Also:
I wasn't being judgmental, and felt as empathetic and sorrowful as could be, but I did wonder whether the late pregnancies might have caused complications for Mrs Joyner. Clotting? Strokes? Heart?
But it's a story about a poll about perceptions of fertility. Why should it have to point out that other lifestyle options are available? It's not about people debating whether to have children or not.
I dunno, I've seen so much stuff like this over the years that I am always surprised when people don't know it.
I don't know what the stats are, but learned the hard way that odds of getting from conception (never a problem for us -- one try first time, every time) to the end of the first trimester also change quite a bit over time.
What counts as a "try"? A night? A month?
Another thing people should be aware of is that fertility treatment can sometimes keep you very fertile after you've had that one baby you've been longing for. We know a couple couples who had extensive treatment to have some children, and once they were completely exhausted with their first babies (in one case, triplets) and ready for parenting duties to ease up, found themselves pregnant again by accident.
4/5: an intentionally well-timed "do", I would assume.
It also shows many women underestimate how successful fertility treatments are. Nail has now had six unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization.
I haven't had much sleep. Is my reading comprehension shot to hell, or should that be "overestimate" instead of "underestimate"?
Many women probably do underestimate how successful fertility treatments are even if far more women overestimate.
Odds of conception for a single act of intercourse seems like a statistic picked to look unexpectedly low -- I'd think a more reasonable stat would be odds per month of trying.
1: I might be wrong, but it's my sense that health risks from late pregnancy aren't a big thing. Everyone gets less healthy as they get older, but women in their forties don't react significantly worse to pregnancy than younger women.
4 and 11 were my reaction too. Generally I've heard "Most couples should seek fertility treatments if they can't get pregnant within 6-12 months."
11: based on the percentages given, I'm pretty sure that's actually what they're calling a "try". I think in fertility-speak each menstrual cycle is considered one "try".
(I was actually jokingly trying to say this in 8, but it was probably too opaque. As I said, not much sleep.)
14 was to "a more reasonable stat would be odds per month of trying".
I have this dream that someday people will come up with 'Health Class for Grown-ups'. Maybe as a required class in university or something. I had sex ed in junior high which I'm sure covered things like chances of getting pregnant on different birth control choices and without it (hahaha, no I didn't, stats didn't exist for my health teacher but she did mention which ones were best). But since it was oh, 7 years before I needed that information personally, it wasn't quite fresh in the mind.
This first came up when I looked at a table showing the rates of getting pregnant with no birth control, the withdrawl method and condoms used incorrectly (doesn't everyone?) and found out that the latter two are scarily close in effectiveness. Plus there is the rate of all the statistics - x couples that use this form of birth control will get pregnant in a year - that is useless (what if that couple only has sex every year?).
Anyway, if we knew more about pregnancy and preventing it and encouraging it, I would like that a lot.
But also I was totally annoyed that NPR made it sound like women are being totally dumb waiting until their 40s. Because there are some very very good reasons for waiting (wanting to get into a stable career situation or relationship) that can't be just waved aside as 'if only they knew!'.
I really am surprised that people seem to get so much of their sense of what's likely from celebrity news rather than people they know. My sense of the odds is that somewhere right around forty is where most women's fertility flips from 'probably yes, if you give it a couple of months' to 'most likely no without medical help (although there's still a large number of women who get pregnant unassisted at that age)', and 45 or so is 'overwhelmingly likely no without egg donation'.
Why people treat older celebrities as data points just boggles me -- don't they assume that any celebrity news is heavily massaged?
Because there are some very very good reasons for waiting (wanting to get into a stable career situation or relationship) that can't be just waved aside as 'if only they knew!'.
I think part of that is the strong social pressure to have kids. If you don't feel socially permitted to think of not-having-kids as an option, then "I'll have kids in my forties" sounds more respectable than "I'll have kids if I'm in a good career/financial position while I'm still fertile, and if that doesn't happen, I won't have kids -- it's not essential."
(I'm contradicting myself here. If people really are confused about the odds, I think they're very silly. But I also think there's a good chance they aren't really confused and are just socially pressured to act as if they were.)
I think part of that is the strong social pressure to have kids.
It may also be trouble finding a spouse.
somewhere right around forty is where most women's fertility flips from 'probably yes, if you give it a couple of months' to 'most likely no without medical help (although there's still a large number of women who get pregnant unassisted at that age)'
It's like shooting basketballs while standing on a giant treadmill that's slowing moving further and further away from the goal. Each missed basket is not only a miss in itself, but makes the next attempt that much less likely to score.
If you can't find a spouse, you can contradict yourself. Still, won't get a baby that way.
I don't know the odds of getting pregnant for me now (30s) or what it was when I was younger (20s). I don't even know a range*. Although I agree that 40 seems like the flipping year.
Getting taught that getting pregnant would be the worst thing in the world to happen means that I would probably, if I had to guess, say it's over 50%.
Now off to google.
*life sciences PhD student with some detailed knowledge of pregnancy hormones, parental behaviour
21 sounds like the sort of talk you get when the coach has give the sex ed lecture.
24: My seventh grade PE/Health* teacher taught sex ed. I don't remember very much from the class, but I do remember being extremely impressed that he could dunk a basketball on a regulation-height goal. (He had played college ball at a Div-III school.)
*Sex ed. was taught as a two-week sub-curriculum in Health; part of the time we were separated by gender.
You can, if you'd like, describe various forms of birth control using extended sports analogies and get to use "zone defense" in a new context.
I'm on my phone so I can't find it for you, but 'sex ed basketball' should find a relevant story of mine.
Possibly more accurate approximate population.
Well, if that woman googled anything at all about 'pregnancy odds' or 'pregnancy chances' there is no way she could have avoided the information that 35 or 40 is when the odds drop. Much harder to find stuff about younger women. I might have found one of the original paper reporting the effect from 1991. Key part of the abstract "31 years (critical age); after 12 cycles the probability of pregnancy in a woman aged greater than 31 was 0.54 compared with 0.74 in a woman aged 20.31. After 24 cycles this difference had decreased (probability of conception 0.75 in women greater than 31 and 0.85 in women 20.31)"
The subjects were women in a fertility clinic who had come in for IVF.
The odds are much higher than I thought they would be. If you're not trying it looks like the odds are more than 0.25 (based on contraception comparisons).
At the same time, that the story fails to mention, even in passing, the existence of other alternatives to Having One's Own Personal Genetic Scion (adoption! not having kids and being happy anyway!), is odd and frustrating.
Why? Is there some significant portion of NPR's audience that isn't aware that adoption exists?
There is of course more than just "social" pressure to have kids, in that some people actually like kids and want to have their own. The article seems to be about such people, in which case working in the theme "not having kids and being happy anyway" could be a bit tricky.
17: I really am surprised that people seem to get so much of their sense of what's likely from celebrity news rather than people they know.
