What Are You Waiting For?

So I just read another article about the painful and costly issues of trying to conceive a child. Well, as the four-year-old great niece has been taught – You should have thought of that sooner.

Women today are delaying childbearing until infinity. They have things to do and places to go and people to see. Life is to live. Then they get to be 45 and they start to panic and they need to find a husband and conceive. And amazingly enough, this isn't all that simple.

Let's be kind and not dwell too much on the fact that all that free sex that just felt good twenty years ago has left you with Chlamydia and scarred Fallopian tubes. Let us also ignore the fact that you are old enough to be a grandmother, at least for a moment.

When you delay making babies until you are 45 or older, let's look at life from the kid's perspective. You are old and have less energy and less stamina. I know this because I am exhausted after a day with the grandchildren. It is much different than when I had small children of my own. I'm older now. My knees hurt.

I was devastated when my own mother died. I was already a grandmother myself and I was over 50 and I still miss my mother. How incredibly selfish to notice when you are 45-50 that you have a biological clock and NOW you want a baby. How old will this child be when you kick the bucket or buy the farm or however you want to say die?

When you wait until you are 45-50 to get pregnant, who is going to teach that child to drive? You are going to be 62-67 years old when that child is signing up for a learner's permit. You have to get on the road with a child who is hugging one side of the lane or the other. I was only 38 the first time I was in the car with my son, the new driver, and it nearly gave me a heart attack. How is the child going to feel when Mom drops over while teaching him or her to drive? What sort of legacy is that?

Grandparenting is much more fun than parenting. You get all the perks without any of the non-perks. If you are 45-50 when you begin to think about reproducing and if your offspring does the same, you aren't ever going to get to be a grandparent, you will be 90-100 at the time.

Women are making babies at a later age, often with the help of medical science and at great financial cost. They want to be fulfilled. What about the baby who will turn into a child and then a teenager. Teenaged children are NOT for sissies or old coots.

Old men have been fathering children long after it makes any sense to me. Larry King was in his 70s and starting a new family. How cruel for those kids. Their mother is very pretty and apparently will inherit Larry's money, so hopefully she will get a new Daddy for the children without much trouble. But let's say Larry lives for another 20 years. Let's pretend that old age doesn't come with infirmities and limitations. Let's assume he isn't getting in the cars with his children when they learn to drive or it will surely kill him. What was he thinking? Why did this seem like a fair thing to do to the kids? Is it fair to make kids spend their teen years visiting a parent in the nursing home?

If these old farts think that they are making such good parenting choices, can they explain to me what they think the teenage years are going to be like? How do they plan to cope, if they are still alive, with teens, high school proms, college applications, and Social Security?

I'm very sorry for women who waited so long that they cannot get pregnant without very costly medical intervention. I do not want my insurance or tax money spent on their treatments because they are totally elective and should not be covered, any more than a nose job should be. And I want them to have to explain what their plans are for driver's education and who is taking care of the kids if they are incapacitated by age related afflictions or should they die.

And I want them to write down all these things so the kids know that they thought them through. The kids have a right to know that self-fulfillment issues caused the mother to delay childbearing and also to shunt aside best interests for the child in order for the woman to be totally fulfilled.

Now, just remember to breathe while junior puts the car into Drive.