90% of Eggs gone by age 30…

[amicus]

Statistics reveal that industrialized societies, along with the emancipation of women, have brought about declining birth rates across the board.

Further, as women entered the workplace and became self supporting, that marriage and childbirth took place at a later date in a woman’s life than before.

Add to the above that a false political ideology, claiming over population was a threat to the future, seduced some couples into not having children.

A spate of later in life child bearing, into the mid and late 30’s and 40’s, indicates, to some, a remorse at not beginning a family earlier in life.

Not included in the links provided, is an emphasis on the percentage of Down Syndrome babies occurring at an increased rate coinciding with the postponement of child bearing; along with several other abnormalities, all tied to late in life child bearing.

Being an old ‘coot’, of an earlier generation in which marriage and childbirth began in the mid to late teens and a woman in her twenties without a child was seen as ‘unusual’, to be kind…

One of the links…I read several more than referenced... indicated the largest jump in delayed child bearing, 5.7 years, over a decade, raising the average age to over 25.

Aside from the abject ignorance concerning over-population, women going in debt to finance a college education eventuates a necessity of finding an income source, contributes to the delay in starting a family in many cases.
If memory serves, I read somewhere that over 40 percent of all births were by single women, with the Black and Latino population even higher percentages.

This phenomenon is of interest to me from a macro viewpoint concerning societal changes and the effects visited upon future generations as a result.

Objective, non personal, non emotional commentary, without personal anecdotes is welcome.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/22/AR2010022203639.html

http://www.lilsugar.com/Ninety-Percent-Womans-Eggs-Gone-30-7214817

http://forums.bleachexile.com/archive/index.php/t-52882.html

http://delaware.momslikeme.com/members/JournalActions.aspx?g=247323&m=9953533&source=stream_rail

Amicus

 

[amicus]

One might be led to suspect that this subject is not user friendly to the usual suspect denizens of the AH.

A bit close to home, maybe? Prods at your deepest belief's concerning reproductive rights and such?

S'okay...I don't mind at all....

Amicus

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I suspect that most of the women who abort and delay children are Usual Suspects and RINOs.

 

[Handley_Page]

Statistics reveal that industrialized societies, along with the emancipation of women, have brought about declining birth rates across the board.

Further, as women entered the workplace and became self supporting, that marriage and childbirth took place at a later date in a woman’s life than before.

Add to the above that a false political ideology, claiming over population was a threat to the future, seduced some couples into not having children.

A spate of later in life child bearing, into the mid and late 30’s and 40’s, indicates, to some, a remorse at not beginning a family earlier in life.

Not included in the links provided, is an emphasis on the percentage of Down Syndrome babies occurring at an increased rate coinciding with the postponement of child bearing; along with several other abnormalities, all tied to late in life child bearing.

Being an old ‘coot’, of an earlier generation in which marriage and childbirth began in the mid to late teens and a woman in her twenties without a child was seen as ‘unusual’, to be kind…

One of the links…I read several more than referenced... indicated the largest jump in delayed child bearing, 5.7 years, over a decade, raising the average age to over 25.

Aside from the abject ignorance concerning over-population, women going in debt to finance a college education eventuates a necessity of finding an income source, contributes to the delay in starting a family in many cases.
If memory serves, I read somewhere that over 40 percent of all births were by single women, with the Black and Latino population even higher percentages.

This phenomenon is of interest to me from a macro viewpoint concerning societal changes and the effects visited upon future generations as a result.

Objective, non personal, non emotional commentary, without personal anecdotes is welcome.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/22/AR2010022203639.html

http://www.lilsugar.com/Ninety-Percent-Womans-Eggs-Gone-30-7214817

http://forums.bleachexile.com/archive/index.php/t-52882.html

http://delaware.momslikeme.com/members/JournalActions.aspx?g=247323&m=9953533&source=stream_rail

Amicus

Fashion trends aside, I suspect that the post-war increases in longevity and the rising cost of living contributed in no small measure to "the later child".

