First baby

When’s the best time to have a baby? It’s a question many women ask themselves, and to which they find a wide diversity of answers. American women have their first baby when they are 25 (a way much better compared to 1970 when the average age was 21.4 years!)

This 'aging', becoming an older mother, is a global movement. For instance in Europe the average age of women becoming for the first time a mother is higher: 29! Which makes me very mediocre, because I was 29 years old too when I gave birth to my son. Like my fellow-late-mothers, I had a lot of reasons to compete with my biological clock, but career (and financial reasons), finding the right partner and self-development were the most important reasons of my delay.

Still, many don't agree with that. I have had so many discussions with people saying that it's not healthy for women to have their first baby at that age (which is not true because also in the old days, women had babies when they were over forty!) And people telling me that babies are healthier if they are deliverde by women in their most fertile periods, which is when they are 23 years old. As if Britney Spears and Jessica Alba are better mothers than Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton?

For me 'being fertile' doesn't always mean 'capable' of becoming a mother. With my experience in life, and the self-esteem I built through these years, I think I am a good mother, at least I am trying to be.

Which is in my opinion the biggest difference between younger and older mothers: the young ones take it for granted that they just had a baby. It is all natural.. The older ones think about the steps in their lifes continuously and decide very conscious what they want.

In her book Ready professor Elizabeth Gregory* gave me the confirmation. I went to her lecture here at the University of Texas. One of the results of her book was that women 'who embrace later motherhood' are healthier and live longer. The biggest reason for that is of course that women who have their first baby at an older age, are higher educated, have better salaries and thus have better access to health care. We all know that their children will always profit from that.

*(Elizabeth Gregory is Professor of English and Director of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Houston. She blogs about modern motherhood and women's work on the Huffington Post and http://www.readymoms.com.

Even after all that way (part 1)

“He, I've got news! I am going to work abroad” I said to Ellen, one of my girlfriends who had been single almost all her life. 'What? What do you mean?' she responded. 'I am going to work at a University in the US” I explained. 'What about your son? she asked. 'Of course he is coming with me' I said very confident. 'And your fiance?' she asked. 'What about him?'
'What - does - he - say? She asked with very clear pauses between the sentences as if she already had an answer. 'I don't know, I haven't told him yet' I said.
'Are you afraid that he will disapprove?" She asked, again with a certain voice I didn't recognize in her. 'No, I don't think he'll disapprove, but..''
"But he won't certainly like it" Ellen answered for me.
It was silent on both sides of the phone. I couldn't understand why she reacted this way. And I think my friends' brains couldn't gather the information all together.
Overseas. Child. Father. Ex. Career. Love.
But more likely, she probably didn't know what to think of it. I thought that maybe she would be worried about our friendship and said to comfort her: 'Don't worry, it's only for eight months!'. 'Eight months?!!' she yelled, continuing: 'And what does your ex think about this?' as if the worldpanic broke out. 'Well, what can he say?' I sounded naieve..but not because I didn't think about his rights as a father, but just because of my girlfriend's reaction. And then, as if she realized she had been negative all the time, she put her things together and tried to end it in a positive way: 'Well, it sounds like fun'..with somewhat hesitation in her voice.. 'If you really go'.

Yeah. Sure. If I really go..

This questioning was going to be the first one in a whole line. I didn't quite understand. What was wrong with what I was planning? No personal internal conflicts made me take this 'huge' decision. I was not in a pre-midlife crisis or depressed or whatsoever, so I it was going to be a balanced decision. But 'the others' made me fear my move: my son would react badly, it would cause fights with his father because of the distance, and the separation from my partner might be bad for my love relationship. People immigrate daily and start new lives. What is so difficult about living eight months overseas? It's also overseeable. Was there anything I had to worry about?

To be continued...