Relationships and Reproduction

Most women envision creating a family with the support of a partner or husband. Their ideal is to have children only after they've strengthened a long-term relationship.

Are you single? Have you found that you need time to pursue educational or career goals or simply a little more time to "grow up?" Even if you are ready to settle down into family life, you may have found that many eligible partners envision family as an even more distant dream than you. In fact, their behavior may reinforce that very point: They may act as though they have a lot of growing up to do before they are ready to settle down.

Even if you marry for the purposes of reproduction, you likely wish to do that in the context of a mature, fulfilling relationship, which may take some time to develop, nurture, and enjoy before children come along.

Unfortunately, many women feel pressure to make difficult decisions about a potential or current relationship because they feel time is running out. This question may be constantly gnawing at you: "Is this the right person to spend the rest of my life with?" The one thing you may feel you're lacking is enough time to sort this all out. But, putting this kind of pressure on a relationship may be the very thing that kills it. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!

And what if you're single with no potential "father material" in sight? How mortifying to feel like that single woman—the one who has to quickly size up each date for his reproductive potential? Ugh!

Complicating things still more are competing views about the roles of motherhood. There's the not uncommon feminist sentiment: Pressure to marry and have children is an external force working to keep women "pregnant and barefoot." And, there's the opposite but likely mistaken point of view—that efforts of companies like Apple and Facebook to cover the medical costs of egg freezing are devious plots to capitalize on youthful, female talent and delay maternity leave for as long as possible.

The whole picture is undoubtedly more complex than that. But the fact remains that pressure to start a family is real, and it usually comes from within. The desire to have children to love and nurture is not just a human characteristic. It's a fundamental part of being a living being on this planet. And most intelligent young women know that, if children are to be in the cards for them, they must consider the time-frame of their own reproductive clocks.

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