 

[amicus]

Fashion trends aside, I suspect that the post-war increases in longevity and the rising cost of living contributed in no small measure to "the later child".[/QUOTE]

~~~

Nice to see you out and about today...I maintain that a deeper and endemic motivation led to the lower birth rate and then the postponement of marriage and child bearing. What is it particularly about the western industrial nations that leads to lower birth rates, barely replacement value, two children per woman and delaying until over age 25 on the average?

I interpret 'rising cost of living' as increased taxation to support an ever growing bureaucratic class of people who produce nothing of value but drain the working class to a point of near poverty.

Longer life time may play some small role in the trend, but I fail to see how that influences the 16 to 25 age group of fertile females...perhaps you can expand on that?

Amicus

 

[ms.read]

Well, with the Legal age of marraige being 18 to 21..what do you expect? It brings up another point, is teen pregnancy really that big of a deal? or is it the norm for the human race to start propagation right after puberty begins?

The thought of having a child, beyond the age of say 40 or so, for any couple, is strange to me because, the parents have a higher death toll before thier children meet their majority.

Just my two cents.

 

[amicus]

Well, with the Legal age of marraige being 18 to 21..what do you expect? It brings up another point, is teen pregnancy really that big of a deal? or is it the norm for the human race to start propagation right after puberty begins?

The thought of having a child, beyond the age of say 40 or so, for any couple, is strange to me because, the parents have a higher death toll before thier children meet their majority.

Just my two cents.

~~~

A well spent two cents...if I may say so....marriage in some States was legal at age 12, 13 and 14, with parental consent up until a few years ago, so, no, teen pregnancy is not a big deal and might be, I offer, natures intent with the onset of menses.

Your second paragraph is likely to upset quite a few, although they may not express it, and yes, caring for an infant when the mother and father are over forty seems strange to me also...even though two of my children were born when I was in my 40's, the mother was much younger....smiles...

A good day to you and thank you...

amicus

 

[ishtat]

A few random thoughts

If one examines a broader historical context it will be seen that early marriage and childbearing plus high marriage rates in western societies is a relatively modern phenomenon and probably a passing phase.

The UK and western Europe generally has pretty good records from about 1560 and these show that generally until the industrial revolution the average component of the female population which never married or bred varied between 25 and 35 %. It was not economically viable for all women to marry in pre-industrial society. Unmarried women were important economically precisely because they did not have children but did productive work.

The average age of marriage in Ireland for a woman before 1850 was 28 and for the rest of UK 25. The number of spinsters in Ireland was particularly high and large numbers of single women emigrated, possibly to increase their chances of a better life and family elsewhere.

Early marriages and lots of children were only the norm from about 1850 to 1940. After that early marriage persisted until the 1970's but fertility fell away.

My guess is that it is economic circumstances that drive the fertility of a population, not female emancipation. Indeed in many societies male emancipation in many groups is a relatively recent historical phenomena too but no one suggests that influences fertility one way or another.

In Australia now we have an interesting phenomena in that 75% of children born here at the moment are being born to first generation migrants. That appears to be a product of economics in that migrant households frequently have 4 or 5 incomes wheras traditional ' Anglo' Australians tend to only have one or two incomes. High motgages tend to preclude children.

 

[ms.read]

Very interesting points brought up.

I just wanted to say that, I don't want to offend anyone. in the op it said no personal stuff, so i will not explain why i feel that way, but I think it is a miracle of life when a baby is born no matter what age the parents are. though I would thuroughly be disgusted at a person who gets pregnant at 70.

 

[amicus]

If one examines a broader historical context it will be seen that early marriage and childbearing plus high marriage rates in western societies is a relatively modern phenomenon and probably a passing phase.

The UK and western Europe generally has pretty good records from about 1560 and these show that generally until the industrial revolution the average component of the female population which never married or bred varied between 25 and 35 %. It was not economically viable for all women to marry in pre-industrial society. Unmarried women were important economically precisely because they did not have children but did productive work.

The average age of marriage in Ireland for a woman before 1850 was 28 and for the rest of UK 25. The number of spinsters in Ireland was particularly high and large numbers of single women emigrated, possibly to increase their chances of a better life and family elsewhere.

Early marriages and lots of children were only the norm from about 1850 to 1940. After that early marriage persisted until the 1970's but fertility fell away.

My guess is that it is economic circumstances that drive the fertility of a population, not female emancipation. Indeed in many societies male emancipation in many groups is a relatively recent historical phenomena too but no one suggests that influences fertility one way or another.

