Baby Chic

Daily Specs:

Attainable Goal - Get to the Y for working out purposes
Grievance - Big Love went another night without sleeping.
Celebration - Watched Frost/Nixon. Amazing film.

There are so many times I catch myself peering at the plethora of tabloids and magazines while in line at the grocery store. I am immediately ashamed at my apparent desire to know the nitty gritty about the lives of celebrities. However, in the words of my mother, "how am I supposed to pray for Brad and Angelina if I don't know what is going on with them"? On the outside, I abhor it when people compare the lives of celebrities with the lives of the average Jane, but deep within myself I find an unusual obsession with the family lives of our pop culture heroes. I find it amusing, of course, to see pretty people gain weight (terrible, I know), and I find it upsetting when someone dies tragically and has is plastered all over the media, but I only truly pay attention when celebrities get pregnant and have babies.

So at this point, Brangelina have approximately 19 children under the age of 7, Jen is trying to get pregnant, and hundreds of other famous women are popping out babies like they pop diet pills. The trend, as I have casually observed, is to get pregnant after the age of 26. I have noticed this in the Main Street world, as well. Having children in the early 20's is out of style like last season's Jimmy Choos (meaning people that "don't know any better" are still doing it). What in our society has caused this to happen? As history has progressed, it seems that the "childbearing" age has become later and later in life. I mean, heavens, in the days of Shakespeare, women were having children as soon as they started their periods. Now, the age of starting a family is closer to 30. That is over twice the age of Shakespeare's women!

I don't exactly know how to feel about this. Perhaps I have a bit of a bias because I had my first at 22 (So far, of all the children born on both sides of my family, I have been the oldest to give birth). Perhaps I hear doctors and experts say that having children over the age of 35 means that there is a far greater margin for birth issues and childhood diseases and I get nervous for women in that situation. It is obviously none of my business. I am not in charge of when women want to have their babies, and I am not a doctor. But I am still curious. What is the draw to having children later in life?

Here is my uninformed and uninspired list of pros and cons of having children later in life:

Pros
- Women can focus on the development of their careers
- If married or in a serious realtionship, women can spend time building a relationship solely with their significant other without distraction of children.
- The ability to travel, move around, soul-search when they are younger
- Spending time building economic and financial stability
- Be able to go out, hang with friends, date casually, etc while younger

Cons
- The proverbial "nest" is emptied closer to age 50, as opposed to age 40
- As mentioned before, the older the mother, the higher the probability of issues in pregnancy and birth.
- Children end up interrupting the career that took so long to establish
- Grandchildren come closer to age 60, as opposed to age 50.

What needs to be added to these lists? Inform me. I am ever so curious. Then check out the new poll on the bottom of my page.