Jillian Dunham was 37 when she made a desperate choice:
When David Keefe made egg freezing a part of his clinical practice a decade ago, he imagined that single women looking to delay childbearing would be a small percentage of his patients. Before then, few women froze their eggs, and those in his clinic who did so were usually about to undergo cancer treatment. But when I met him in 2012, the year the American Society of Reproductive Medicine declared the procedure no longer experimental, he told me that close to half of his freeze patients were single women like me. Today, 80 percent of his patients are women electing to delay childbearing. . . .
I cringed every time I saw a reference to single women in their 30s and 40s “searching for Mr. Right,” which means that I cringed a lot. Dating was cast as “a desperate series of co-parent interviews.” . . .
Before he was a fertility specialist, Dr. Keefe was a psychiatrist. He speaks in scientific details but also in parables. He told me the story of a woman who did one freeze cycle and later had a child, and another who did multiple cycles but was unable to conceive. He told me the story of a woman who broke up with a man who had strung her along for years, only to learn that she had almost no eggs left. . . .
“I wasted a lot of time in my last relationship,” I admitted. “I want to make sure that I take care of myself.”
He leaned forward and paused. “There’s something wrong with the men in your generation,” he said. I was stunned. Here was a doctor who had just been talking about the importance of considering statistical significance, and now he was chalking my dating problems up to the broadest of generalizations. But he was articulating two forms of truth: the mathematical and the personal.
“It isn’t you,” he said. “All day long, I see patients like you. You’re smart, beautiful, accomplished, nice. It makes no sense. I go home to my wife and I say, ‘There’s something wrong with the men in this generation. They won’t grow up.’” . . .
You can read the whole thing, and I don’t want to argue directly against Dr. Keefe’s analysis. However, there is countervailing evidence: Women no less smart, beautiful, accomplished and nice than Jillian Dunham do get married and do have babies long before they turn 37.
Nevertheless, when I worked in D.C. every day for a decade, I routinely encountered women who were in her situation or, if younger than her, were clearly at risk of someday being in her situation. They kept wasting time in “relationships” with men who refused to close the deal. These romantic involvements would last anywhere from a few months to several years, and it was always — always — the guy’s aversion to a permanent commitment that prevented these relationships from becoming marriages. The real problem, it seems to me, is not merely the widespread phenomenon of “Peter Pan Syndrome,” but that (a) young women unwittingly enable such male immaturity because (b) they miscalculate the economics of love, and therefore (c) they waste one of a woman’s most valuable resources, her youth.
The smart, beautiful, nice girl is popular in high school. She has no trouble getting a boyfriend in college. As a 20-something in the singles scene, she gets plenty of attention. To such a young woman, the idea of being in a hurry to find a husband may seem absurd. Yet in the immortal words of Teen Talk Barbie, “Math is hard.”
If you graduate college at 22, you have eight years before you turn 30. Those are very valuable years. However smart, beautiful and nice she may be, a woman is more attractive to the average male when she’s 22 than when she’s 30. You can complain that this double standard that places a premium on female youthfulness is unfair, but you can’t avoid the fact that it is nevertheless real. A woman who is very attractive may think she can defy the odds and that it will be no problem for her to find Mister Right when she’s 30, but what if she’s wrong? She fritters away her 20s in a series of pointless relationships — six months with this guy, two years with that guy, etc. — and before she even notices the pattern, the clock is ticking down: She’s 27, 28, 29 . . .
Bad habits are hard to break. The girl whose first “serious relationship” ends in heartbreak after a few months may not recognize that she has developed bad romantic habits. After the second or third breakup, she’s like a poker player on a losing streak and tells herself she’s a victim of bad luck. An attractive woman in her mid-20s still has a large stack of poker chips in front her, so to speak, and she can keep playing with the same bad strategy a while before the odds shift decisively against her. She’s 30, 31, 32 . . .
Jillian Dunham, predictably, turns her failure into a feminist lesson:
Freezing my eggs did not change my dating life. What it did do was expose me, again and directly, to the ways we treat women when there is a decision to be made about their bodies: We judge, pressure, and publicly debate a woman’s ability to direct her own life. We fret about women’s susceptibility to “false hope,” about their being manipulated by the egg-freezing industrial complex, rather than believing women to be capable of assessing information and understanding risk. We judge women who pay thousands of dollars to freeze their eggs, rather than spending that energy advocating for those who can’t. We criticize women for not being able to control variables that are necessarily out of their control, something that is insulting to everyone involved.
You may notice that rationalizing failure seems to be the point of many feminist narratives. The whole point of feminism is convincing women they are never responsible for their own failures. Feminists will call you a misogynist if you ask a woman to consider the possibility that maybe men are not to blame for all her problems.