I don't know that many people do: it's probably (I hope) more about celebrity news contributing, as a kind of persistent background noise, to a general sense of both fashionability and possibility. As with the case of the woman mentioned in the article who thought she'd inherit the unusual fertility of an ancestor, and who works out and does yoga and eats right in presumably celebrity-approved ways.
You can, if you'd like, describe various forms of birth control using extended sports analogies and get to use "zone defense" in a new context.
In this context, the man-to-man defense is thought to be 100% effective.
To abuse this methophor, wouldn't 'man-to-man' involve individually destroying each sperm.
32: no, I think knecht was alluding to playing on something other than a regulation field. In that case, no matter how much you score, it never counts.
no matter how much you score, it never counts.
Speaking purely in terms of putting points in the official scorebooks, of course. A good time can still be had by all.
some people actually like kids and want to have their own. The article seems to be about such people, in which case working in the theme "not having kids and being happy anyway" could be a bit tricky.
Fair enough. I hadn't had very much coffee yet, which lowers drastically my bar for feeling annoyed enough to blog about something.
The subjects were women in a fertility clinic who had come in for IVF.
I assume 29 is not extrapolating about the general population in any way whatsoever.
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Masters from P.G.Wodehouse's old school on the strike picket yesterday wearing their gowns. Psmith would approve. True style.
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For us,
1. We've been super lucky, and
2. I've been super scientific about it. Ie, order a bunch of (super cheap) ovulation strips, and use them. It turns out I don't ovulate at the 2 week mark. I'm about 5 days later than that. If I hadn't used the ovulation strips, and were just trying to get pregnant on the 10-14 day window, we would have probably had fertility problems.
I always wonder exactly how much people do that kind of thing. I know someone who is rather into hocus-pocus, who is also really struggling to get pregnant, and it hasn't been appropriate for me to mention it, but I know they're trying all sorts of things that I wouldn't have bothered with.
the rates of getting pregnant with no birth control, the withdrawl method and condoms used incorrectly (doesn't everyone?)
It turns out that for condoms, "incorrect use" means "didn't actually use a condom every time", not some subtle details about exactly when to put it on or how quickly to take it off or what lube to use or something. Given that, I figure that lots of condom users are in fact using them correctly. (I kind of boggle at the idea that someone who regularly uses condoms for PIV sex would decide to forego them occasionally, but the late-1980s-to-1990s AIDS-related condom promotion may have colored that sensibility).
I don't understand 29 at all.
I also don't think people have a good folk understanding of fertility levels. It's all either ZOMG you could get pregnant by staring or ZOMG barren career woman.
Not to be all humorless, but you might want to be aware that "kids of their own" is moderately offensive phrasing.
40: Really people just don't understand probability at all, so it's no surprise that in particular they don't understand a probabilistic process like getting pregnant.
Though certainly "kids of their own" isn't offensive the way "real kids" is. I'd use "by birth" or "kids born into the family," but the more common "biological children" is inoffensive.
38: Ha. That is exactly what we did (and just like you, I was later in the month than I thought). And despite my woefully advanced age, the little dude was a, ahem, hole in one, as it were.
39: I would have thought that "correct use" also means things like grabbing around the base of the condom after sex, stopping if you notice that the condom has slipped, not using expired condoms, etc. Are you sure that using them every time is all they checked rather than just the major failure point?
What I meant to say was "flesh of their flesh," actually.
Wait, who said "kids of their own"? (I agree that it's offensive, or at least annoying, if it means "their own genetic offspring", but I didn't see anyone using the phrase that way.)
On withdrawal/condoms, I'd like to see some statistics on the percentage of the population that uses each that does it correctly, whatever definition they're using for correctly. I'd be willing to guess that most condom users do use them correctly, and many fewer withdrawers don't.
At least you didn't get it in the water hazard, which would be a one stroke penalty.
She says the real issue is society at large, which is pushing back the age people are expected to settle down and have kids.
It's becoming impossible to resist the urge to get all victimblamey. This isn't new info, the basics were certainly available in the Sixties when the X and I (and all our neighbors) had kids. The women had them and then resumed/started their careers if they were into that, or stayed home if they wanted to and could.
Ah, to hell with it, I'm going out to kick some kids off the lawn.
Another thing that probably screws up peoples sense of the odds is the difference between how you evaluate the odds of a risk and of a goal. Very few people in this dayandage are indifferent about pregnancy, in the sense that they'd be happy either way on any given occasion. Either it'd be a terrible awful thing to happen that would totally fuck up their plans, or it's something they're strongly desiring.
At forty, the odds of my getting pregnant through unprotected sex are lower than they've ever been, but they're still way unacceptably high because I really don't want another kid, and they're going to stay way unacceptably high until forty-five or so. If I wanted kids, though, those odds would suddenly look worrisomely low. I wonder if people who've been evaluating pregnancy as a risk for most of their sexual lives hold on to that perspective on the odds after it's stopped being appropriate.
Further to 3, yes, a "do." Not scheduled or timed, but lack of countermeasures known and not cared about.
The flip for unassisted conception might be 40ish, but iirc getting at least half-way through flips earlier than that (35ish). The social consequences of this kind of information are, I think, a big part of why the stats are poorly understood. That and the fact that all stats are poorly understood.
We have been trying to have a girl to balance the gender of our offspring, which has involved totally unproven folk methods that reduce likelihood of working (different positions, non-optimal timing.) Previous offspring had a high percentage success rate, but with greater age and these methods, no success in six months.
The basketball coach might also recommend the alley-oop as an effective means of fertility control.
38, 44: Wouldn't you think that most people trying to get pregnant would just have more sex generally? Missing the window sounds like you're trying to get pregnant in the minimum possible number of sex acts, so you're aiming each one carefully. Which you could do, if you were going for economy of effort, I suppose, but it's not the most obvious method.
It's becoming impossible to resist the urge to get all victimblamey. This isn't new info, the basics were certainly available in the Sixties when the X and I (and all our neighbors) had kids. The women had them and then resumed/started their careers if they were into that, or stayed home if they wanted to and could.
No women can stay home now.
Adoption can be a really hard process. I knew someone in England who nearly died giving birth, and her baby died after 6 months in NICU.
She didn't try again, but she was over 40, so she couldn't adopt in the UK. She went abroad to South America where it's much easier. She was very conscientious about it, but still.
I certainly wasn't in either a financial, partnered or emotional position to have children earlier. I probably won't have them now. Maybe I'll manage to have a good career because of that, but a small part of me is sad about it. Maybe I'm fertile. My great grandmother was 40 when she had my grandfather in 1910--only child. No fertility treatments then.
The thing about the drop at 30 is funny. At 30 I had a strong urge to have kids--and there was no pressure on me. A friend of mine described the same thing, and I've seriously wondered whether there's something hormonal going on. I don't want to be essentialist though.
