This got me to thinking about fertility and how I recently learned the frightening fact that female fertility begins to decline at the average age of twenty-seven. Twenty-seven! That's only three years away (for me)! What a scary thought. I wanted to do some fact checking and so I started scanning the internet for articles discussing female fertility and this was one of the first that popped up.

It begins by talking about how studies have found that most women are unaware of the age at which their fertility begins to decline. It then goes on to talk about how the fact that fertility actually begins to decline earlier than previously thought (they used to think it was early 30's), underscores the dilemma that women who want both a career and a family face in today's world.

All of that was interesting and seemed to fairly portray the challenge of balancing career vs. family, I didn't even take much issue with the part where one of the women interviewed seems to be complaining about how no one ever told her, her fertility would not last forever (is that really something we need to be told?), but I did have a problem with the very last person interviewed in the article - some professor of sociology and women's studies at Wellesley College, Rosanna Hertz.

Hertz says Hewlett fails to make the case that if the working climate were altered, more women could have children younger and integrate that with work.

"She doesn't make that argument in this book that there is a way to do both," Hertz said. "I still believe that what she is advancing is an old model which says you either have children or you have a career and you should have your children younger."

To me, the idea of "You CAN have it all!" is the inherent flaw in liberal/feminist thought. For some reason these people seem to think that simply because something is "unfair" it can therefore be changed to be made "fair." This shows a clear disconnect from a little something that I like to call "reality." Yes, it is unfair that a woman's career will always suffer more than her husbands when they decide to have children. Just as it is unfair that a father will NEVER have that bond that a mother has with her child after carrying it in her womb for nine months. Tough nuts.

In a capitalistic society, people who advance in their careers are those that can and want to sacrifice most of their time to the goal of moving up. This is how it is because, in a capitalistic society, companies promote those who make them the most money. It's just how it works. And it makes sense. Yes it may not be very friendly to working mothers, but, well, tough. The world isn't fair.

I'm not saying that it is or should be impossible for a woman to have a rewarding and satisfying career, I think my own mother is a prime example of how that IS possible. BUT, and that is the key word, raising a family will always require a lot of sacrifice, particularly on the part of the mother due to the fact that she must carry the child for nine months and she is the one that produces the breast milk. Is it fair? Maybe not. Can you change this? Nope.

Feminists need to stop propogating this myth that it is possible to have everything you want without sacrificing anything. Life is about making choices and prioritizing. If, as a woman, having a family is something that is important to you then you have to come to terms with the fact that your career may suffer for it. If you want to work in a high-power, high-stress industry the sacrifice may be even more pronounced since these sorts of industries will inevitably value those workers that can work the longest hours and have the most accomodating schedules (something you will not have if you choose to be a mother). The working world cannot somehow "change" so that working mothers will not have to sacrifice anything in order to raise their children. This is not very realistic and it's ridiculous for people to talk about it as though it is. This would be like men saying that pregnancy simply has to "change" so that men can experience the same type of bond that a mother experiences with her child while carrying it. If you want to work in an industry that requires 80 hour work weeks, how can this somehow be "changed" to accomodate mothers who don't want to miss out on their kid's entire childhood? Are feminists asking to be *gasp* treated differently than men?

I know that all the feminists out there who are reading this are probably shaking their fists at their monitors right now, but I tell it like I see it. Starting a family always requires sacrifice and nature requires that the mother will always be stuck doing more of that sacrifice. Sure it's not fair, but it's not fair that some people are born blind. Should we poke everyone's eyes out so that the world can be "fair?"