There's a website called "Corporette" which describes itself as "a fashion and lifestyle blog for overachieving chicks". There's a post up there about how a woman can go about freezing her eggs:
Ever considered freezing your eggs, either because you wanted to postpone kids for your career or because the right partner seems to be in hiding?
So that's what "overachieving" women do? They freeze their eggs because they want to postpone kids for their careers?
Anyway, the corporette author discovered that it's considered more viable to have embryos rather than eggs frozen. So her plan is to follow up having her eggs frozen by later on freezing some embryos fertilised with donor sperm:
I’m still considering freezing embryos in a few months, because I think that would be the right decision for me. I do want to have children (ideally, one biological and one adoptive). On the whole, I am comfortable with donating unused embryos to research.
What an attitude. She has decided already that her family will consist of one child conceived with donor sperm and another child adopted presumably from overseas. Has she wondered if her future husband will be OK with this? Or that he might prefer to have a say in whose children he ends up raising? And doesn't kinship matter at all anymore? (A point made by Laura Wood in her comments on this story.)
Why has it all come to this for Ms Corporette? Why hasn't she already found a man to marry and have a family with? That's difficult to know from a distance, but she does tell us that "I pride myself on being an Independent Woman," which is not exactly likely to attract the most traditionally oriented of men. She tells us too that she is not
going to have (yet another) years-long relationship without any concrete direction; I am 34...At this age I feel better about knowing what I want...
Which makes it sound as if she is one of those women who couldn't bring herself to admit openly and definitely to wanting marriage and children and so who drifted along in relationships with unsuitable men.
Some of the comments are also noteworthy:
Anon woman: This is something I’ve always considered. I’m only 26, but my mom struggled with fertility at 24. I’m married, but I’m just starting out (I’m a 3L) and I don’t want to have children for another 10+ years. I am considering freezing embryos as soon as I begin Biglaw next year.
So this woman is married but refuses to consider motherhood until she's about 35 (i.e. until just the time when her natural fertility begins to plummet). Her priority in life is not her children but "Biglaw".
Other commenters revealed that they took the option when reaching their early 30s of becoming single mothers by choice:
Anon: I was 33 when I decided I was not going to wait any longer. I didn’t want to be in the situation where I needed to think about fertility treatments or being pregnant at an older age or being a parent at an older age. I went to fertility doctor and chose an anonymous donor.
a: I’m seriously considering doing the single-parenting thing (it’s crazy, but is it worse than never having kids when I really want them?)
Always a NYer: My point is that not having the biological father around shouldn’t deter or make you feel less as a parent.
AFT: from the time I was teenager, my mom always said that if I wanted children I should just have them and I didn’t need to be married and I shouldn’t wait around for a husband. She thought that it was important that I could have my own choices and that I did not have to bend my life around whether a man would be around.
My point is, you are definitely not crazy for wanting a child/children and considering doing it solo if the time is right for you and no guy is around.
Someone needs to tell these women that there are easier solutions, the main one of which is to be oriented to marriage and motherhood at a younger age. The current life script for this type of woman is not viable. It goes like this:
a) Deliberately push off family formation until the magical age of 30. Focus on career, travel, partying and casual relationships instead.
b) Get to 30 and find it more difficult to find the right man than you expected.
c) Get to 32 or 33 and recognise that there is only a small window of opportunity left to have children.
d) Take desperate measures that will make it even more difficult to marry, e.g. freeze some donor fertilised embryos or have a child as a single mother.
I can't help but think that society is bifurcating. Those following along the modernist path are sinking deeper into a nihilism in which kinship no longer matters as much, in which fatherhood is optional, in which a paralysing question mark is placed next to motherhood, and in which women home in on the most demoralised of men.
But there is also an ongoing, more traditional stream in society, one that is more determined to arrive at positive family outcomes. There do exist women who are part of this stream (e.g. two beautiful, kind-hearted women in my office in their mid-20s who married good men and have just recently had their first child).
Which stream will prove to be the more powerful? Time will tell.