57: Oh sure! But someone one feels more in control of the matter when one knows that one is at that moment in the window.
Masters from P.G.Wodehouse's old school on the strike picket yesterday wearing their gowns. Psmith would approve. True style.
Nice!
I haven't looked at the research lately -- is there much of a drop at thirty if the question is "Pregnancy carried to term within a year or two of starting to try" rather than "Pregnancy in each month of trying"? Anecdotally, I don't hear a lot about infertility from people in their early thirties -- it might be slower, but my folk belief is that until pretty near forty, the odds strongly favor eventual success.
51: Ah. I'd read 30's "some people actually like kids and want to have their own" to mean 'rather than not having kids -- biological or adopted -- at all'. Presumably I read it that way because "their own" includes adopted children to my mind.
A woman's fertility peaks at 22 and begins to drop off noticeably at 27. Most women can have babies easily in their 20's, some in their 30's, and few in their 40's. 35 isn't really a fertility-related landmark. It is the age at which a woman's risk of having a Downs baby exceeds the risk of a miscarriage from amniocentesis, and at which age-related health issues are considered likely to cause problems in the pregnancy (AMA on the chart means advanced maternal age).
Heebie, what do you think the "odds of adopting" are?
Start with a definition, such as 2 married heterosexual parents in their 40's with a household income of $250,000/year, wanting a healthy white infant under age 3 months. Then look at the few remaining "sending" countries where you can get a toddler from an orphanage (possibly even an orphan). Then look to see how long a typical single woman might spend providing foster care before being allowed to adopt siblings in junior high.
It's not as easy as you think.
It's becoming impossible to resist the urge to get all victimblamey. This isn't new info, the basics were certainly available in the Sixties when the X and I (and all our neighbors) had kids. The women had them and then resumed/started their careers if they were into that, or stayed home if they wanted to and could.
Victimblamey or otherwise, this misses the point of the NPR story, which is that women don't actually have the right information or that they misunderstand it.
It also ignores a lot of important facts: People in the '60s got married younger; many, many more families could afford a stay-at-home parent (and women earned less than men anyway, so taking away her income from the family did less harm); fewer women went to grad school; fewer women had "serious" careers that would be affected by dropping out of the workforce for a period (e.g., a teacher wasn't much penalized for taking some years off); etc., etc., etc.
53: My gynecologist just told me that now that I am 45, there's no sense in bothering with contraception because even if I did get pregnant, I'd likely miscarry.
He's right, but it just feels weird!
58: We had ours when the X was 21 and 23, she stayed home for a bit, we had very little money, we survived, she went back to work, the kids went to day care, she got promoted....
If the notion now is that women need an unbroken work record until they hit senior partner and can then have a kid then the system needs changing. I'm perfectly willing to admit to being out of touch with those trends.
That "Having it all" shit? Doesn't happen for anyone, not even Hollywood celebs. No matter what. That's why they make movies and TV shows about it.
In addition to having AMA all over my chart, I was also graced with "Elderly Primigravida," which . . . ELDERLY.
67: There's a bunch of things that are different. People get married later; people get real jobs later. You might have been broke on just your income, but I think most people in their early twenties these days really couldn't support another non-working adult on what they take home, let alone a kid.
Adopted children are just as biological as everyone else. Making adopted kids believe they are robots like in that Spielberg movie is unexceptable. Stop the shaming.
Don't want to push this too far, but I'm not sure I blame economics too much for the change Biohazard describes. It feels to me more cultural, on two fronts, for middle class folks -- people's cultural adolescence now extends much further into their 20s, and, I think, there's much more fear of child rearing so people want to be "ready" in a way that they weren't before.
66: there's no sense in bothering with contraception because even if I did get pregnant, I'd likely miscarry.
It does feel weird, and I usually want to point out that there are other reasons for insisting on safe sex practices, at least until both parties have been screened for STDs. As a child of the 80s AIDS scare, it's bizarre to me the extent to which this seems to take a back seat in people's minds to the need to avoid pregnancy.
Or, put another way, the change isn't actually among lower income people (the need to support two or three people theory); it's among higher income women and men.
The technique in 38/44 describes us as well - ovulation (LH) strips are cheap in bulk (and the HCG pregnancy test strips are as well), so during the target window there was daily (or more than daily) sex, and it worked within 3 cycles. (Since we are technically in AMA territory, there's a bit of pressure for it to work soon) "More sex generally", while it might be fun, seemed a little silly to both of us, since we know how the biology works. But frankly, our ability to have good, fun, enjoyable sex was not keeping up with the actual frequency, so I'm glad that phase is done.
Yes, but don't higher-income people start earning later; more school, more hardly-paying internships, and so on? I'd expect a lower-middle-class early-twentysomething to be earning not all that much less than they expected to at thirty, and an upper-middle-class the same to be earning probably less than than the lower-middle-class kid, and certainly much less than they expected to be earning a decade later. Having kids in your early twenties, for a modern upper-middle-class person, would be very likely to mean relying on your parents for a lot of support.
But frankly, our ability to have good, fun, enjoyable sex was not keeping up with the actual frequency
Did you consider "bad, fun, enjoyable sex"? For example, you could have sex on top of a bed covered with baby seal fur.
I watched "Rosemary's Baby" earlier this week and was really struck by the period detail of Rosemary being a housewife. Is her husband rich? No, he's clearly older than her, but he's a struggling actor. Do they have any kids? They're intending to, but no. Are they conservatively religious in any way? No. They're basically urban bohemians. And yet she's a housewife. What does she do all day? She sits around and gabs to her friends and tries to get pregnant.
You just would not see a movie trying to pass that off as plausible nowadays. She would have a job.
(75 should include an 'assuming the LMC person was employed at all, which isn't safe in this economy.')
Yes, 75 is right. Still, I don't see it as primarily income-driven alone; it's the idea that you literally can't have a child until you've reached some quite high level of stability and income. I've had this feeling myself, mind you, but it's odd; would having a kid in my early 20s actually have been that bad? Probably not.
And you're right that it's cultural -- while the economic thing is real, I do think it's much more about later marriage/partnering. Single parenting is (I think rightly) perceived as a huge, negative hassle and UMC people don't think of early 20's romantic relationships as likely enough to be long-term to attach a kid to.
There are definitely some economic differences at play. My friend's parents finished high school, got jobs as a nurse and a butcher, bought a house and had two kids before they were 25! And she had quit working by then. That's insane! Of course, he's since lost his job because full time butchers aren't something grocery stores want any more.
Their children on the other hand got advanced degrees and waited until their late 20s until they could buy a house and/or get a job to have kids. They might have been ready earlier (they probably were because they were both super responsible and had long term relationships) but they didn't have the things their parents had at the same age.
I have to learn to type faster. Keeping up with you guys is hard.
79: would having a kid in my early 20s actually have been that bad? Probably not.
Really? It would have been for me.