Still, not all women have the same problem, do they? Maybe it’s bad luck or maybe it’s bad judgment, but maybe your problem is you.
If you are trying to get married and remain unmarried, you might consider what you are doing wrong.
Feminism makes motherhood an acceptable “choice,” only if there is a substantial CV of “real” accomplishments first. Thus, women are taught to pursue other things in lieu of procreation in order to have value . . . to other women.
Add in the fact that feminism was/is about making sex recreational only and not about procreation, and you create a world where men have no incentive to settle down and be fathers.
Philosophies have consequences for those who adhere to them. Unfortunately, may adherents can’t seem to learn the right lessons.
I’d say there are a lot of factors, but, yes, developing “bad romantic habits” is part of the problem.
I think I can pinpoint the problem: if you think that dating isn’t *supposed* to be a co-parent interview process, you’re doing it wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laFGAp6Ip40
Just sayin’
It’s supply and demand. Some people overestimate their market value and fail to recognize that youth is a depreciating asset. I’ve known guys who had the same problem. They partied, partied, partied, and then one day they were 45 and alone. They look back and think about that girl they dumped when they were 25 and wonder, “What if …?”
Honestly, I could have been married a dozen times over before I finally found my wife. An outgoing, confident young guy who’s got “good prospects” is seldom without opportunities for female companionship. I didn’t realize at the time how many of the girls I dated were looking at me as husband material, even though I usually made it clear I was only looking for a good time.
When a man is ready to get married and meets the right women, he won’t waste much time closing the deal. I met my wife in October 1987 and by May 1989 our daughter was born. My advice to young women: DON’T DATE BOYS. Don’t waste time with immature guys who don’t take you seriously. Don’t just play hard to get, actually be hard to get. You’re better off alone than letting some guy play you for a fool. The more you like a guy, the more it’s necessary to make it clear to him that he can either get serious — wedding bells, happily ever after, etc. — or he can leave you the hell alone.
As much as the human body needs air and nutrients the human intellect needs knowledge in order to make sense out of the world. Knowledge is refined into understanding and wisdom in the mind as food is refined into ATP in the body. Just as there is a much toxin-loaded junk food to consume today so there is a huge amount of misleading or outright deceptive information for the human mind to consume.
Allowing the mind to indiscriminately consume feminist and Frankfurt School ideology through popular culture is as destructive to society as any nutritional crisis, perhaps more so.
Thank you for this series.
Love that scene.
It’s what I hear in my head every time that I read about someone complaining about the other sex (male or female) being filled with [epithet here].
Exactly!
The problem is everyone desperately looking for a good time, then wondering why they’re so unhappy! I remember that with my ex, and it’s one of the main reasons I’m so very unsympathetic to his on-going disaster of a life.
When I was 17 and working in a pizza parlor, one my co-workers was trying to give me advice on dating. When I mentioned that I wasn’t interested in [girl’s name withheld] because I didn’t see that “going anywhere long-term,” he said, “You’re shopping for a wife!” I said, “Right. Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
The problem with modern Americans is that they believe there’s some sort of “goofing off” period and then, eventually, a “settling down” period (which they keep putting off till later and later).
That’s stupid, in my opinion. I WANTED to get married, just to be done with that dating nonsense, and so I could get on with my life with my life-partner at my side.
Americans are just not serious about the things they should be serious about.
If you’re forty and you’re STILL looking for “Mr. Right”… come on! Whose fault is that?
Looking for “Mr. Right” is also what may be Miss Dunham’s problems. How many times has she passed over “Mr. Good Enough”? Popular culture, for both sexes, has given them unrealistic expectations. Not everybody can be so lucky.
The other problem I’ve seen is looking for “Mr. Perfect…Right Next Door”. Sometimes you need to look outside the Beltway.
That is very true. That is exactly why I stopped dating years ago: I realized that the single common factor in my bad relationships was me. At the same time, I respectfully resent the “Peter Pan” slur; I did not grow up in a vacuum. I had to deal with the women that were there — women who thought that boys were stupid and you should throw rocks at them — women who laughed at news of a woman literally castrating her husband with a knife, not just making him hold her purse.
But as I say, I was also the common factor. As you say, and as you have shown by your own example, other people managed to get together and create something greater than their individual selves. I find that encouraging, and I have a plan; but I do believe that confirmed bachelors like me have had very good reasons for our decisions, and it is facile to blame it on not wanting to grow up.
Sound advice d those who grew up in the 40’s and 50 got that advice we didn’t hook up.
It was four months from my first date with my husband to my marriage and I was 50 and overweight. Either it is going to work or not it doesn’t take years to know that.
