I had my kids at 39 and 41. I didn’t forget to have them. I was entirely uninterested in having any until my late 30s. And I’d have been a really crappy parent before that point, so maybe the timing was perfect for me after all.

But the problem is that the decision to have children is almost never one simply made by women like her, but also by the men like me who are with the women like her. In other words, it’s not how the world works for women like her, but, in my case, and in the case of almost all couples, how the world works for couples like us. And in the real world there are myriad decisions that couples make or have imposed on them, a vital one being when you meet the person with whom these decisions become relevant. And I would surmise that for a huge number of Williams graduates, these decisions do not even really become factors until we are in our 30s.

dcat

1) Find out where Mika’s next public speaking engagement is being held.

2) Bring flowers.

Same here. I have no real viewpoint on this topic. I do find this thread highly amusing nonetheless.

No viewpoint, except to nitpick at the commentary of those of us who do have something to say. Nice way to add to the discussion, Ronit.

It’s still crappy advice, for the simple fact that for a lot of women, “being a mommy” is not, in fact, the greatest gift she can receive. That is, to be clear, a very particular worldview.

I guess it depends on what you mean by “particular.” I would guess that a (vast?) majority of Eph mothers would agree with Mika, that motherhood is more important (i.e., “greatest gift”) than their careers.

Rory: I am just doing my best to make sense of the discussion. To me, it seems that there are four objections to Mika:

1) We should not give advice.

2) We should not give advice to people, unless we know them personally.

3) We should not give advice to people about “intimate matters” like marriage and motherhood.

4) Giving general advice on intimate matters is fine, but Mika’s specific advice is crappy.

Any EphBlog readers who agrees that posts like this are helpful can’t use 1) or 2).

Considering I have no kids and am still in my 20s and male, I’ve got no advice or belief that I can give advice on this topic

Same here. I have no real viewpoint on this topic. I do find this thread highly amusing nonetheless.

IT FINALLY ALL MAKES SENSE.

(btw, i love how I couched my statement in “mights” and “perhaps” because i didn’t want to take a stand, but somehow i agree with him in supporting that advice. Considering I have no kids and am still in my 20s and male, I’ve got no advice or belief that I can give advice on this topic)

Don’t make your journey through life harder by placing rules on yourself like, “I can’t get married till I get promoted to your dream job.

This is fine as far as it goes, and of course there is probably no “perfect” time. But so what? As Derek says, most of these decisions are dependent on non-job-related timing and happenstance anyways. And to the extent that Mika is just saying that it child-bearing should be more of a priority in general, for everyone, I would simply tell her to piss off. But is she saying that?

But let’s talk about the greatest gift a woman can receive: being a mommy.

Yep, she is. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t think much of this.

Methinks she says “average” when she means “average for a well-educated member of the urban professional class”. Her point may be fine for that group, her advice perhaps legitimate

Excellent! Once again, EphBlog has iterated to agreement. Mike is not making a claim for all women in all places at all times. She is talking about women like her: college-educated, career-minded, Huffingtonpost-reading.

Derek asks:

How useful is advice that draws from some abstract normative experience instead of the way the world works?

Mika is drawing her advice from “the way the world works” for women like her. She has female friends and colleagues and acquaintances. She thinks that some of them have made some bad choices. She wants to see younger women make better choices. So, she offers them advice. Don’t you give advice to junior historians, say graduate students or untenured professors? Isn’t that advice based on your experience and readings rather than on some “bstract normative experience?”

If you giving advice to historian X is OK, why is Mika giving advice to woman Y not OK?

As someone who got married in my mid-30s and now dealing with the reality that conceiving isn’t as easy as I once imagined, I resent the hell out of the idea that the problem was waiting too long, since given my own life, had I not “waited” this all would be happening with someone else and not the woman I love. The sanctimonious advice givers are really infuriating for those of us who in real life are dealing with these issues and who could not simply have accelerated the process without, say, NOT meeting the person we married. There is a huge contingency that the holders of all knowledge about how others should live their lives seem to be leaving out, and that is that we don’t all live static lives and that most don’t hold off on love with some grand plan at work, but rather we fall in love when we do, and that if we had all had babies with our 20s significant others we would not have ended up with people we did not even meet until our 30s.

dcat

G*d, I took the title as sarcastic humor! Please do clarify, Ronit.

I meant to comment on your title. It was hilarious. Perhaps the best thing about the post, in fact.

Given the wit of it, I would have been more interested in hearing commentary from you on the topic, once you are done analyzing my comments, that is.

