Absolute shocker - senior doctor says something sensible about women postponing pregnancy!

Dadwashere, the average age of having children has not been advancing for hundreds of thousands of years. It is usually 18-21 as far as we know, and there has been a very recent trend in some societies to move that to 30, really within a couple of generations.

It has also never been the case that most people died at 40 or 30. In a traditional demographic profile, many children die before 5, quite a few women die in their reproductive years due to pregnancy and childbirth, and everyone else mostly gets to old age. The mean age at death may be 35, but that is due to lots of death at age 2 and lots of death age 72.

None of this has anything really to do with why women and men are having children later now.

So if you think the problem lies primarily with men yet you still chose to tell women how they should be communicating with men?

"While I appreciate your rage against the manchine unfortunately it is easier to change a communication than to educate the receiver in how to understand it." In your opinion men don't understand the message. I think men understand the message just fine. It isn't rocket science after all. They manage to understand several hundreds of equally plain messages every day. How hard is it to understand that women have a more limited time opportunity than men to reproduce? Really?

My 4 yr old would understand that.

Why do you think women don't communicate to men clearly? Because that is what you are implying:

Actually just the opposite, I think the problem in this case lies primarily with men, its not that women are failing to reasonably communicate its that men fail to reasonably understand and value the situation the woman is in. I dont actually think it is because men are dumb, I was being flippant, I think it is more because alexithymia damages their ability to empathise and properly access their partner wishes.

While I appreciate your rage against the manchine unfortunately it is easier to change a communication than to educate the receiver in how to understand it.

Perhaps the real problem is less about men who are just not getting the message and more about are men who indeed 'get the message' but choose not to comply or, worse, just 'shelve it' (so to speak) if they are allowed. That places a woman in the situation of coming to terms with whether his decision (or non-decision) is a deal-breaker.

There are plenty of ways of communicating Dadwashere. Do you have any idea how patronising you sound? Your way isn't the only way. Any trainer/coach can tell you that.

Why do you think women don't communicate to men clearly? Because that is what you are implying:
Men don't know these things because women aren't communicating them in the correct manner. You are putting the responsibility for communication on the woman's shoulders. You are putting the responsibility for education on the women's shoulders. Men are bearing no responsibility for educating themselves. Men bear no responsibility for communicating. Men aren't dumb unless they choose to be.

What he seems to be saying is that medical professionals should deal with the consequences of social trends rather than comment on social trends. I am not sure how I feel about that stance.

Doctors are required to deal with social health trends, so I think they should comment on them as part of social discourse, with a broad view of the implications of what they are saying.

In wider scope both genders are having kids later in life and that has been slowly advancing for hundreds if not thousands of years of social development. If you live in a world of average life expectancy being 30 you just don’t wait to 30 to start having kids. The most recent reproductive trend research in the western world seems to suggest that the age average is no longer advancing. I read a social theory postulating generational backlash from maturing younger people with ever older parents. The idea being they see their own parents as 'worn out and unrelatable' and so commit to have their own children younger (or at least no later) than their parents did. Another theory was that we live in generation 'stuff' so that the idea of waiting to have kids longer just for more 'stuff' is no longer as relevant or appealing as it was in decades past.

Oh right so it's up to women to educate men then. About basic biological fact they would have learnt at school.

I am certain I did not learn about human reproductive age quality windows at school, male or female. I suppose I picked that knowledge up later, along with the knowledge of 40 being the time of declining fertility and rising reproductive problems for men, from doctors trumpeting it through the media to anyone who would give them airtime.

It's up to women to communicate this in a specific way that a man will then actually take her feelings and situation into account.

Its up to a person to attempt to communicate in a way that that their partner will hear and its up to their partner to listen and attempt to understand. Well and good, in theory, and some people can communicate, listen and understand well. Sadly others do only some of them, and poorly.

And if he still doesn't? Is it her fault? Or is it only her fault if she communicates this educational lesson out of the parameters you've set?

How could it be her fault? What I set out is a simple message any man would hear, short of a drooling Neanderthal incapable of stringing a sentence together. In short, keep in simple and relate it to them because men are dumb. But establishing clarity of delivery in a message to a partner has no bearing on what that partner may do about it, its only an affirmation that they received it loud and clear.

For some men that MIGHT move them past mouthing off to their mates at the pub “The missus always moans on and on about us having kids” to thinking that it isn’t just something that his missus WANTS and NAGS about, something that he can get around to supplying at his leisure later- like that new coffee table, but a serious choice he needs to make NOW before TIME takes away his ability to choose at all.

What he seems to be saying is that medical professionals should deal with the consequences of social trends rather than comment on social trends. I am not sure how I feel about that stance.

As for the idea that women delay birth so that they can achieve greater levels of equality, that obviously isn't feminism In itself. That's just an individual choice. Feminism would be about structurally altering employment, housing, childcare etc so that women could achieve equality regardless of pregnancy at 16, 26, 36 or never.

In all honesty, my main response to the Guardian profile was informed by my impression that the major turn in modern, public discourse around motherhood (and I am using "motherhood" strategically here, to highlight the statistical continuation of a gendered inequality in parenting) not for uninflected reasons) has been a shift to this conceptualising of becoming a parent as a lifestyle choice. I read the profile through that prism, rather than being open to his accordance of full, informed consciousness to women.