In Australia now we have an interesting phenomena in that 75% of children born here at the moment are being born to first generation migrants. That appears to be a product of economics in that migrant households frequently have 4 or 5 incomes wheras traditional ' Anglo' Australians tend to only have one or two incomes. High motgages tend to preclude children.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Hello, Istat, you offer an interesting and opposing viewpoint; I would be interested in reading your source material as your consensus seems quite opposite than that which I have run across.

I call your attention also to the Irish Potato famine and fables, such as Hansel and Gretel, in whch infant children were abandoned in the forest because their parents could not feed them.

Early marriages and lots of children were only the norm from about 1850 to 1940. After that early marriage persisted until the 1970's but fertility fell away.

My guess is that it is economic circumstances that drive the fertility of a population, not female emancipation. Indeed in many societies male emancipation in many groups is a relatively recent historical phenomena too but no one suggests that influences fertility one way or another.

This also flys in the face of common perceptions concerning marriage and sexual relations between the younger in a population at a time when birth control methods consisted mainly of abstinence.

I did a search for birthrates in 1850 but found some conflicting reports, among them was the following:

http://www.answers.com/topic/birthrate-and-mortality

Every modern, economically developed nation has experienced the demographic transition from high to low levels of fertility and mortality. America is no exception. In the early nineteenth century, the typical American woman had between seven and eight live births in her lifetime and people probably lived fewer than forty years on average. But America was also distinctive. First, its fertility transition began in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century at the latest. Other Western nations began their sustained fertility declines in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, with the exception of France, whose decline also began early. Second, the fertility rate in America commenced its sustained decline long before that of mortality did. This contrasts with the more typical demographic transition in which mortality decline precedes or occurs simultaneously with fertility decline. American mortality did not experience a sustained and irreversible decline until about the 1870s. Third, both these processes were influenced by America's very high level of net in-migration and also by the significant population redistribution to frontier areas and later to cities, towns, and suburbs.

Even so, the news item that caught my attention and prompted this thread waws the study that indicated 90% of a females viable eggs were gone by age 30. Since there have been many, many reports of infertile women over the age of 30 and all kinds of efforts to remedy that problem, I thought it pertinent to emphasize the societal impact as many women choose to delay starting a family until they are economically secure in their 30's and 40's and in many cases is a result of a general opinion among the elite that they do a service to world population numbers by not adding to the total with their own children.

Thank you for your differing opinion, always interesting when a rational disagreement appears.

regards...

Amicus

 

[Zeb_Carter]

My thoughts are that women delayed having children until they were well established in their careers, after graduate school, etc. Therefore, they are in their late 30's to early 40's when they decide it is time to started a family. They may or may not have been married since graduating.

Most of the women who I know that waited, married early on, but waited to start bearing children until later, after they had established their career or at least after finishing their doctoral degree.

Case in point, my cousin. She married early on during graduate school but held off having a child until she obtained her doctorate.

Women physicians are another case, waiting until they have established their practice to have children.

It could be a "cost of living" thing but only because they most likely want to provide for their children what they themselves may never have had.

 

[ishtat]

I cannot really respond to requests for sources at the moment because I am travelling and can confirm that download speeds in Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe are pretty dire!

One piece of research I remember by a Cambridge academic I think reported on the importance of pools of non fertile/married women/ men to both their original societies and the societies they emigrated to.

The thrust of his argument was that periods of "fertility dislocation" were important drivers in moving breeding populations to where they were most needed and conversely apparently steady growth was in the short to medium term a form of stasis and in the long term unsustainable as economic opportunities diminished. Obviously an argument subject to contention but generally I would always see economic factors in being almost exclusively the determining factor of population growth and decline. Basically people are subject to supply/demand as any other means of production.

 

[amicus]

I cannot really respond to requests for sources at the moment because I am travelling and can confirm that download speeds in Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe are pretty dire!

One piece of research I remember by a Cambridge academic I think reported on the importance of pools of non fertile/married women/ men to both their original societies and the societies they emigrated to.

