- A woman ran after me as I left a friend’s party and asked if I thought she should be trying to get pregnant. This happens to me a lot.
When I was 38 and single I started fertility treatment, and a month after turning 39 I had twins. In the three years since, single women in their late 30s — at the office, at baby showers, on the phone after friends pass on my number — have been seeking me out for advice.
It is hard to counsel someone you have known for 40 minutes, but I tried to answer the woman from the party with the questions I had asked myself at that stage. Did having a baby matter more to her than finding a partner? If, 10 years from now, she found herself with a child but no partner or with a partner but no child, which would be the worse outcome?
I didn’t ask if she’d considered the possibility that having a baby alone undermines the sanctity of marriage, offends God, contributes to the rise of “designer babies” and is leading us on a path to the death of men and, ultimately, the extinction of the species, because louder voices than mine have these bases covered.
jul 11 2018 +