LOL I was looking for Mr comfy shoes
Dating is hideous isn’t it?
The worst!
…Trying to get one was the worst of the worst part!
Me, too. I never understood the “dating around” phase that some of my peers found so appealing. It seemed like repeated self-induced heartbreak.
Rationalizing failure is the con game that creates invisible Jim Crows. As for marriage, there is a simple truth in play: society once heralded the obvious benefits of marriage, and then it didn’t. Equal rights feminists did that, not men. Once doubt enters in, decisions are delayed, or even put off entirely. This is one where the “patriarchy” is blamed for marriage and now blamed for the lack of it. There’s your con game: the single unerring focus is based on a hated identity, not circumstance. I can’t make generalizations about millions of men who share no ideology. However I can analyze an actual ideology and its rules. Equal rights feminism did this, and now even worse, you have gender abolitionists who are far worse to the idea of having families. You can talk about the “normative” all you want, and how oppressive it is, but there is a reason “normal” has a reputation, and it is because it works. Abnormal can work, but usually doesn’t. That’s why it’s called “abnormal.” Today “abnormal” is like the n-word, and so is “success.”
Don’t forget no-fault divorce.
I think the problem with popular culture is that it promotes the “have fun, marriage is dull” idea to enormous proportions.
This is FAR WORSE than the “find Prince Charming” notion that went around a century ago. People managed to read fairytales as children and still grow up into marriable people.
Then along came the “marriage is for squares” generation; they made a bunch of movies and TV shows and transformed all of Western Civilization into totally unmarriable people… and, just for the cherry on the sundae, they blamed the old fairytales.
Yup. Giving divorce a drive-up window has indeed been part of the decline.
My brother is a loony libertarian who refuses – REFUSES – to follow traffic laws; he thinks cops are part of a conspiracy, and says, “Why should I get a ticket when I didn’t damage anything?”
He doesn’t get it: The reason he can break the rules without incident is because everyone else is following the rules!
That’s how I feel about the gender theorists and sexual anarchists: They don’t see the damage they’re doing because the Normal people are keeping things on track.
To me it seemed like being in perpetual rehearsal without ever getting to opening night.
That was never my problem, I’m over 60 fat and I still get hit on.
I’m a mild introvert and I hate dressing up and going out. Dating always felt like having to be on.
“The problem with modern Americans is that they believe there’s some sort of “goofing off” period and then, eventually, a “settling down” period (which they keep putting off till later and later).”
I suspect that this is not solely an American problem. Remember the case of the 25 year old Spanish man who sued his parents because they cut off his allowance?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8474191/Spanish-judge-orders-25-yr-old-man-to-leave-home-and-get-a-job.html
But you are definitely correct about how the “settling down” period is now being put off. It seems now that adolescence does not end until about age 45.
Meanwhile, the feminists snarl and demand that nobody dare look askance at a 60-something woman who wears a tube top at a rave while trying to twerk.
They don’t see the damage because they are intent on dragging down the 96% of normal people to a level of sexual dysfunction and sociopathic failure. The insane now cure the sane, not the other way round.
Would you mind if I have this painted on the wall of my daughter’s room?
This woman should just have “High Maintenance” tattooed on her forehead… It would save everyone a lot of time!
My wife (a high school teacher) pulled me aside one day a few weeks ago and told me about a bit of the craziness that was her day at school, then looked me in the eyes and said, “We’re teaching our son that dating isn’t a game – it’s for finding a spouse, and to treat it any other way is destructive.”
To which I rolled my eyes and said, “Of course.”
I married a good one.
I believe it’s a combination of both…men who refuse to grow up and
women who, frankly, haven’t learned the old axiom; “Why buy the cow when
the milk is free.”
Problems:
1. Sex is easy to get. Women are EXPECTED to give it up. Why should the man buy the cow when he can have the milk for free?
2. Relationships are not easy, and marriage can be bloody difficult. People not only don’t want “difficult”, they don’t even realize that this is part of the bargain (hence high divorce rates: “This is hard; nobody warned me; I’m outa here!”)
3. Pop culture, including pr0n, gives people very skewed ideas of what a “good” relationship is like
4. Entire generations of Americans have grown up getting pretty much whatever they wanted. Why should the “perfect” spouse (or significant other) be any different than the “perfect” car, computer, pair of shoes, &c?
