Biological clocks, steady employment and income, and couples’ relationships are ducks that don’t always line up in nice, neat rows. This is especially the case during the recession. The uncertainty of the economy has pushed condom sales up and birth rates down.
There’s no stopping the instinctive desire to procreate, though. A woman tells of her struggles to figure out the perfect time to have a baby (as if there was a perfect time), in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. A snippet:
It would be easier if I knew I didn’t want children, if, like some women I know, I could simply laugh, “Oh, I can barely take care of myself!” But I do want to be a parent. I also, however, don’t want to become obsessed. It’s way too easy to play out various scenarios in my mind: I could support all three of us on my freelancer’s salary! Devin will make a great stay-at-home dad! Maybe we’ll have octuplets and get our own reality show to pay the bills! (Um, I’m kidding about the last one.) When one friend, a 40-something mom of two, assures me that babies aren’t really that expensive — “just don’t skimp on diapers” — I take that nugget and savor it like a fine wine. See, it’s possible! Then I remind myself that her youngest daughter just turned 20. Times have changed. (In fact, a new government report estimates it costs something like $292,000 to raise a kid to age 17.)
