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

[FairPhyllis]

Graun article

So it is actually possible for a president of the RCOG - and a man at that - to talk about about women postponing pregnancy until later in life in a non-blaming, non-patronising way. Alleluia.

Top quote: "If you put a man in that situation, they would do exactly the same. I completely respect that position."

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.

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.

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.

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.