Great post and wonderful title. Loved the "Dead stream, live stream" contrast.
ReplyDeleteIn the U.S., the numbers of conservative Christian homeschooling families is rapidly increasing; families who are raising their children in Biblical, traditional ways, and their children are conforming to what liberals call 'gender stereotypes'. The girls want to get married young and have and homeschool children; the young men want to work hard, marry young, buy a house and minivan, and raise children.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone ever heard of the Duggar family? Nineteen children, the biggest family in America, homeschooled, all the girls wear dresses, etc.
We are out there, and our numbers are growing!
Yes, beautifully written. I particularly liked the concluding sentences. I wonder the same thing myself. Which side will win, will prove stronger? This is an Australian blog, I am Canadian, there are several Americans who comment, so I like that we share these thoughts. Apparently 50% of all children in the UK are raised by single mothers. It's 40% in the US.
ReplyDeleteSo as you say, we will all know in a generation or two. Only time will tell.
I know this a very extreme example but Jens Breivik believes that his son's murderous rampage in Norway might not have happened if Jen's had 'looked after him more.'
ReplyDeleteAnother paper translated him saying, 'Probably would not have happened if I had given him more attention.'
I can't believe anyone has not seized on this so I shall.
ReplyDelete"quote" On the whole, I am comfortable with donating unused embryos to research."quote""
That is disgusting- these are unborn children who, so unfortunately in this case didn't get to pick who their mothers are.
This woman is so callous about her unborn children and I'm still horrified at the prospect of her ease, as well as this. She doesn't want to donate unused embryos to married couples who can't conceive their own but to a scientist that will kill an unrealized child.
Miss Independent also is clueless to the degradation of frozen eggs, sperms and embryos in years of storage because they aren't designed to be a commodity on demand.
It's a last resort of cancer patients to not lose their ability to have children, not for selfish careerists to have another area of their lives that they can dictate to.
And she can't find a man at thirty four with year long failed attempts at that relationship? Miss Independent might not be a virgin but she can stop sleeping with men looking to add her to their scoreboard, and then latching onto them as husband material.
Kinship has become a disregarded casualty of political correctness even though people who can't have their own children would want them, adoption as a last resort.
Those women commenting- some of them are as selfish as the author. I drink coffee but I would never drink it while I was pregnant and I will have to give up more pregnant as I do get migraines, so no ibuprofen to lessen them. I don't drink or smoke and I can see these women as fine with damaging their unborn child so they don't have to go without. It’s selfish.
They have no respect for men and little more for their potential children. Mark, I think in this instance, calling it a 'symptom of decline' is too mild and benign a term.
"I know this a very extreme example but Jens Breivik believes that his son's murderous rampage in Norway might not have happened if Jen's had 'looked after him more.'
ReplyDeleteAnother paper translated him saying, 'Probably would not have happened if I had given him more attention.'"
Its the biggest load of c**p. We all know why Breivik did what he did. Even Liberals know why he really did it. He is the first real violent rebel to state enforced mulitculturalism and mass immigration.
Breivik cared about western civilisation, his people and importantly his women.
Whats more theres events that could of triggered his attack.
One there was a brutal rape of a norwegian girl by immigrants outside the front of the parliment. A day or slightly more before he put his plan into action.
There was this state sanctioned Swedish multicult video mocking westerners (WARNING: Disturbing miscegenation agiprop) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCDMGu-xi30
and yes at one point that is a swedish girl having sex with an african while singing the national anthem. Regardless if its Swedish and Brevirik norwegian the nordic countries have close ties.
Then there is the fact theres been a national crisis declared in Norway over the incredibly high amount of Native girls being raped by foreigners particularly islamic foreigners.
We all know why he did it. Then again do we? There is so much misinformation over Brevirik. The familiar obfuscation that affects all communications in the west. The calling card of leftist involvement. From the first released infomation (and i was there in the region when it happened) The photos the info was all edited. You just have to go to the leftist site wikipedia to see how the narrative has been spun by the leftists. Infomation about what he was doing prior to the massacre and who he was affiliated with(a muslim) has been obmitted even though it was officially released by European secret police. Why?