We started trying for our first about 10 months before my expected thesis defense date- that was some good motivation. Ended up defending 15 days before birth.
Heebie, what do you think the "odds of adopting" are?
I have no idea what this means, nor why it's aimed at me.
I think the post was probably wrongly attributed to you -- it's more in your wheelhouse than Stanley's.
The front-page posters are unpredictable! Don't try to put us in boxes!
Banh mi posts are Bob's, golf posts are Unf. I know the rules.
Anecdotally, I don't hear a lot about infertility from people in their early thirties -- it might be slower, but my folk belief is that until pretty near forty, the odds strongly favor eventual success.
Right, in your early thirties the treadmill has you back out somewhere near the professional three point line. If shooting undefended, most people will eventually make a basket from that distance.
I am sympathetic to the OP's point about adoption, but I wonder whether it is fair to criticize people implicitly for abiding by what is in most living things a terrifyingly powerful instinct. That fertility treatments are costly confuses that issue a bit, I suppose. It might be different if there were shamans to be consulted, inexpensive taboos to be observed. Something privilege something.
Oh you better not pout, you better not cry!
You better not shout, and I'm telling you why!
Pauly Shore is coming to tooooooown!
I'm making a list and checking it twice!
I'm getting Mom a metal comb to check me for lice!
Pauly Shore is coming to toooooooown!
On that point, I think the OP is succumbing to a tendency to exhort people to adopt rather than being overly attached to their own genetic offspring out of a mistaken belief that there are lots of uncared-for healthy babies out there. And really there aren't; adopting is a lovely thing to do, but more people want to than there are infants for them to adopt, so there's no need to get exhorty about it. People probably should be exhorted about being foster parents for older kids, but the differences between doing that and having a baby are clear enough that you can't really argue that there's no good reason not to be enthusiastic about it.
71, 73, 75, 79: I'm not on board with the emerging notion here that the trend toward later childrearing is not primarily economic, but cultural. If you really want, we can semi-split the difference and call it socioeconomic, but honestly: a generation, and certainly two, ago, it was possible to support and raise a family beginning in your early 20s, without necessarily relegating both parents and children to a life of just barely making it. Now it's incredibly difficult to do that, unless there are already family assets in the mix.
I don't spend much time sleeping!
My meds keep me awake!
But Unfogged's always here for me!
It's better than my mom's fruitcake!
SO!
Keep being THE BEST!
I know you that you will!
I love you guys even more
Than my pills!
Pauly Shore is coming!
Pauly Shore is coming!
Pauly Shore is coming to town!
92: People probably should be exhorted about being foster parents for older kids
Although foster care systems in North America tend largely to be broken, so I can understand not finding this an attractive option.
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Just got a sincere, non-ironic, unconscious "See you next Tuesday" from a business associate.
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95: Oh, I totally understand why people don't do it -- it's just that there's an unmet need for foster parents, where there isn't an unmet need for people who want to adopt healthy babies.
89: I wonder whether it is fair to criticize people implicitly for abiding by what is in most living things a terrifyingly powerful instinct.
I'm not sure how far I can go in calling it an instinct when it's so caught up, in humans, in slightly romantic conceptions of what counts as a full and properly lived life, and involves things like buying a bulk pack of ovulation strips.
This story is relevant to me and my girlfriend, and I heard the tail end of it on the radio this morning. (Which is only due to an unusual set of circumstances, in fact, the kind of thing that someone else might interpret as a divine sign.) In fact, she had a doctor's appointment earlier this week to check on this kind of thing. She said the appointment went well, but I haven't pried for details about what she learned, and I assume anything really personally relevant would have to wait for test results anyway.
I'm not sure I want to have kids at all. I'm ambivalent. I'd like parts and wouldn't like parts. However, I'm sure I don't want to have kids now. I like having money to burn, the ability to do things on a whim, and an adult's sleep schedule. Unfortunately, my girlfriend is 11 years older than me, so if she ever wants to have kids the old-fashioned way, the clock is ticking. We've talked about it a little, but not much recently. Probably will again soon.
100: We just had a thread where I got all het up about this. But if she definitely wants to have kids, and she's in her late thirties or later, I think that if you care about her you're responsible for either deciding that you're willing to have kids with her or deciding that you're not, and if the latter, telling her fast. If she really wants kids, eating her last few years of fertility while you dither is cruel.
99: One could respond that it is a testimony to the power of the instinct that it has survived millennia of environmental, social and political transformations, and continued to make itself manifest in a society with the Pill, women's suffrage and wifi.
N.B. that comments by Flippanter Commenting LLC that contain the word "instinct" are not intended to be interpreted as either "on the veldt..." propositions or "Get back in the kitchen and bake my laundry," uh, propositions. To the ladies.
As one of the more fervent veldt-haters around here, I haven't noticed you sounding that way.
102: One could so respond. One could also respond that the instinct seems to have tempered itself quite a bit since the old days, with the advent of the Pill, women's suffrage and education, given that birth rates are so much lower now. It's an instinct that's fulfilled with many fewer children now than previously, it seems, which is an interesting sort of instinct, then, and seems less terrifyingly powerful than previously postulated.
104: "Instinct" is a sensitive, much-abused conceit, which I'm probably abusing myself in this thread.
It's too bad about "veldt"; it's such a neat-looking and -sounding word.
103: In disavowing any "on the veldt ..." reading, do you mean that you don't intend to be making evolutionary psychology claims? I didn't think you were, and was taking "instinct" to be some claim to, I dunno, animal instinct or something. As animals, we can't help but want very badly to reproduce, to the point that we can barely restrain ourselves without feeling deeply discomfited.
Gah, my comments have been crossing with yours. I'm fine with dropping "instinct" if you are.
There isn't an abstract instinctive urge to procreate, is there? I would think there's a strong instinctive desire to have sex, and a strong instinct to parent any children that result from that sex, but not really any instinctive desire to become a parent. I would think any desire there seems to be entirely socially conditioned. But I don't really know what I'm talking about.
I read the claim in 109 from an actual scientist in an op-ed once, and it certainly makes sense to me. I should look it up so I can cite it properly.
Thank you all in advance for not picking the low-hanging fruit of "abusing myself" in 106.
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Hey German-speakers! I am quoted on page 9 of this book. Can anyone tell me what she's saying there? (The link should take you to the one place where I am quoted, if not search for lof/tis.)
PS: Someone quoted me!
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"It's an instinct that's fulfilled with many fewer children now than previously, it seems, which is an interesting sort of instinct"
It seems quite possible that the instinct could be tempered by environmental factors like the probability of any particular offspring making it to adulthood.
[B]ut not really any instinctive desire to become a parent.
Interesting. Need to sift out a language problem, though. I don't think it's necessarily true, but I think some people who argue, that "want to have sex" + "want to parent resulting offspring" = not too far from "want to have parentable-offspring-producing sex to parent offspring."