The thrust of his argument was that periods of "fertility dislocation" were important drivers in moving breeding populations to where they were most needed and conversely apparently steady growth was in the short to medium term a form of stasis and in the long term unsustainable as economic opportunities diminished. Obviously an argument subject to contention but generally I would always see economic factors in being almost exclusively the determining factor of population growth and decline. Basically people are subject to supply/demand as any other means of production.[/QUOTE]

~~~

I trust your journey is productive and an educational process as well, as most of my travels have provided the bonus of a learning experience as well.

I enjoy your theoretical presentation concerning economic factors as being the determining criteria for population growth and decline. Iwould certainly agree in general and over a period of time, but I still maintain that the sexual proclivities of the young seem to disregard economic factors and follow nature's dictates over practical matters.

I should also delve into the figures you stated concerning Australian birth rates, 75% attributed to immigrants; I am curious as to where they migrate from as my understanding of old Australia is that they did not permit Asian or African migration to the Country.

Again, most interesting and appreciated....

regards...

amicus

 

[xssve]

More Bedrooms Mean More Babies.

You might want to read this one too: The Last Taboo.

As recently as 1965, when the world population stood at 3.3 billion, we collectively taxed only 70 percent of the Earth's biocapacity each year. That is, we used only 7/10 of the land, water, and air the planet could regenerate or repair yearly to produce what we consumed and to absorb our greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Global Footprint Network, a California think tank, we first overdrew our accounts in 1983, when our population of nearly 4.7 billion began to consume natural resources faster than they could be replenished—a phenomenon called "ecological overshoot." Last year, 6.8 billion of us consumed the renewable resources of 1.4 Earths.

Oh wait - you probably meant there weren't enough White people.

 

[amicus]

]More Bedrooms Mean More Babies.

You might want to read this one too: The Last Taboo.



Oh wait - you probably meant there weren't enough White people.[/[/I]QUOTE]

~~~

I scanned both pieces, wordy though they were, and obfuscating, concerning the diluted message contained:

"...The only known solution to ecological overshoot is to decelerate our population growth..."

This is, in essence, the antiquated and thoroughly refuted Malthusian theory that population growth will exceed man's ability to feed the growing numbers.

Poppycock!

Your first link rather ignores the huge population of India and China and the glaring fact that most live in tiny shacks or in larger dwellings with large family groups...the old extended nuclear family.

Did you know that NASA uses Whale Oil exclusively to lubricate the workings of the Hubble Soace Telescope? Whale oil was also used for lighting by most of the worlds population until oil and natural gas were discovered. I bring that up to emphasize and underline the nature of man to over come natural shortages and substitute other resources to continue to meet the demand of a growing population.

There is no limit to the number of people the earth can support, and I know that infuriates you, but it is truth, whether you like it or not.

Rather than over population, I see under population as a threat to an increasing standard or living and a continuing innovative approach to life in general.

Amicus

 

[mynameisben]

I never used to until a couple of years ago. Now, I can't eat eggs without a dash or two of tabasco sauce.

 

[amicus]

Heh, something in common, a little dash or so of Tabasco makes the egg!



ami

 

[Kev H]

Hey, Ami. Good to see you still chewing the cud around here. Why not go back to your basic logic (or a rational offshoot of it)? That necessities, especially biological ones, drive trends. When there was war and massive death, there needed to be lots of babies; need more slaves for fields or luxury goods--heck, have more babies.

I'm certainly not trying to imply that biology is telling us to have fewer kids (most hormone-driven kids would have a nice laugh at that), but that this perceived need to populate or not drives most of our societal programming. Remember how huge the families were when hand farming was important. Most of my family tree in the early 1900s had 5-13 kids each. Make your society very efficient/effective (and don't lose most of your young people in wars), and you will get a bump in recreational sex over procreation every time.

And if you ask for links, Ami, I might have to dig up some of your previous posts about predispositions and such, heh.

Happy writing.

Also, I agree with what I think is your implied message--that responsible adults who want kids better plan to have them earlier rather than later. Not sure about the whole blaming women's lib thing, though. For example, people of early Crete sported very liberated women in positions of power/authority, yet most of them still wanted (and had) plenty of children, even the priestesses. Because that was their cultural desire.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Well, with the Legal age of marraige being 18 to 21..what do you expect? It brings up another point, is teen pregnancy really that big of a deal? or is it the norm for the human race to start propagation right after puberty begins?

The thought of having a child, beyond the age of say 40 or so, for any couple, is strange to me because, the parents have a higher death toll before thier children meet their majority.

Just my two cents.

In Komrad Amikus's case, it's sad that he claims to have bred well into his forties: all his others are 'at risk' and these will turn out no better: he's no kind of father to any with his fetish for young girls......Sort of the type that lives next to Sister Sara.......
It's ok Amikus, Roman Polanski is the same way....................