Freezing embryos???!
ReplyDeleteWho the heck would want to marry a woman who was incapable of bearing your child but expected you to support her as she carried some total stranger's frozen embryo to term as well as adopting some foreign freak?
ReplyDeleteAnd once again, complete silence on this important topic from Cardinal Pell, Keith Windschuttle, Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt, and the rest of Australia's pseudo-cons, most of whom are as hopelessly dependent upon nanny-state funding as is any illiterate child-molesting NT Aboriginal elder.
ReplyDeleteWho the heck would want to marry a woman who was incapable of bearing your child but expected you to support her as she carried some total stranger's frozen embryo to term as well as adopting some foreign freak?
ReplyDeleteLOL. That was funny.
"LOL. That was funny."
ReplyDeletewhy do you think its funny? Its what some western women actually think they can get away with and it makes my gut turn.
Because they largely *can* "get away with it". For all of the stories of cat ladies and so on, the percentages of never married women (in the US at least) is very low -- it's less than 10% of all women. And much of that 10% is simply unmarriagable due to severe appearance issues, disability, psychological issues and the like. Virtually all "normal" women who want to get married will eventually find someone who will marry them.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this? Because men outside the manosphere of the internet seem to be willing to marry women that the manosphere sees as used up trash, and quite often. The reality is that there is no "marriage strike" going on. We will see if the younger generation of men actually avoids marriage, or if they simply delay it a bit longer, as the generation ahead of them did. But, so far at least, the marriage statistics are not cratering at all, at least not for women -- almost all women get married at some point, and the ones who do not are outliers.
I have to agree with anonymous. Investing any time or energy in these women makes no sense. My first marriage taught me this the hard way. For my second I ranked woman on a copulation, cooking and cleaning scale. When you're young copulation is the only reason to put up with female bullshit. As you age cooking becomes more more important and in your final years cleaning gets its due. It's important to select a woman that's useful at all ages. I'm guessing ms. freeze her embryos is pretty useless and that's why men steer clear. Bitch control --- it's coming back ladies.
ReplyDeleteBrave New World: It's what people want.
ReplyDelete"Anon: I was 33 when I decided I was not going to wait any longer. I didn’t want to be in the situation where I needed to think about fertility treatments or being pregnant at an older age or being a parent at an older age. I went to fertility doctor and chose an anonymous donor.
ReplyDeletea: I’m seriously considering doing the single-parenting thing (it’s crazy, but is it worse than never having kids when I really want them?)
Always a NYer: My point is that not having the biological father around shouldn’t deter or make you feel less as a parent."
It is all about the corporette. You shouldn't feel like less of a parent, you shouldn't miss out on kids if you really want them, etc. The most fantastic assertion is from "Always a NYer". She claims that not having the biological father around "shouldn't...make you feel less as a parent". Does this woman have any concern for the child, who is going to lack a father (not to mention uncles/aunts, cousins, siblings, etc.)? It is all about her, and not even her absolute needs, but her feelings. She buys sperm online, is fertilized (such a sterile word) in a clinic, and has her child. Is this a human being or a product? Does she have any concern for anyone other than herself?
Most adopted children are interested in their biological parents, even if raised in loving households. Her child is going to not have a father (in all but the most biological sense). She is deliberately quasi-orphaning her child.
How did we go from seeing losing a parent as a horrible ordeal to something of no consequence?
Would she feel the same if it was a man doing the surrogate/donor thing and proclaiming that he doesn't feel bad about denying his child its mother? Are both parents equally disposable?
When I said it is all about her, I meant that not one of the women you cited even brought up the child's wellbeing. I could maybe understand someone who said something about fathers not being needed for the child, but Always a NYer only brings up fathers in relation to what she feels.
ReplyDelete"Which stream will prove to be the more powerful? "
ReplyDeleteThe one that is more fertile.