If making it to adulthood is key, that means making it to the point at which the offspring can themselves reproduce, right? The hypothesis would be that this felt need is instinctual? Rather than socioeconomic.
I agree with 109 as someone who has never had an interest in the abstract concept of making babies, but I bet there are those who would report that their sense of bodily longing for making babies is a loud long instinctive hormonal screaming, not a conditioned social pressure that is bound up with culture, class, and Freudian whatnot. I am personally hesitant to call something an instinct that obviously not everyone experiences, but people I know who get the baby bug are offended by the suggestion that it's a culturally-conditioned desire.
I think there's also a possibly-instinctive attraction to babies, which would lead to a consequential desire to acquire one to spend time with -- not exactly an instinctive desire to parent, but close. If you spend any time at all around babies, they become very appealing. (I do think this requires baby-exposure to kick in; someone who's never spent time around them doesn't seem to feel it.)
: I'm not on board with the emerging notion here that the trend toward later childrearing is not primarily economic, but cultural. If you really want, we can semi-split the difference and call it socioeconomic, but honestly: a generation, and certainly two, ago, it was possible to support and raise a family beginning in your early 20s, without necessarily relegating both parents and children to a life of just barely making it. Now it's incredibly difficult to do that, unless there are already family assets in the mix.
If that were the right story, we'd expect to see later ages of childbirth among lower-income people. We'd expect relatively younger childbirth among higher income, upper middle class people, especially people with "family assets in the mix." In fact, though, my amateur sociology tells me that precisely the opposite is happening -- age of childbirth is pushed back furthest for the highest earners. Length of education, age of marriage, and (possibly) housing prices would seem to be more relevant.*
*This issue of "sociology by assertion" brought to you by Procrastination, Inc.
I can vouch for "loud long hormonal screaming" and reject the notion that it was culturally conditioned.
I was thinking of you, M. You would use the word "instinctive," in that it might be a genetically-coded desire, and one that perhaps somehow not everyone has, like free earlobes or the ability to curl the tongue?
Well, it certainly felt like an arbitrarily assigned state and not chosen by me on the basis of anything. So I am perfectly happy to believe that other people felt different arbitrary things.
116- That would be the strictly evolutionary hypothesis. Left for discussion is how your loud long screaming hormones can incorporate the socioeconomic facts such as lower infant mortality rates (aside from obvious things like hormonal adjustments from breastfeeding.)
"Culture" is at any rate not something that comes packaged separately from "instinct." I suspect what people are reacting to as offensive in claims of "cultural conditioning" is a perceived subtext that the Man is suckering or oppressing them into wanting children they should not want, and that this "conditioning" there makes their interest in offspring inauthentic, or even plebeian. (Much worse!)
122: Instinct or whatever, but I do think my baby-priming theory has something to it. Megan, you've got younger siblings you cared for as babies, right? I think that sort of exposure to baby-care can make them compellingly appealing in a very involuntary feeling way. I wanted to have kids sort of intellectually, but didn't feel driven. After having my two, I didn't want any more, but had a couple of bouts of literally craving time with an infant.
(Oh, and I had very little baby-experience before I had my own.)
[torch song music plays]
Bound up in Freudian whatnot
You've got me
Ground up in pieces and why not?
To you, I'm the same
As any old dame
Although my instincts are red-hot
I'm a watched pot
All a-maternal-bubble.
You're giving me
Nothing but trouble something something Fertile Crescent something that rhymes with "Park Slope" something.
My unwillingness to talk of baby-making in terms of instinct is, of course, because, throughout my childhood, my mother kept telling me that all of my intentions and feelings were wrong, but don't worry; one day I'd suddenly become overwhelmed with an insatiable desire to make grandbabies for her, just the same way all human women are naturally programmed by God to do. I guess I've tended to find that most "it's instinctive!" arguments are generally heteronormative and shaming. You're somehow then broken or disabled if you don't feel what everybody who is human feels.
The ability to curl the tongue is genetically coded? I guess I heard that somewhere along the way, but I'll stop blaming myself now for not having tried hard enough.
124: Right, either way, I think this argument is offensive to human diversity.
It sounds like maybe AWB's genes aren't selfish enough.
124: Yeah, I was told in 9th grade bio that it was a straightforward one-gene dominant/recessive thing. We had a lab with a list of them -- eye color, attached earlobes, rollable tongue, hitchhikers thumb, I've forgotten the rest.
Babies seem pretty cool, but I suppose that's because I don't have to pay for or take care of them.
I don't think it's necessarily true, but I think some people who argue, that "want to have sex" + "want to parent resulting offspring" = not too far from "want to have parentable-offspring-producing sex to parent offspring."
No. "Want to have sex" and "Want to parent resulting child" are one-stop responses that exist in all mammals and quite a lot of other animals, crocodiles frex. But "Want to have children" involves thinking yourself through a longish causal chain of events, especially if you don't happen to be in a relationship at the outset, and it isn't triggered by an immediate stimulus like the presence of an attractive other or a baby you've just given birth to.
I do not want crocodile children, diversity be damned.
121: Instincts need not be universal in their strength. Sexual desire is instinctual but not equally strongly felt by different people.
We have been trying to have a girl to balance the gender of our offspring, which has involved totally unproven folk methods that reduce likelihood of working (different positions, non-optimal timing.) Previous offspring had a high percentage success rate, but with greater age and these methods, no success in six months.
Female gender pre-selection by maternal diet in combination with timing of sexual intercourse - a prospective study. Some evidence.
Megan, you've got younger siblings you cared for as babies, right?
Yep. Who are now in college and how did that happen!
137. Or you could try going cowgirl, if you want a son to grow up to be a bishop (actual mediaeval superstition).
136: Right, and targets of sexual desire are driven by some combination of genes and environment. For the majority of people, it's adult members of the opposite sex, but saying that that describes the majority doesn't deny that diversity exists.
Actually, if you want a bishop, you call that position 'shepherdess'.
Sexual desire is instinctual but not equally strongly felt by different people.
Ladies. [Loosens sash of velvet smoking jacket.]
I do not want crocodile children
Yeah, not only will they not stop crying, they're not even sincere about it.
"timing of intercourse well before ovulation"
That's the gist of it- reduces overall likelihood of any conception, though.
141: Does that meant the woman has to be holding a stick?
I was talking to someone a while back who was very excited to have gotten pregnant and during the conversation she said something like "it took us a while but we eventually worked out we needed to try at particular times of the month." I was a bit shocked, but on the other hand, maybe their schools never taught sex ed.
I don't suppose even crocodile much want crocodile children, but when they're stuck with them they just get on and look after them. Because crocodiles are like that.
I think 118 gets it right, and it means that any felt baby-closeness-desiring doesn't require that the baby be your own biological product.