 

[amicus]

Hey, Ami. Good to see you still chewing the cud around here. Why not go back to your basic logic (or a rational offshoot of it)? That necessities, especially biological ones, drive trends. When there was war and massive death, there needed to be lots of babies; need more slaves for fields or luxury goods--heck, have more babies.

I'm certainly not trying to imply that biology is telling us to have fewer kids (most hormone-driven kids would have a nice laugh at that), but that this perceived need to populate or not drives most of our societal programming. Remember how huge the families were when hand farming was important. Most of my family tree in the early 1900s had 5-13 kids each. Make your society very efficient/effective (and don't lose most of your young people in wars), and you will get a bump in recreational sex over procreation every time.

And if you ask for links, Ami, I might have to dig up some of your previous posts about predispositions and such, heh.

Happy writing.

Also, I agree with what I think is your implied message--that responsible adults who want kids better plan to have them earlier rather than later. Not sure about the whole blaming women's lib thing, though. For example, people of early Crete sported very liberated women in positions of power/authority, yet most of them still wanted (and had) plenty of children, even the priestesses. Because that was their cultural desire.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Most pleased to see your Screen Name again, Kev H, been a while, a long while I think.

Logic is the matrix, reason and rationality are the tools and if biological necessities drove reproduction, women would still be having a dozen babies over their lifetimes.

Somewhere I read the Candians and Russians are paying incentives to married women to bear at least three children, not sure how that worked out for them.

Akthough some may argue against this, that women, in modern, relatively free, industrial societies, are the ones who decide if and when a child shall come into existence, I should like to hear the evidence otherwise.

Thus the question of reproduction becomes a question about the motivation(s) of women. Agreed?

Discounting babysitters and daycare services, it is the woman that nurtures and raises a child; again, I query the motivation.

The sudden rush over the past decade of women in their 40's suddenly deciding to bear a child, is certainly worthy of consideration and after all the thread deals with the 90% of vanishing eggs at age 30, does it not?

What percentage of women have a child because it is expected of them? What percentage attempt to please a husband or lover with a son, to continue his line?

I doubt many women, other than the brainwashed hippie chics, pay any heed at all to societal needs, imagined or not.

I read or heard somewhere that 41% of all babies born in the good ole US of Am were born to single women; why? How many were the result of artificial insemination; why?

I have never claimed to comprehend the female psyche and I certainly do not now.

Thus, since it remains an open question to me, I thought to burden the forum with the query as well.

Bad man.



Amicus

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Usual Suspects are Nature's way of culling the unfit.

 

[xssve]

]More Bedrooms Mean More Babies.

You might want to read this one too: The Last Taboo.



