Once in a while, usually in moments of work vs. family crisis, I think it would have been smarter to have gotten pregnant at 18. I know, I know. But think about it -- college subsidized daycare, something to keep you home at night, grade school by the time you're ready to work full time professionally.
Of course, the 20-year-old version of me would have, in no way, been a suitable mother. I'm thinking a mix of Britney and Denise Richards with the McCanns thrown in for high drama. But, you know, logistics. I’m talking logistics. Becoming a mother in my early 30s instead, with few daycare options, long commutes, lots of overnight travel, forced me to make some career compromises. Yet, had I waited, who knows how well my ovaries would have held up.
Shouldn’t there be a way to calculate all this? Well … there is! Kind of.
A business student designed a mathematical model, which is supposed to find the balance of a woman’s professional, social and family objectives and their relative importance to each woman. It includes age-related things, too, like fertility and the consequences of aging eggs.
For example, a doctoral student who wants kids eventually but doesn’t want to wreck her academic career is advised to get pregnant after getting tenure.
A 20-year-old who wants kids at 35 but also a career would, according to the model, achieve a better life balance if she had kids younger. (See, I think this is what I was talking about.)
The idea that major life decisions can be boiled down to numbers is interesting. Sort of does the heavy-lifting of a Pros and Cons chart. But it’s all hindsight driven, in a way. I mean, who wants to be accountable for what they thought at 20? And much later than that, it's crunch time.
In the U.S., at least, these decisions feel very dire. Is it like that for women everywhere? Anyway, what business student is going to design the model -- mathematical or not -- that makes it easier to have all of it at any time? Hmmm? We're waiting.