128: I guess I've tended to find that most "it's instinctive!" arguments are generally heteronormative and shaming. You're somehow then broken or disabled if you don't feel what everybody who is human feels.
A lot of that goes on.
I do think that Flippanter has backed off from his claim in 89, so I'm not inclined to get carried away in supposing that anyone here in this thread is making those insinuations.
132- second knuckle hair on pinky, cleft chin. There was a guy in our class who we called recessive boy because he had all the corresponding traits. Punnett squares! I won the NY state gold medal in doing those.
147: Speciesist.
148: Heteronormative & Shaming never lived up to their first single's potential.
Jewish rituals were designed to encourage the correct timing- withhold sex/contact until 12 days after menstruation, on the assumption that the time off would result in sex as soon as it was allowed.
145: Using a valid, but expansive, definition of "holding," yes.
146
I was a bit shocked, but on the other hand, maybe their schools never taught sex ed.
Well, maybe, but then again see comment 38, about how some women have nonstandard ovulation windows.
134 doesn't sound right to me. "Wanting to be a parent" is complicated, but surely the instinct is "wanting to have a baby" which is much less complicated. You see a baby and you think "I want a baby!" It's like seeing someone with a half-eaten popsicle and thinking "I want my own popsicle too!"
Oh man, I want a popsicle. Good thing I have some in the freezer.
[N]onstandard ovulation windows.
I ... I ... oh, for God's sake.
My gynecologist just told me that now that I am 45, there's no sense in bothering with contraception because even if I did get pregnant, I'd likely miscarry.
That's fucked up and would lead me to consider changing GYNs.
nonstandard ovulation windows.
Dormer.
We had ours when the X was 21 and 23, she stayed home for a bit, we had very little money, we survived, she went back to work, the kids went to day care, she got promoted
Yeah, just about the same here. I was 21 and my wife was 20 for our first. I dropped out of school (not a big a loss as it sounds like, I wasn't taking it as seriously as I should have) to work full time. I worked a lot of swing and grave shift stuff so I could watch the girls while she went to school. Lot of upsides to having it done it that way. I'm only 35 but I definitely have less of a tolerance now for sleep deprivation. And kids don't notice you're poor when they're young. They just want to run around and whack the shrubs with a stick, dig in the dirt, and kick a ball.
My youngest will graduate from high school when I'm 41. Take that, all you fogey parents.
Forging a couple of subthreads - IIRC crocodiles can choose the sex of their babies by manipulating the temperature of the eggs.
My youngest will graduate from high school when I'm 41.
So awesome.
150: their first single's potential
I have no idea what this means.
Maybe the scientists here can clarify for us whether "instinct" and "instinctive" have any actual rigorous meaning in, like, science. I'd come to think that they were sort of place-holders for 'some things that many members of various species do and we're looking for an explanation for why they do it, and we've decided to call it instinctual, meaning that they do it because they really feel the need to for whatever reason'. Pending further investigation.
?
My youngest will graduate from high school when I'm 41.
Mine from kindgergarten.
112: I am hopeful that somebody who either knows more German or is at least willing to look things up in a dictionary will correct me. But for a rough sense: "Rob Helpychalk [verb, something like "says" or "emphasizes"] that there is no reason (literally no grounds for) [adverb?] that human nature as a product of blind evolution is in itself worthy or unworthy (literally sinful, but better tr. might be valuable or worthless)."
Parents of one of my good friends had both kids at college when they were 40 and 39, and then grandkids at 42 and 41. My friend was always annoyed that if her parents were in town and they all went out people would assume that they were the parents instead of the grandparents.
My youngest will graduate from high school when I'm 41. Take that, all you fogey parents.
Aren't you at some risk of your wife acquiring a new set? I thought you said she's been eyeing the ones she sees on the street, in case they're not securely fastened and she can make off with them.
167: Not with him--gswift got neutered.
Aren't you at some risk of your wife acquiring a new set?
She really wants a baby or some small ones to play with but doesn't want to be pregnant again. And boy will there be some awkward conversations if she gets pregnant what with my vascectomy and all. Ideal would be if my brother and his kids lived near us but that doesn't look like it's going to happen so she'll probably just end up pestering friends to let her babysit, especially in the summers when she's not working. She's also talked about looking into fostering when our kids get older.
I echo the experience of having a crazy desire for babies that hits around 30. One of my co-workers has a nine-month old and I really do want to escape with her, but my husband keeps warning the parents that I might steal babies so they'd know it was me.
158: Lot of upsides to having it done it that way. I'm only 35 but I definitely have less of a tolerance now for sleep deprivation.
Definitely. The whole energy/stamina levels difference between the twenties and thirties or later are significant. Sick kid keeps you up for two days and you have to go to work the next? No problem back then. Want to walk around the outdoor art show for a few hours carrying a kid? No problem. Want to go shooting next week with one's 42 year old kid? No problem.
Even allowing for my backinthegoodolddays syndrome, reading accounts here of the trials and tribulations of being an older parent have me quite happy we did it earlier.
If you spend any time at all around babies, they become very appealing.
Either not universal, or specification needed for "any time at all." If I spend any time at all around them, I want to chuck them out the window.
If I spend any time at all around them, I want to chuck them out the window.
I spent yesterday in a windowless conference room and, by lunch, felt much the same about adults.
170: Well, again, when I was 30 I was in graduate school, nobody around me had babies, and people weren't drooling over babies. A crazy desire to have babies may have hit you when you were 30, and you may attribute it to screaming hormone syndrome, but I imagine it had a lot to do with your milieu.
Mrs. Fillmore and I have been trying for two yrs 9 months, ages 35-37. Two rounds of IUI (glorified turkey baster), nada. Two pregnancies from intercourse. One miscarriage, followed directly by announcement that both of our younger sisters were pregnant, followed by second pregnancy, ectopic. (All of which I've mentioned here under this prez pseud.) Shortly after birth of one awesome nephew and one awesome niece, set up a consultation for IVF, only to find that fibroid decreases IVF conception chance from 40% to 20%. Option of another abdominal surgery (that's how we got rid of the ectopic) is in front of us, although other doctors' opinions on fibroid vary.
so my advice is no one use birth control ever.
172: I'm sure it's not universal, but what I should have said instead of 'any time at all' was 'any significant time caring for them'. Like, being enough of a caregiver that you're comfortable settling them down to sleep.
The desire to avoid enclosure in a windowless conference room is instinctual!
They shut down those companies that rented dogs by the hour, but I sense a business opportunity here.
also: our house and possibly our constitutions are unfit for county/foster adoption (one bedroom). Private adoption will probably run the cost of 3 IVFs. Right now, emotionally speaking, it's a second choice, I'm more in favor than Mrs. Fillmore, but it's in the mix.
so my advice is no one use birth control ever.
Hooray!
"[He] emphasizes that there is no reason to presume human nature as a product of blind evolution to be in itself valuable or reasonable."
