Gen Y's biological clock talk taboo

Quote:

The luxury (and make no mistake, it is born of privilege) of a quarter-life crisis or simply a period in one's twenties where you're unsure of how you will earn a living for the next 30 or 40 years is not equally afforded to women of child-bearing years and child-bearing inclination. While advances in birth control have given us unprecedented control over our reproductive lives, we still haven't come to the point were we can outsmart mother nature on a mass scale. Women have only a finite period in which to get pregnant and give birth to children without (barring existing fertility issues) medical intervention and these years typically coincide with the time during which we're attempting to launch and establish our careers. This is reality, people. But we're not supposed to think about these competing priorities and if we do think about them, we better never ever mention them to the menfolk (because only straight ladies want to have babies, silly!), lest we look desperate, because desperate is unattractive. There is nothing worse than unattractive, amirite?

I liken it to Nancy Friday's thoughts (though she's not the only one to raise the point) on how "good girls" of her era didn't prepare for sex. It was somehow permissible (or at least forgivable) to get swept up in the moment and just give in, not so being purposive and deliberate about deciding when and how to be sexually active. Good girls didn't plan for it. Now, it's gauche to acknowledge that you think about your fertility (other than in the capacity of preventing pregnancy), that you do in fact have a timeline in mind (especially if you want multiple children) for when you'd ideally like to get pregnant and that this enters into your career and relationship decision-making. You can either choose to be (or to play) willfully ignorant of biological constraints or to be painted as a baby-crazed ticking time bomb (see the tabloid and gossip industry treatment of one Ms. Jennifer Aniston if you need an example). Lovely.

The Young and the Feckless