Latest Guilt Trip for Mothers

Steel yourselves, sisters: Here's the latest guilt trip for mothers (double dose for working moms who delay childbearing to establish selves in career). You need to have children before you turn 25.

This comes our way from a respected husband-and-wife research team at the University of Chicago, whose latest findings show that children born to mothers under 25 have double the chance of living to 100 and beyond. Data shows the father's age to be less important (of course!).

All of this was reported in a June 23 Reuter's article titled Key to Long Life May Be Mom's Age. This kind of reporting on complex issues facing mothers, packaged as objective data but infused with a finger-wag at women, drives me crazy. For instance, the researcher was quoted as saying, "The finding that children born to young women are more likely to live to 100 may have important social implications...because many women postpone their childbearing to later ages because of career demands." Subtext: Working women are selfish because we put our careers before motherhood!

What mom doesn't want her children to live forever? But the reality -- also from Drs. Gavrilova, reported in the New York Times last year -- is that fewer than 2 in every 10,000 Americans live to age 100. No matter what we moms do, there is a .02 percent chance of our beloved offspring living into a second century.

So, really, there is hardly any meaningful reason to report this data in mainstream media, except for idle curiosity about the latest arcane scientific findings -- or to twist the guilt knife a little deeper into mothers who want to work or join the Peace Corps or go to graduate school or do anything else that 20-somethings feel like doing with their lives before they take on the joyous, complicated, never-ending burden of motherhood.

I posed these questions to Dr. Natalia Gavrilova, who, by the way, has one daughter (Linda Hirshman would approve), who was born when Dr. G. was 22. This is what the researcher said:

"Our data convinced us so far that we are perhaps on something potentially very important that needs to be thoroughly studied further. At this point of time it would be irresponsible for us to jump to practical recommendations. However, our data are in agreement with the vast biomedical literature suggesting that the risk of many child diseases is increasing with maternal age. Obviously, while discussing the health benefits of young motherhood, we are not talking about teen mothers here."

Since she brought up "practical recommendations," I asked what advice she had for female college students today, as they contemplate the balance of starting their careers with starting a family.

"Talk to your husband and parents for advice on whether this is financially and logistically feasible. If yes, then do what you like."

Need I say more?

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  July 10, 2006; 9:40 AM ET  | Category:  Research
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