The desire to avoid enclosure in a windowless conference room is instinctual!
Well, they did have a pretty good selection of snacks and candy (full-size Snickers, e.g.).
Thanks. It's been a real shitstorm, and I've already drawn my pity party (if you don't remember the story of the ectopic surgery, it's worth reading).
Thanks, sweetie!
Jeez, get a room.
a mistaken belief that there are lots of uncared-for healthy babies out there. And really there aren't; adopting is a lovely thing to do, but more people want to than there are infants for them to adopt
I think birth control is partly to blame for this.
170: I'm also guessing that it's the knowledge of foreclosing options that makes me crazy. I'd love to start now with the assumption that it will take awhile to actually get pregnant, but my husband isn't convinced.
My biases may be showing here, but the fact that there are fewer babies out there than people who want to care for them is a good thing, right? Uncared for babies literally going begging would be bad?
I am quoted on page 9 of this book. Can anyone tell me what she's saying there?
Rob Loftis emphasies [literally 'underlines'] that there is no reason to assume [/suppose/presume] that human nature, as a product of blind evolution, be [/would be: 'sei' = subjunctive] in itself valuable or rational [/useful/meaningful].
185: Ugh. The linked story sounds awful.
the fact that there are fewer babies out there than people who want to care for them is a good thing, right?
Well, the fact that there are fewer babies out there than people who want to care for them is in my opinion better than the opposite scenario, but ideally supply and demand would be in equilibrium.
185: That anesthesiologist is a horrible person. I'm so sorry you and Mrs. Fillmore had to go through that.
153: I might have been misunderstanding, but she sounded like she didn't know there were windows. She was in her early 40s.
190 and previous: Rob Loftis is radical!
Oops, Minivet-pwned. I hadn't noticed 183 before I plunged in!
The linked story sounds awful.
A lot of people say that, but I enjoy listening to German.
185: Yeah, that's a shitstorm, no doubt about it. I hope it gets better soon.
I've been super scientific about it. Ie, order a bunch of (super cheap) ovulation strips, and use them. [...] I always wonder exactly how much people do that kind of thing.
I use waking temperature + cervical fluid and position to monitor ovulation. (For birth control purposes, though it will be helpful when/if we try for a baby.) The two friends [anecdote alert!] I had previously turned on to this BC method both got pregnant on their first tries. I am always shocked at how few people seem to use it.
The two friends [anecdote alert!] I had previously turned on to this BC method both got pregnant on their first tries.
Their first attempts to use it as BC? No wonder people don't use it.
Got pregnant when they switched to using it for that, of course.
201: It's birth control, not birth prevention.
204: I wish I hadn't overused "Ladies..." earlier in the thread.
Sometimes we all wish we hadn't overused ladies, but somebody's gotta use the ladies and it might as well be me.
"Baby, I don't want to use you and throw you away like a Kleenex.
I want to use you again and again, like a handkerchief."
200 worked for us too, and it's kind of fun to do. Data charts! I imagine it's good for BC, but unfortunately my motivation to have the lowest failure rate imaginable has gone WAY up since giving birth. The vague sense of adventure about it that I used to have has been replaced by pure terror.
Didn't read all comments so sorry if this was said already, but: I think some of the delayed childbearing is of a piece with the safety-obsessed, overprogrammed childhoods people like to grouse about. You spend so much time quality-testing every aspect of your adult life -- your scholastic abilities, your ability to earn money, your ability to sustain friendships/get through life with or without mental health services, your capacity for "balance," your pursuit of "dreams" and/or willingness to compromise on them -- and then find a relationship that is as close to perfect as the top .00001% of relationships were in most previous generations, and decide to have kids, AND THEN keep quality-testing your own life while maintaining the same standards for your children, all within the nested communities of town, workplace, personal social network, intersecting online communities (hostile or friendly), etc. It's intimidating and it takes a long time to pass each level. People care about them to different degrees, but they're all part of our discourse about our lives; they affect men and women differently, perhaps. But I think "when is it safe to have children?" is the prelude to "when are my children ever safe?", and the safety is not just physical, but also financial. And it's not just the safety of the kids in the former case, but of the parents...
I am blasting old Neubauten albums to drown out the sounds of my child crying in the arms of the babysitter in the next room. They also drown out the sound of various squeaky toys employed to end the crying. I can't really recommend this to anyone on an emotional level, although I love both the child and the music, so it could be worse. But I can't just come out, grab her, send the sitter home, and cling to her for three hours/dance around the room with her, as I would prefer to do. So here I am drowning my sorrows electronically, yet again. I wish I could fucking work, which is the whole and entire point.
208 - The time has officially arrived for you to embrace your destiny and begin posting as "Wry Cooter".
||
Does anyone ever call post-it notes "posties," or know of that term being used?
|>
210: If anyone calls them "posties", I'd lay money on it being the Australlians.
208.2: Yes. This ratifies my decision to be born in 1941, well before the safety-at-all-costs movement gained traction.
A sincere alias search has yielded the blankest blank I have ever drawn in my life. Apparently I am Without [playable] Qualities. I could thus go with the very old pseudonym Ulrike O, for lack of a better, and feel like a teenager every time I write anything.
But if I take your advice, would the ToS call me "reich hooters?" That might be worth it.
I am very glad about my birth year. I feel like I got enough pre-internet to know what it was like, but mostly internet, which is AWESOME.
Playable Qualities sounds like it might be your new pseud.
"Deeply" is probably an overstatement.
Apparently I am Without [playable] Qualities.
Roberta Müseli.
210: "Posties" are postal workers, not post-it notes.
213.1: I know the feeling. Obviously.
Reich Hooters is such a great pseud. Go with that!
At the Eigenschaft just doesn't have the same ring as ATM did, back when people used that.
210: No, I have never heard of that, and I am from Minnesota, where they were invented. Just got done with a meeting attended by someone who works for 3M, I could ask her what the official company line is on it.
I'm stopping now, no need to intervene.
But wait, no more lurk! Omit the lurk!
214 is deeply depressing.
Why? You regret your birth year and wish it was as awesome as mine?
I like "Without Qualities." Or just "Qualities" is good.
The trick about pseudonyms is that it doesn't matter. The wittiest pseud in the world gets a giggle once, and then just turns into a meaningless proper noun. The stupidest (like, say, "LizardBreath") gets a momentary boggle, and then the same thing happens. The only real virtue they can have is uniqueness.
I don't see what's wrong with "lurkey".
233: I don't really know that I can answer that other than with incoherent muttering about bread and circuses.
234.last: my friend the Deth Vegetable and I used to console ourselves by saying that if we ever got busted for some nefarious computer-related activity, the case would probably get laughed out of court when the judge read our aliases. "Tweety Fish? Quit wasting my time."
Why? On the whole, things are getting steadily worse, except for technology, and the internet is by far the best technology to arrive in my lifetime.
