Jobs, pensions, frozen sperm? Surely teens have enough worries?
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Version 0 of 1. Youth is fast morphing into an incubator for the worries of older age – and where’s the carefree fun in that? Twelfth, 14th, 16th birthday? Time to save for your mortgage, pension and the Everyman test for Alzheimer’s disease. Last week, a new responsibility was added to the premature ageing of the adolescent. According to Dr Kevin Smith, a bioethicist, the instruction to young men who are coming of age ought to be, don’t just masturbate, bank that sperm! And freeze it free on the NHS. He argues that this might reduce the chances of having a disabled child later. The (slight) risk of conceiving a child with disorders such as autism and schizophrenia increases the older the father. The average age of fatherhood in England and Wales is now 33. When it comes to fertility, it seems, men and women just aren’t doing it right – or, in some cases, even doing it at all. Biologically, the best time for a woman to conceive is between 20 to 35, yet the numbers of first-time mothers in their 40s and 50s is growing fast, prompted, according to Adam Balen, of the British Fertility Society, by celebrity middle-aged mothers resorting to IVF for “miracle babies”. Consultant gynaecologist Geeta Nargund has added to the crowd of specialists finger-wagging at older, would-be parents. She wants women to conceive before the age of 30 and lessons in fertility in the national curriculum on the impact of age, alcohol and smoking on a person’s ability to conceive a child. One in five women is child-free or childless, depending upon whether it’s a choice or an unwanted outcome. Rent-a-womb surrogacy, IVF and various other medical breakthroughs mean that fertility and motherhood no longer have to be in synch. If you are 60-plus and have the money, you can have a child. In the commercialised business of making babies, the rights of children have been slashed to zero. Reproduction makes money, so fertility panic is essential to keep queues for IVF and its associated methods ever longer. Perspective is required. In the US, a widely cited statistic is that one in three women aged 35 to 39 will not become pregnant after a year of trying. That statistic is based on an article in the 2004 journal Human Reproduction, that in turn is based on data gleaned from French birth records from 1670 to 1830. In a more recent study of 2,820 Danish women who had sex during their fertile period, 78% of 35- to 40-year-olds conceived within a year. Panic isn’t necessary, but the choice of earlier parenthood without significant sacrifice should be a better option. So why isn’t it? Postponed parenthood isn’t due to ignorance about fertility or the lack of forward sperm planning. The real cause of delay (apart from failing to find Mr or Ms Right) is lack of systemic change. Provide free, good-quality, accessible childcare; a genuine career structure for part-time work; real flexibility in the workplace without losing your footing on the promotion ladder; use-it-or-lose paternal leave with a realistic income, and then see how the age of first-time parenthood returns to the chronological norm. An added bonus might also be that teenagers see a significant reduction in the risk of finding themselves full-time carers of nonagenarian parents. Instead, they can taste what it means to be young again. |