5. Marriage and especially marriage with children is openly denigrated in pop culture. Dad is a bumbling idiot, the kids are rotten, Mom’s still hot but totally frazzled and a domineering shrew, the in-laws are unbearable. Who wants that? Further, many of the “cool kids” aren’t getting married at all. What used to be derided as “shacking up” or “living in sin” is now the way to go. And why not? I suspect that settlements are a damned sight cheaper and easier (for the guy) when there’s no actual marriage involved. Easy come, easy go
6. Fatherhood is portrayed in pop culture as outright emasculating. Gone is the sports car, the drinking, chasing women, and wild weekends with the boys! Fatherhood is portrayed as a life of diaper bags, minivans, dance recitals, and no sex. What guy wants to sign on for that?
DO men need to “grow up”? IS there something wrong with men today? No: I think we are much as we have always been. Feminists have simply made it easier for us to never grow up and keep milking the cow. They have also contributed to turning marriage and fatherhood into an apparent death sentence that makes any many who engages in them an object of pity if not ridicule.
The problem with modern Americans is that they believe there’s some sort
of “goofing off” period and then, eventually, a “settling down” period
(which they keep putting off till later and later).
I believe that is a European custom that sort of migrated across the pond. At least in the 70’s, German youth were expected to sow their wild oats and start thinking about settling down when they reached their late 20’s or early thirties.
Exactly. Any aware man knows that if she can get a sperm donation from him and keeps the child he will be on the hook for the next 18 years, come hell, high water, or the kid’s true biological father showing up.
Why even date a desperate woman?
Why should men grow up when for the last 30 years they have been told that a man is nothing but a repressed child who has body images when he has his toys compared to spending time and cash on the woman. That they are scared of strong women and that they are nothing but troglodytes who haven’t progressed beyond caveman days.We have also seen men being told that to get the cheerleader they need to act like children. So if that is the way to get a mate is be a fool then why not be a fool.
I’ve never quite understood that notion, since it always seems that both parties go right on trying to prove that it’s the other person’s fault. In court. To the satisfaction of – at least – one’s own lawyer.
I think there is an arrested development. What’s the difference between a teenager and a 30-year-old? The clothes are the same. The video games are the same. Hell, ALL the entertainment is the same.
It used to be that you could tell the difference between Ward Cleaver and his sons. The difference was stark.
I don’t know about that. While I agree that society generally has been infantilized, I would say that there are still plenty of Wards / Wallys around. My niece graduated basic training a few weeks ago, and the USCG was thoughtful enough to allow parents who were / had been in uniform to present diplomas to the newly-minted sailors. There were quite a few who did: military, police, fire department, even one young man whose father had been a senior officer in an allied military. The XO spoke at some length about how the parents had started the work to turn the kids into American sailors; the Coast Guard merely finished it.
No doubt there are plenty of slackers in our country, “adults” who never grew up and kids who never will. It may be that they outnumber the adults who do (or would if called) make our country work and keep it safe. I hope not. I take solace in the fact that plenty of people have misunderestimated Americans as soft, effete, undisciplined, and weak only to find that the boys who they thought were only interested in making money or playing baseball or driving jalopies or watching TV or playing video games could be just as tough, serious, cunning and self-sacrificing as the Spartans.
Most succinctly explained in terms young women may actually understand: http://youtu.be/pkv6iH7zQGo The difference between 29 & 31.
Another problem for Jillian and the other women who wait is the available men are the guys who never grew up and strung her along. The high quality guys already go married. Her prospects are the guys at the bottom of the barrel.
Yes, and as I frequently tell young women, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” So stop being easy.
Does it seem to you that she’s one of these people who tend to over-think everything?
Also, the longer a man stays single, the more he develops habits that must be broken in order for him to get along in a married state. He becomes “set in his ways” and may be inflexible, incapable of adjusting to the permanent compromises that marriage requires. Because I was 29 when I married, a substantial adjustment was involved, and I was very fortunate to find a wife (25 when we married) who was able to cope with me. Now try to think about the woman’s task in domesticating a lifelong bachelor who is 35 or 40. Even if she has no trouble attracting a man that age, even if he is head-over-heels for her and eager to marry her, she’s going to face predictable challenges in turning such a man into a proper husband.
The guy who is still single at 35 is single for a reason. If his personality was easily compatible with marriage, he would be married. So the guys a 30-something woman must choose from are the guys who have already demonstrated a temperamental aversion to domesticity.
Money. Payback.
You get to make that choice, but remember, for 99% of us our children are the only thing we leave behind that matter.
Actually it’s worse than that. By the time the thirty something woman gets around to snagging the thirty-five something man they’re both set in their ways.
That’s a keeper.
It doesn’t always work that way. My son is 36 and has not found a woman worth marriage. He’s wanted to get married and has the personality for it, but you’ve got to find a woman who is suitable as well. The pickings have been very slim.
Our esteemed host wrote:
I haven’t read through the comments yet, but I’d guess that there might be a few which note the economics of buying cows when the milk is free.