ISBN: 0-7868-6766-3
Summary: Interview of high profile career women in their 50's, and their take on why many of them are still childless. Full of Very Scary Statistics on how having a career is incompatible with family life, unless Very Carefully Planning, early on. This book is focused on American culture, as it also proceeds to give suggestions that are already in place in Canada to improve options for women.
This book left me with mixed feelings.
I went into it thinking it would be a very Gung-Ho! type of cheering squad on all the ways that professional women had found to make room for children in their life; instead I got quotes like:
"They told haunting stories of children being crowded out of their lives by high maintenance careers and needy partners. Childlessness was a "creeping non-choice"; only 14% of all the women interviewed had actually chosen to be child-free." - page 3
"Only 10% of high achieving women got married after 30; only 1% after 35. 49% of ultra-achieving women(making six figure salaries) were childless. African American high and ultra-achieving women have it even worse... None married after 28, and none had children after 37." -page 85/86
It was definitely more of a siren ringing than a cheer squad; this book left me needing a stiff drink. The author continues to a concept on it that resonated though;
Intentionality.
That intentional thought about these issues in our personal lives is a must for things to turn out the way we want them to. The commonly swallowed advice of "Just let things happen" is being lambasted for the lie it is, by those a few generations ahead of us. Just like our careers, she presses that we younger women need to have the same type of step-by-step game plan, and not be sidetracked by things other than what we need to be doing to get to what we need to be happy with our family life. She does allow that "happy" can mean with or without children; it just needs to be clear so you can be where you want without regrets.
Her advice focuses on the fact that no, there isn't unlimited time, and that IVF for women in their forties/fifties doesn't always work. Granted, this is a book from ten years ago; the technology has advanced in leaps and bounds. The point still does stand though... going to infertility or TTC online forums and reading the sometimes heartbreaking fertility stories of many there can be disheartening. It is still easily done to spend tens of thousands of dollars on assisted reproductive technology and not end up with a child.
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