Hi! Are you a cis woman? Quick, yes or no. OK if you can concentrate over the deafening sounds of your biological clock (tick tock) answer this: fertility of career? Quickly, quickly you haven't got all day. Or all your twenties even. Oh yeah if you're over 27 you're disqualified from that question, your decision was made for you and we hope you like your job, you career gal you. Bit selfish though. Yeah someone else has gone on the record suggesting women have babies as early as acceptably possible. This time it's Location, Location, location's Kirstie Allsopp. But is that really what she said? As a childless woman who, in Telegraph and Daily Mail years, is fast approaching barrenness and regret I'm regularly pitted against women who had babies in their twenties. Fertility doesn't have time for career building, we're regularly told, but is this a question of the fertility clock or capitalism's time table?
Kirstie Allsopp was 35 when she gave birth to her first child and had her second child at 37. She also has two stepsons. When discussing her lack of desire to marry her partner of 10 years with the Telegraph Kirstie said she would only marry because it's "the world's greatest tax dodge". However she wished to assure the Telegraph she still held other views that be interpreted as more conservative when it comes to women and children: "Women are being let down by the system. We should speak honestly and frankly about fertility and the fact it falls off a cliff when you’re 35. We should talk openly about university and whether going when you’re young, when we live so much longer, is really the way forward."
What would Kirstie advise her hypothetical daughter (which, at 42, we all know she is too old and wizened to have) do? Kirstie would say: "Darling, do you know what? Don't go to university. Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit - I'll help you, let's get you into a flat. And then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you're 27."
What would Kirstie advise her hypothetical daughter (which, at 42, we all know she is too old and wizened to have) do? Kirstie would say: "Darling, do you know what? Don't go to university. Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit - I'll help you, let's get you into a flat. And then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you're 27."
| Of course, hetero Kirstie Jr would have to find a willing boyfriend who wanted to have a child with her at 27 - but this is all hypothetical. But why has this been leapt upon as such dreadful advice? | The approved window in which to have a baby is very small from 27 to, oh say, 28? |
In her advice Kirstie does not rule out university, so much as going when you are going to get something out of it (and can more likely afford it) "Don't think 'my youth should be longer'. Don't go to university because it's an 'experience'. No, it's where you're supposed to learn something! Do it when you're 50!"
In the Guardian Kirstie's remarks were quickly written up as patronising, getting Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls' Day School Trust to comment on the advice, which she called a: "throwback to the 1950s... "University education is incredibly important for girls...we would be extremely disappointed if girls left school at 16 and tried to find a flat funded by their mother and waited for the nice boyfriend to turn up.
"People deserve to aspire to having both a fulfilling career and a happy family life. That's what men take for granted and girls who leave university at 22 should not be told by anybody that they have to decide between a career or a relationship and children."
This is true. However Helen Fraser's opinion is as clear as Kirstie's. Just as there is concern trolling over women who either want to establish themselves professionally before babies or simply haven't met someone they want to share genes with, the women who decides university isn't for her and motherhood beckons has similarly unsolicited questions over regret, combined with dismissal and intellectual snobbery.
The young mother with no qualifications runs the risk of ageism if and when she enters the jobs market or higher education, just as the 'career women' risks infertility. And all because we insist on either/or.
The fertility window in which to have a baby is pretty wide, from menarche to menopause, wider than many women are led to think as reported on here. The approved window in which to have a baby is very small from 27 to, oh say, 28? Mother Nature might not be a feminist but society's a bitch.
Squeamish Kate
In the Guardian Kirstie's remarks were quickly written up as patronising, getting Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls' Day School Trust to comment on the advice, which she called a: "throwback to the 1950s... "University education is incredibly important for girls...we would be extremely disappointed if girls left school at 16 and tried to find a flat funded by their mother and waited for the nice boyfriend to turn up.
"People deserve to aspire to having both a fulfilling career and a happy family life. That's what men take for granted and girls who leave university at 22 should not be told by anybody that they have to decide between a career or a relationship and children."
This is true. However Helen Fraser's opinion is as clear as Kirstie's. Just as there is concern trolling over women who either want to establish themselves professionally before babies or simply haven't met someone they want to share genes with, the women who decides university isn't for her and motherhood beckons has similarly unsolicited questions over regret, combined with dismissal and intellectual snobbery.
The young mother with no qualifications runs the risk of ageism if and when she enters the jobs market or higher education, just as the 'career women' risks infertility. And all because we insist on either/or.
The fertility window in which to have a baby is pretty wide, from menarche to menopause, wider than many women are led to think as reported on here. The approved window in which to have a baby is very small from 27 to, oh say, 28? Mother Nature might not be a feminist but society's a bitch.
Squeamish Kate
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