being in later life. Although infertile persons may go through a phase of finding life empty and unfulfilling (Callan & Noller, 1987), there is little to suggest that involuntary childlessness may cause a continuing sense of loss, as some have suggested (Beets, 1996; Matthews & Matthews, 1986). Childless adults appear to adapt well to their situation, finding companionship, support, and a sense of meaning and significance in other ways (e.g., Rempel, 1985). Overall, childlessness seems to be “easier,” and/or parenthood less “advantageous,” than people tend to assume."

In fact the authors of this paper noted that “Partnership status has a much stronger bearing on psychological well-being than parental status.”

Stop the Fear: Childless Women Not to Blame for Outdated Economic Models

Amanda Marcotte, a writer/blogger for Slate magazine, hits the mark in her post titled America Is Doomed Unless Women Start Having More Babies. How Convenient.
She notes the curious trend of blaming childless women for any number of challenges that we will face, globally, as a result of an aging demographic. Marcotte accurately observes that many writers and pundits conveniently point fingers at all those selfish childless women for all the imagined ills that will befall us. She questions those who claim:

the only solution to save capitalism is to clip the wings of half of the population so they can spend more time laying eggs.

I'd argue instead that if the system is set up so that it fails if women don't start popping out more kids, then it's a broken system and should be reworked to account for the reality of America today. If women don't want to have more children, then instead of abandoning women's equality as a goal, we should rework our economic system so it doesn't rely on a steadily growing population to function. After all, the point of society is to serve the people in it, not to reduce us to cogs in a machine that serves no one at all.

People are having less children. We are living longer than we could ever have imagined. Our economies and our social safety nets were not designed for this shift and our leaders and politicians have been very slow to respond to what demographers have been predicting for many years. Our polititians, law makers, and policy and opinion leaders have behaved like the ostrich putting his head in the sand. They sit on their hands, they ignore, they marginalize, they worry, then they blame and demonize.
That's not leadership. That's cowardice.

Lowest Birth Rate Ever! What Didn’t Get Reported…

When the National Center for Health Statistics reported the lowest birthrate ever recorded in the US in 2011 many media outlets went into alarmist mode with this new data. An example of this is the editorializing done by Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe who warned that

when birth rates decline this is what materializes: economic stagnation, dwindling innovation, a declining lifestyle, the exploding health and pension costs of an aging population, and the ever-heavier taxes needed to maintain the government safety net when there are fewer workers and entrepreneurs…And intergenerational conflict and loneliness.

Well we’ll see about that. However, what was not widely reported was that there was some very good news in this report — births to unmarried teens hit a record low and the age group that was having more babies than previously reported was the 35 to 44 age group.

Why is this good news? I think most people would agree that it's good for women and it's good for society if women postpone childbearing until they are ready, both financially and emotionally, to care for the children that they choose to have. Though OB/GYNs and most healthcare professionals will counsel women to have children early—while they are in their most fertile years—the fact remains that women in their late teens and early twenties generally don't feel ready to have children or they have yet to find partners with which to raise a family. And though it's true that you should start procreating early in life if you're planning on having a large family of five + children, increasingly that is not what women, and men, want for themselves. Studies show that only 33 percent of Americans consider the ideal family size to be three + children. That's a huge change from the 1940s to the 1960s, when roughly 70 percent said that three or more children would be desirable.

When women postpone childbearing they generally do so by choice, even though it may not be a conscious day-to-day choice. And when they make those series of decisions to hold off on parenthood until they feel they are ready they become the intentional parent. The one who prepares the nest, physically, financially, and emotionally, is engaged in a conscious decision-making process that happily welcomes a child into the world. Sometimes it will take a woman many years to get to that point —where motives, desire, and resources meet. And, as these new birth stats show, that point might be in your late thirties or early forties.

The good news is we now have an age 35+ population that is healthy enough to carry a baby to term, although with the 40 + group it remains fairly risky and rare. But it is still an option for some of those 40 + women. And we also live in a country where there is the option to postpone parenthood until we are ready to raise our children or to forgo children altogether.

According to this report, it looks like that's exactly what is happening.

We Can’t Agree on Kids So We’re Breaking Up

Disagreement over kids or no kids can be a deal-breaker for couples. It doesn’t always have to be sad. So I love the fun and creative way this couple announced their breakup. Their music video is honest, raw, and playful. Kudos to them for having the courage to follow their dreams after five years of partnership!

Essure—Laura Scott Talks to Dr. Carrie Panoff about the Non-surgical Alternative to Tubal Ligation

I was invited by the public relations team representing Essure, a non-surgical, hormone- free permanent birth control procedure, to do a Q&A with Dr. Carrie Panoff, an OB/GYN in Rockland County, New York who has been doing this procedure for four years. Here's a summary our conversation:

Q: What do your patients see as the benefits of this procedure?
A: It's hormone and surgery-free and no recovery time or incision
risk. It's a five or ten minute procedure.

Q: Are any medications offered or recommended for discomfort during or after the procedure?
A: I use Motrin 24 hours before the procedure and Motrin during the procedure.

Q: In your experience has there been any instance where a pregnancy occurred after this procedure?
A: No. Three months after the procedure we perform a test that confirms the blockage.

Q: Which patients are the best candidates for this procedure?
A: Any woman is a candidate.

Q: Do you have any reservations about perform this procedure on a childless woman under the age of 30? If so, how do you handle patients who fall under this category?
A: Patients under 30 years old have a tendency to change their mind so I may give them other options. They have the right to make the decision but I would have to be adequately convinced that have had this decision for a long time and have evaluated all of the options.

Q: Have any of your childless patients changed their mind after having the procedure?
A: No.

To get more information about Essure, visit the FAQ page at http://www.essure.com/what-is-essure/common-questions. Click at the top right-hand side of the page to find doctors who perform this procedure in your area.