I'm sure you are right about that, but I really have managed to avoid many articles suggesting that women are silly, uninformed and bad at decision-making. I can well believe that may be the dominant tenor of the debate, and that it is a small victory when women aren't protrayed in this fashion.

FairPhyllis - OK.

I have to admit that I haven't followed much of the public debate about this and much of what I know, I know either informally through feminist friends who are involved in ob/gynea practise and research and the research I did, some 20 years ago (so out of date - perhaps). So my question was a genuine one. I was quite struck by how very far behind my friends' outlooks he was and also how very tepid he seemed to be.

Sorry if my question was phrased in such a way that you felt I was being rude, or awkward - it was genuinely motivated.

So if Dr Richmond had said that society ought to change so that having babies will be desirable to women in their 20s, would that be better? Because not everyone seems to like his odd idea of medical professionals having to deal with people in the conditions of society as it is now.

Back in the olden days, people were lucky if they lived much into their 40s. Maybe the hope of seeing your kids grow up was an incentive to have them while you're young! Since we now expect to live longer, we might be trying to spread out the events in our lives, and biology won't go along with that as much as we want it to.

DadWasHere "As long as a woman is aware of the increased hazard, justice is served." ?? Justice? Since when was there any justice at all in reproduction?

"Wouldn't it be a stronger feminist position to be arguing for a change in a socio-economic structure that effectively penalises women for having children (until they are very financially secure) - with all that is implied and embedded in that (there is a huge issue embedded here, for example, about the increasing viewing of having children as a "lifestyle choice", which has all kinds of effects, not least for mothers of disabled children)?" Yes this. Getting to the root of the problem.

I would also take this further and look at the socialisation around men in relation to having children. The lack of responsibility on several levels, for example. We are talking about continuing the human race, giving life not how to fix a car or use a computer.

I don't think that's true. I think most men also want kids. But in that unhurried "I have loads of time" way.

I really don't see that it is women's job to educate men about fertility. How about men's responsibility to the women they profess to love?

Surely it's women who tend to be the prime movers behind family planning though?

If men are merrily ignoring their fertility or that of their partner, then as long as the consequences don't bother them why would they need to educate themselves?

It's women who usually want kids isn't it.

thecat - I know what you mean. That was one of my first thoughts when reading the article too. That he is missing that societal change is needed if women are to be enabled to make genuine choices about timing families. But on the other hand I think it's an important step that he is moving away from a lot of the 'woman blaming' that goes on around this issue.

DadWasHere - So it's women's job. Women need to educate men on their own and his fertility. Then the 'good ones' will realise that they have to adjust their behaviour and timings? And the selfish ones will still not have the same urgency. Wow. We women bear all the responsibility on this one don't we?

I don't know what you mean about the lifestyle choice thing, catfromjapan. Can you expand on that?

I'm curious as to why this man's outlook refreshes you so much, FairPhyllis. Genuinely.

Wouldn't it be a stronger feminist position to be arguing for a change in a socio-economic structure that effectively penalises women for having children (until they are very financially secure) - with all that is implied and embedded in that (there is a huge issue embedded here, for example, about the increasing viewing of having children as a "lifestyle choice", which has all kinds of effects, not least for mothers of disabled children)?

His slightly laissez-faire approach surely endorses all sorts of beliefs. My guess is that is ultimately favours those who can pay for fertility treatment - a eugenics by stealth?

I'm just throwing those issues into the ring because I'm not convinced there is anything implicitly feminist, or even pro-women, in his view.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

I do think that most women I know realise that fertility in women drops with age. But there again, I mainly know women who have had children if they wanted them, or are childless by choice. It's not wholly inconceivable that there is a group out there who aren't so well informed about basic biology.

Almost anything could be at the bottom of his "extremely relaxed" approach. It strikes me as being politically neutral rather than feminist per se.

I genuinely don't really "get it".

Oh right so it's up to women to educate men then. About basic biological fact they would have learnt at school. It's up to women to communicate this in a specific way that a man will then actually take her feelings and situation into account. And if he still doesn't? Is it her fault? Or is it only her fault if she communicates this educational lesson out of the parameters you've set?

Just so we're straight and all.

Well, plenty of men do 'create' the issue with unwillingness to commit, or to have children, at an age which is biologically preferable for the woman. Because as a man, it must be very hard not to have in the back of your mind that the clock isn't ticking for you.

I can speak for myself only, I was very aware of my wife not having the luxury of an extra 10 years of reproductive choice that I had as a man. My wife decided when she wanted us to try for children and I did not influence her choice, I agreed with it when she made it. That said relationship and financial stability was there for us, it just happened earlier than her turning 30.

Exactly as you wrote, women aren't stupid and most of them are well aware of the statistics. But are men aware? The clock most certainly ticks for men, absolutely it does, just slower until age 40 when it shouts just as loudly in their ear. Men who care about their partner but are otherwise ignorant would benefit from a brief lecture distilled down to: 'Please understand you have an extra 10 years to decide if you want children, years I do not have as a woman.' That is a short message a man should clearly hear because it puts a womans situation in terms he can directly relate too.