My Lesbian Take on Plummeting Fertility Rates

Take it for what you will

Fertility rates are falling, and everyone has their pet issue to blame. It’s feminism! No, it’s because men suck! No, it’s all the toxins in our food, air, and water! And so the conversation goes around and around in circles. For what it’s worth, I’ve decided to chime in as well. And yes, I am a lesbian, so I imagine some people won’t care much for my perspective—that’s fair enough. But I am a woman, a woman who has always wanted a baby, and who did end up having a baby at the significantly higher than historically average age of 34. The way I see it, there are fewer babies around because they simply don’t just happen anymore.

Humans are actually pretty good at dealing with things that we are forced to deal with. Our adaptability is our evolutionary superpower. That’s how it was for pretty much all of our history when it came to children. Kids were a part of life. They just happened. So society built up all sorts of systems around them. Now, we’re in a historically unprecedented situation where that’s no longer the case much of the time. Kids don’t just happen. We plan for them, and we have to feel like we are “ready.” In that sense, I am chalking up a lot of this to birth control, because it gives people the option to wait until they’ve achieved the level of readiness they desire.

But while I think birth control is a huge part of the puzzle, I don’t think it’s the only answer. Fertility was already on the decline before it made its appearance, and I don’t think fertility rates would need to have fallen so much after the introduction of birth control if it wasn’t for other cultural factors. It is also a question of our priorities. We feel that we have to have everything in order before we welcome a child. And I don’t think that is necessarily bad! It’s certainly better for children not to be brought into chaotic situations. But, as with most things we over-prepare for, we can get stuck in a loop of never feeling ready enough. Armed with condoms, greater knowledge about fertility, and abortion, it is quite easy for people to delay children while they wait for that magical moment of readiness.

Older generations might have rolled their eyes at this, but I am a product of my time, and I understand the anxiety and the intention to be in the right place before bringing life into the world. I particularly understand it on a financial level, as this was the main reason we continued waiting even after we felt “ready” in an emotional and psychological sense (and I did have some psychological hangups to get over, mainly my fear of having a depressive episode while having to care for a child). But it wasn’t until we were in a situation where my wife and I knew we would have a financially easier time that we finally decided to go forward with it.

The way I see it, my wife and I are like a couple using the most effective form of birth control, and so we did what other couples who have greater control over their fertility do nowadays, and we waited until some overwhelming sense of “readiness.” But the truth is that if it were possible for kids to have just happened to us much sooner, we would have just dealt with it and managed. In fact, if it were possible for us to get pregnant naturally, it’s possible we would have had an older teenager by now!

But we waited until a magical moment where everything seemed to come together. We were about to move into an easier financial situation, we felt emotionally ready, and we had decided who to ask to be our donor. There was simply no more reason not to do this thing that we always knew we wanted to do someday. And even though the details of our situation are unique, I think it’s still similar to the way that many heterosexual couples, now more in charge of their fertility than ever, are also waiting for that moment where there doesn’t seem to be a reason not to do it anymore. Hence, you get later births and a lower birth rate.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t think there is anything too nefarious going on. I think this is what human psychology does when we have too much control over something, especially over something that we largely didn’t control to this great of an extent throughout our evolutionary history. It’s hard for me to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, though, especially given my unique circumstances, and I think many women—and plenty of men, too—feel the same. Otherwise, we wouldn’t all be in this situation.

I do, however, think that people in general are waiting way longer than they need to for things to be perfect, and if they welcomed kids earlier or if they weren’t 100% ready, then things would still be fine. We have certainly swung too far into overly cautious territory, and I think there needs to be a correction. And while we are searching in various directions for the root cause of falling birth rates and the right solution, I think more than anything, we need people to know that it’s okay, you can handle it even if you don’t think you’re totally prepared. Overall, we just need to be a lot more welcoming of babies than we are.

As for me, do I regret having a baby a bit later?