At a party, I heard a gynaecologist - a man - say that the best time for a woman to have a baby was when she was 15. The female body was just right for childbirth at that age. How we all laughed. I asked him if he realised that in order to give birth at the age of 15, a girl (you're not a woman at 15) probably had to conceive at the age of 14, and these days in many countries the law considers impregnating girls of that age a crime. He laughed again and assured me he was talking theoretically. Well, that's all right then.
But I did wonder what kind of man would want to be a gynaecologist. When I had a wee gyne procedure at the tail end of last year, there was only one guy in the operating theatre and I so wanted to ask him but I never saw him after my lump was removed.
Sadly, that gynaecologist's view is one that still prevails in many societies: women and their productivity remain a problem. In the UK if they're not sleeping around and getting pregnant and then demanding (non-existent) council houses and state benefits, they're delaying having children for so long that they need the help of the health services to conceive. Almost every month, there's a warning in the press or on TV about the dangers of women waiting too long to have children as if (1) women have a choice, (2) it's only women who make these decisions and (3) they get pregnant at 35-40 to inconvenience society.
Talking theoretically is wonderful. But in the western world, the reality is that women can now be in education until they are maybe 23 or even 26 or older. It can take them a lot longer to get a job and establish themselves in it, find the right partner and get on the housing ladder. So they are quite often well into their 30s before the idea of having a child becomes a reality for a lot of women.
There's nothing wrong with being an 'older' mother, In fact, there's a lot that's right about it: more mature women have lived a bit, learned a bit, travelled a bit and, although they are more knackered, they enjoy the experience of having and raising children more.
But I regret that the odds are stacked against women in a lot of countries. I've never for a nanosecond had any desire to give birth, but I have noticed that, while male reproductive problems can be solved by - say - the development of a wee blue pill, for women the expectation is that they will somehow find a way to change their behaviour and arrange to have children in their teens or twenties, reduce their expectations in life or just give up all thought of having children.
And frankly, the current postcode lottery for in vitro fertilisation in the UK is obscene.
Our attitude to reproduction is not healthy (sorry) and western societies are suffering from a falling birthrate as a result. In Scotland, we need young people to come and live and work here to support us pensioners and we need them to have children so we know our future is secure. Are the women who come to live here getting help to finance their productivity?
And, most importantly, is someone somewhere doing research into how to make it possible for women to save their eggs or otherwise delay pregnancy so they can have children later? Because that's what's needed.
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