I’ve made no claims about the advice except that david (willfully?) twisted jr. mom’s point and that david’s weird hypothetical version of mika actually is speaking from a very elite experience and claiming it is true for non-elite people and it isn’t.

the main feminist critique of mika’s piece, i’d bet, is far different from what others have said on this post (it would focus more on the lack of a similar “father” comparison and the idea of a “second shift” that is female-centric in our society). that’s the critique of its heteronormative patriarchal point. That’s not what I saw in JGs response or Jr. Mom’s or Kirsten’s or 1980s.

seriously. i’m not sure what your point is. were you serious or sarcastic? if you were sarcastic, you set bait and then, i think, misread what people wrote in response to said bait. bravo, i guess.

As you may note, I called Mika’s comments “heteronormative patriarchal oppression” in the original post. I am glad to see you, JG, rory, and others all agree!

David is a very bad man for supporting such sentiments.

I know that. And besides, EB doesn’t need Mika to qualify for my comment at 21.

Oh, and thanks for yet another “correction”.

I still think, however, that there is a tension between Jr. Mom’s readiness (which I applaud!) to give advice on various topics and her insistence that Mika not give advice on this one.

It is utterly unlike me to “advise” someone on something as personal as “when” to have kids. You are wrong, wrong, wrong in painting me in that way.

And where do I “insist that Mika NOT give advice”? I said that her advice, though well-meaning, is meant for a limited audience in it’s specificity.

Quit making me into something I’m not, Dave. Please go after someone else, cuz I don’t have time to “undo” the baloney today.

What are you saying?

If you are pointing out that I may have missed Mika saying “If”, I didn’t. What I take issue with is that she seems to think that wanting “family” equals “find a good man”, “get married” and “have {the] kids” early, hence why I used “formula”.

Gosh, EB is the go-to source for how to do everything perfectly!

“Dear Abby… EphBlog,

I was wondering…”

(Swart?)

for example.

^mainly because i think that claim is wrong.
*note that those jail sentences are often due to circumstances of the neighborhood and not some “pathology” of the men.

how utterly presumptuous and lacking in actual evidence.

Again, your fight here is with Mika. She is giving advice to women in their 20s. Why do you think she is doing this? To me, the obvious answer is that she thinks that some of them are making a mistake, that they are underestimating the difficulties of starting a family later in life. She thinks they are misinformed. Please explain to us why she is wrong.

Dave, everyone’s circumstances are different. And finding a “good man”, “getting married”, and “having kids”, is not a formula, nor is it on everyone’s agenda.

If you plan to have a family, please .. PUH-leeease, do NOT forget to get married and have kids. And start now. Even in your 20’s!

jr mom actually wrote this: “And, I would never presume to give advice to someone else, other than if and when you do have kids, commit to the experience and have as much fun with them as you can” It’s clear that jr. mom is speaking about giving advice specifically about when to have kids, not about never giving any advice at all. to cut off her sentence and not even make clear you’re doing so was misleading and presented her comment in the worst possible light.

to me, it’s telling that the three women (1980′s gender i do not know) in this post all disagree with you.

i also love that you (or your “mika”) claims to know what the average experience of women in their 20s currently is: “My point is that women in their 20s, on average, overestimate how easy these goals are to accomplish if they wait too long to get started.”. LOL. how utterly presumptuous and lacking in actual evidence.

Jr. Mom: Let me quote you and provide the responses that I think Mika would give. And, again, the debate here is between you/others and Mika.

Dave, everyone’s circumstances are different.

True! But advice can still be true and useful on average even if it is not true/useful for every individual.

And finding a “good man”, “getting married”, and “having kids”, is not a formula, nor is it on everyone’s agenda.

Of course! And that is why I started the advice with this key phrase: “If you plan to have a family . . .” If you don’t plan/want to have a family, this advice does not (obviously!) apply to you.

And even if you want to be a parent, when, and with whom, isn’t always as simple as finding a good partner and starting young.

Exactly! My point is that women in their 20s, on average, overestimate how easy these goals are to accomplish if they wait too long to get started.

I’m sure Mika means well, and her advice is endearing in that it shows how much she appreciates her kids and her husband, but it’s also presumptuous in whom it seeks to address.

All advice is, to some degree, presumptuous. Don’t you have opinions about what sort of classes your son and his friends should take? Don’t you have thoughts on how they might get the most out of their Williams education? Do you keep those opinions to yourself? I hope not. The more advice and opinions that people over 40 share with people under 40, the better.

You must travel in very different circles from Mika and me.

The majority travel in “very different circles” from you and Mika. Which, long story short, is my point.