Oh wait - you probably meant there weren't enough White people.[/[/I]QUOTE]

~~~

I scanned both pieces, wordy though they were, and obfuscating, concerning the diluted message contained:


This is, in essence, the antiquated and thoroughly refuted Malthusian theory that population growth will exceed man's ability to feed the growing numbers.

Poppycock!

Your first link rather ignores the huge population of India and China and the glaring fact that most live in tiny shacks or in larger dwellings with large family groups...the old extended nuclear family.

Did you know that NASA uses Whale Oil exclusively to lubricate the workings of the Hubble Soace Telescope? Whale oil was also used for lighting by most of the worlds population until oil and natural gas were discovered. I bring that up to emphasize and underline the nature of man to over come natural shortages and substitute other resources to continue to meet the demand of a growing population.

There is no limit to the number of people the earth can support, and I know that infuriates you, but it is truth, whether you like it or not.

Rather than over population, I see under population as a threat to an increasing standard or living and a continuing innovative approach to life in general.

Amicus

That's just idiotic, saturation point is a long accepted phenomena in biology, every species has one, relative to it's ecological niche - populations expand and contract all the time, usually depending on average rainfall for that particular year.

There is a minimum arable acreage a human being requires to survive, our saturation point is where arable acreage per person falls below that minimum.

So far, we've been able put this off with better science but there is a minimum beyond which one can no longer reduce the necessary acreage. This isn't ideology, this is biology.

We also compensate through fishing, but that appears to be threatened now - the BP oil spill may well end up pushing us into ecological crisis on a grand scale, whether you "like it or not"

 

[LaRocha]

Isn't autism related to all the women having babies at 35 and 40+? All the good eggs get eaten up by Pac-Man in your early twenties.

 

[CharleyH]

Statistics reveal that industrialized societies, along with the emancipation of women, have brought about declining birth rates across the board.

Further, as women entered the workplace and became self supporting, that marriage and childbirth took place at a later date in a woman’s life than before.

Add to the above that a false political ideology, claiming over population was a threat to the future, seduced some couples into not having children.

A spate of later in life child bearing, into the mid and late 30’s and 40’s, indicates, to some, a remorse at not beginning a family earlier in life.

Not included in the links provided, is an emphasis on the percentage of Down Syndrome babies occurring at an increased rate coinciding with the postponement of child bearing; along with several other abnormalities, all tied to late in life child bearing.

Being an old ‘coot’, of an earlier generation in which marriage and childbirth began in the mid to late teens and a woman in her twenties without a child was seen as ‘unusual’, to be kind…

One of the links…I read several more than referenced... indicated the largest jump in delayed child bearing, 5.7 years, over a decade, raising the average age to over 25.

Aside from the abject ignorance concerning over-population, women going in debt to finance a college education eventuates a necessity of finding an income source, contributes to the delay in starting a family in many cases.
If memory serves, I read somewhere that over 40 percent of all births were by single women, with the Black and Latino population even higher percentages.

This phenomenon is of interest to me from a macro viewpoint concerning societal changes and the effects visited upon future generations as a result.

Objective, non personal, non emotional commentary, without personal anecdotes is welcome.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/22/AR2010022203639.html

http://www.lilsugar.com/Ninety-Percent-Womans-Eggs-Gone-30-7214817

http://forums.bleachexile.com/archive/index.php/t-52882.html

http://delaware.momslikeme.com/members/JournalActions.aspx?g=247323&m=9953533&source=stream_rail

Amicus

It's difficult to come into this, or any discussion, without an objective and armed only with non-personal and non-emotional commentary, Ami. I guess the best response to you under these terms is ...

whatever.

 

[JamesSD]

Ok, I'll bite.

The entrance of women into the workforce brought about one of the biggest booms in the US economy ever seen. Over several decades productivity soared, jobs were created, standards of living rose and many more intelligent and qualified women gradually replaced less talented men.

There were of course downsides. Certain formerly female dominated fields like nursing and primary education suffered a bit of a "brain drain" as women left these relatively non-lucrative field for areas like sales, law, medicine and business in a stunning show of free-market gumption. And of course the monopoly on high paying jobs held by christian white men eroded, one of the big stories of the late 20th century: good if you're in the majority and not a christian white male, bad if you are.

It's of course not trivial to mention the role of The Pill in helping create this revolution. The Pill served to normalize delaying childbirth and has helped avoid a lot of "shotgun" weddings (along with safe and legal abortion).

Statistics clearly show that children born to parents later in life beat their peers in almost all aspects of aptitude and success. Correlation is not causation; more often it's college-bound kids who successfully delay unplanned pregnancy and intelligence is probably tied to this rational thought process.

Also, in a post-globalization world, there just aren't any good jobs available to your typical "blue collar joe" anymore. When Amicus was a young man I'm sure he could have walked to any number of factories and gotten a job he could easily support a family of 4 or 5 on. Today those jobs have been outsourced. The economic earning power of men without college degrees has steadily fallen.

Having fewer children later in life with more resources to support each child is a highly rational choice. Private schools, tutors, and college education sure aren't free, and each child increases the cost of those. Not to mention clothes and luxury items like video games. It's rational to have one or two children late in life and commit a lot of resources to those two rather than having 5 or 6 and relying on the Public School system to raise them. Every family has a budget, and each child increases strain on that budget. While many people choose to have large families for non-rational, non-economic reasons, the fact is for most Americans children are an emotional decision.

Of course there are downsides. There's evidence that long-term pill usage may have some negative impact on fertility for at least some women. And it's pretty well established that a woman's fertility is highest in her teens and early 20s. This doesn't mean women in their 30s can't conceive healthy children. For every woman I know who had trouble conceiving, I know another who went off the pill and was knocked up within 2-3 months. The tricky thing is there's no way for a woman to know if she'll have trouble conceiving until she tries.

Still, women in the workforce gave us an unprecedented period of economic growth that isn't likely to be repeated any time soon. It may have given us unrealistic expectations of how fast our economy "should" grow.