Holy shit, I finally clicked through to the article, and damn. How did they manage to find that many stupid people to interview? Is it even possible that the first person really assumes that if something is fashionable, she should automatically have the right to get it for herself because she's been doing yoga for 15 years? The tone of the article's response is priceless. Yes, even though there has never been any evidence at all for what any of these women think about anything, they still believe it.
238: incoherent, I said. No good reason, really.
Post-it notes are "stickies" or "sticky pads". Probably the best technology to arrive in my lifetime.
OT: Thanks to a pumpkin can lid in the recycling and a bit of carelessness on my part, I no longer wonder if a tiny little aspirin a day can actually make your blood thinner.
On lurkey's pseud, "lurkey" is fine, since she (? I figured that out just recently and was surprised for some reason) is identifiable now as the same person who comments as "lurkey".
I use the stickies on the dashboard of my Mac, which I believe are actually called 'stickies'.
242: Absolutely. Can barely function without them.
What about little pieces of paper, and tape? If you had to?
lurkey: per the most recent post, "Hustla Da Rabbit" has been chosen for you.
Congratulations!
Ok, what if you nearly had to?
Our office manager will remind people that much of what we use posties for could be done just as well with scrap paper.
All I can say that stickies are awesome, heebie, and if I had to do without them, I'd muddle through in some way, but pieces of paper would be falling off in drifts onto the floor every whichaway, and nothing would ever get done.
It's really hard to imagine!
So you're saying you need more paperweights?
I really don't see how paperweights would help. Jeez. It's like you're taking the revolution seriously.
^not
Not taking the revolution seriously. We apologize for any confusion. About the seriousness of the technological revolution.
Revolution...so you need a rolodex?
Please try to be serious, heebie. Rolodexes were always ridiculous.
Rolodexes are great. The second hand doesn't tick, it just sweeps around in a smooth circle.
I admit that I do have an address book, though. It has addresses going back some 20 years, includes people I'd written in by first name only and no longer remember in the slightest, but is still a thing I bring with me whenever I travel. You know, just in case. Everyone should have one of those.
I always travel with a stack of Post-it Notes, just in case.
Now that nobody has match books, posties are perfect when the table wobbles.
Wobblies are perfect when the table posts.
Post-Its and the internet are hardly mutually exclusive, in any case. (My sister got me those for my birthday. They're awesome.)
I think we should reorganize society so babies can be the end of the extended adolescence we have into our 20s. PT work after education. Kids and continued messing about. Then women and men would slowly shift to career and income building as the kiddos got older.
Fantasy, but useful fantasy.
Better than the internet?!
Remember that parsimon is still on a 56k dial-up connection. Under those circumstances I would probably prefer Post-it notes as well.
I was taking a break from talking online yesterday, but I do want to come back to this at some point and will just blah blah blah for the moment. The foster care system is chock full of fuckery, yes, but as a foster parent I don't particularly feel complicit in that. It's just going to suck for kids to have to be in foster care no matter what, and my role is to have a handful of kids whose experiences maybe suck a little less because of me.
And you know, maybe there's some teenager who'd love Megan's taste in music at a crazy high volume. I'm sure plenty of LGBT teens would love to get to talk to AWB about what constitutes an unnecessary 1:00 am text. Stuff like that is where there's the highest need for parents and it's hard in a different way from dealing with babies or little kids but rewarding in a different way too. I'm not saying Megan or AWB or any of you ought to foster and in fact used both as examples because they haven't shown any interest as far as I know, but it is a different way of being a parent and can fulfill different needs for both parent and child. I certainly don't think it's an evolutionary/cultural norm to get those kinds of ovarian pangs about teenagers, but there are a lot of teens who need homes who are less messed up than you might expect.
As far as the Fillmore household is concerned (and I think of you regularly and am glad to hear an update, even though it's not a positive one) most jurisdictions let you share a room with a foster baby through age 2, so if you can convince the person licensing you that you'd be willing/able to move (or they could give you a waiver to let you keep a child who was already with you) that wouldn't actually make you ineligible in a lot of places. But all the foster/adoption training is set up to filter out people who just want to have a baby in their homes without having to pay private adoption fees, so there's a big push to avoid that kind of placement.
On the other hand, lots of kids come into care from the hospital and once you jump through all the hoops there is a real need for homes willing to deal with that. It's pretty close to a given that any baby in that situation will have a potential genetic predisposition toward mental illness of one sort another or prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol, but I'm pretty sure both are true of Mara and she is of course superb. You never know, but this is something that might be extra hard on someone like Mrs. Fillmore if she'd be comparing any actual baby to the potential baby she would have treated well in utero. Different agencies/areas have different rules about how much you have to have dealt with your infertility, but in fostering unlike in private adoption agencies you're generally allowed to keep up fertility treatments.
Luckily I don't have anything to say about post-it notes or anything short enough to go on a post-it note. Sorry.
I fully expect that my tastes in loud music would be congenial for most teenagers.
Sorry about your break-in Megan. That's got to be very upsetting.
OTOH, I'm also sorry I missed your earlier announcement of your recent study of [an] histor[ian]. Huzzah!
Honestly, my life's been so good recently that the break-in isn't much worse than a bummer. There are things about it that suck, but even so, I'm well aware that my life has taken a dramatic turn in exactly the way I wanted it to go, after years of wondering why I was stalled.
it = the burglary, not my life in general.
Thanks, Thorn. I will look into the requirements re rooms pre-age 2, but I think our general disposition away from foster is that we've seen a couple of people take care of infants who were reunited with their parents, and we don't fancy ourselves capable of that kind of selflessness.
Wow, I got bogged down and missed all of this. I'm not sure why anyone is trying to top "Orgone Boxer." But I think I'll just expand it to "lurid keyaki", for the sake of lurkless continuity. Because I'm a born bureaucrat, I will link the neu pseud back to this comment for the next n days. Someone with a far, far more interesting dating life than mine can pick from the remaining excellent suggestions above.
("Roberta Muesli" was actually tempting, but I couldn't do it. Sacrilege! I do love muesli, which seems like it must be unusual among fans of the author -- they would have to like difficult food. It also made me think fondly of these.)
273: I think dealing with reunification of babies (who don't have a preexisting relationship with parents) versus older kids (who tend to love their parents, but are also more likely to have been hurt by them) would be much harder and isn't something I want to do, though I've never felt much pull to have a baby at all. I just wanted to throw that out there because there are many miconceptions about foster care that keep people from getting involved when it might be a good fit for them.
I will say since I know there are commenters there that I suspect LA has the most broken urban foster/adoption system and I'd encourage anyone there to find a private foster agency so you'd have some actual support. But that's the only place I can think of where I've heard nothing but horror stories.
I fully expect that my tastes in loud music would be congenial for most teenagers.
The pre-breakfast nudity, OTOH, would probably be met with a variety of responses.
