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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Mid-Life Crisis (really relationships)
Message-ID: <615@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Jan-86 09:30:10 EST
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.615
Posted: Wed Jan 22 09:30:10 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jan-86 22:03:29 EST
References: <481@ssc-vax.UUCP> <4170@mhuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Distribution: na
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 37

In article <4170@mhuxd.UUCP> amc@mhuxd.UUCP (Andy Cohill) writes:

>The answer is a resounding "YES!" Nearly everysingle woman I know
>well (all in their mid to late thirties) is struggling with whether
>to put family or career first.  I have to report that careers are
>winning, by at least two to one ...
>Fact is, it is hard to meet women who even want a family. They all
>want a career. ...
>Boy, are these ladies going to be an unhappy bunch in about
>twenty years. ...

Funny, wherever I go women in their mid to late thirties who are
childless are expressing a strong desire to start a family (I'll be 39
tomorrow, so most of the women I know are in this age bracket). You
see, a woman is born with all the eggs she'll ever have already in 
her ovaries (or maybe she develops them at a very early age; my memory
is weak on this point) but a man develops sperm throughout his life.
That's why you see more over-40 fathers than mothers running around.
Many women who postponed childbearing for careers in their 20s realize
in their 30s that the biological clock is running out, and start to
think more seriously about having a family. My experience is that some
women who early on decided NEVER to have a family start thinking about
it once they hit 35. This is not an issue for the single male over 40
who has a taste for le fruit vert, obviously, but married men in their
30s who are committed to their marriages and who are childless often
find themselves thinking more frequently about children. In my
experience, of course.

The prediction that these 'ladies' are going to be an unhappy bunch
for not having children is naive. There have always been women who
have chosen not to have children for one reason or another, or who
simply have not had children because they DIDN'T WANT OR LIKE
CHILDREN. As humans, we can choose to put aside or redirect our
biological and emotional urges. Or are you claiming men can do this 
but the 'weaker' sex can't, Andy? ;-)

                               -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly