New Plots and Ripples

Today I was invited to lead a tour and facilitate discussion of an exhibit of some of the films of Chantal Akerman, renowned Belgian feminist filmmaker, on view at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston. By way of introduction, I could point to a parallel in Akerman's work and my own: we're both exploring the ways in which women are rewriting the narratives of our lives. Very different otherwise, but a basic interest in common.

Akerman literally revises the operation of film narrative, reorganizing the idea of plot, choosing material from the everyday lives of ordinary people from all walks and realms of life, and making the spectator much more active and responsible in the meaning-making process. No standard film dynamics for her. It's all about thinking twice, and then again, about the way who we are is determined by political forces at work on the home front, in the theatre and in the wider world, and then intervening in that.

Ready examines the ways in which women in the US, as in many parts of the globe, are reorganizing their own plot lines, within the altered framework afforded us by both the presence of widely available reliable birth control, and the new expectation of longevity that so many of us first worlders live with now. It's exciting to recognize what ingenious artists of their own lives women are, innovating within our fast-morphing milieu. Definitely political and historically-determined artistry.

It's exciting also to think through the diverse ripple effects created by the trend to starting later--and I'll work on charting those effects in the next few days. Here's a start (in no particular order):

Effect number one: doubling the national talent pool in an expanding number of fields by reassigning what used to be called "the distaff side" (meaning the ladies, defined as weavers)--from the confines of home work to wider fields of endeavor.

Effect number two: lots more new later dads, who come to fatherhood later for many of the same reasons that women do--when they feel ready.

Effect number three: fewer children of divorce? I can't demonstrate this with data, because the US doesn't collect divorce data anymore. (Why is that??!!!) But the women I spoke to felt they were less likely to divorce because they came to parenthood with a partner they'd either chosen at a more mature point in their lives, and/or because they'd learned how to compromise around non-pivotal issues and so felt they'd be less likely to leave without trying first to hold things together than they might have been earlier. They also felt that their higher levels of education and earnings meant they had a different kind of status in their marriages than many of their moms did, and that status would create a more equal power dynamic within the couple that would itself make it less likely that they would want to leave.

Effect number four: fewer impoverished kids when parents do divorce. Not all marriages need saving, and later moms as a group make higher salaries than moms who start their families earlier. If moms aren't working at the time of divorce, they may have a better chance of re-establishing at work if they have degrees, connections and/or a long resumé from the days pre-kids.

It's late, but I'll add to the list next time. Chime in with your thoughts if you feel so moved!

Stuff It!

Today's New York Times Home section cited me as background to their discussion of the way later parenthood intersects with furniture. If you've already invested lots of thought and money in your décor, what happens when the kids come along? Generally, some form of compromise, and among those profiled, some disgruntling.

That Valentine's article generated lots of comment--much of it of the "where do these rich people get off thinking furniture is more important than their kids" variety. Some commenters could sympathize with the desire to maintain a beautiful space---many of them noting that the way to achieve the balance was discipline: "Tell your kids to keep their hands off the walls!"

Personally, I can sympathize, though our décor can't compare with that in the Times photos. But I can't really sweat it. (My husband, on the other hand, would be much happier in a more intentional space.) We put a blanket over the black leather coach some time back, to prevent the cat from gouging it when he launches himself up to the bookshelf by the windows. That blanket also blocks child-made stains and punctures. It's not elegant, but it's black too, so I can overlook it. A few years back there was a period when our eldest and her friends liked to rope together the Eames office chairs (they're on rollers) and ride them like a train around the house. No big worry, since we got them used, and they're sturdy. It looked like fun.

For both of the parents in our house, the biggest décor concern isn't the furnishings, it's the clutter. And it's not just the kids'. I remember when I first moved to Houston they had trash collection twice a week, in the old Southern mode (it's hot here, and you don't want your garbage fermenting in the cans between pick ups). That impressed me. The expanding number of catalogs and solicitations that arrived in the mail impressed me too. After a while I realized that a second good reason for picking up the trash twice a week was that they delivered it six days out of seven. Now they have the bigger cans with the tighter seals, and the trucks that lift and dump them automatically so they only pick up trash once a week now. But they still deliver it every day but Sunday. Likewise with so many extra things and wrappings--the stuff just keeps coming in.

We aim to be a green household and to pare down on all fronts, and hope to get there soon. Fewer toys, fewer containers, fewer catalogs, fewer knickknacks. This effort is made easier by the fact that we have no time to spend with the knickknacks or even on shopping for them. The busy-ness that seems to have attacked everyone I know this year--not just the ones with kids either--is the psychic equivalent of the clutter in my house. The busy-ness seems to expand to fill the space in your life. Is it just email, and cell phones that make us reachable anywhere that increase our too-busy-ness? Or the mood of frantic fundraising that all the causes I root for seem endlessly to be in, especially around the election. Or some consumer effect that makes us all want to do everything available to do? I really like a lot about being busy--especially all the things that get accomplished, and the sense of competence that goes with getting them done. But I need down time too, and so does my family. So we spend most evenings at home, messing up what remains of our décor, until the next clean sweep.

Learned Ladies Living Large

A recent review of Ready in theWashington Post asked whether a new later mom with a high school education or less would have "the same opportunity to do satisfying things" as the later moms who participated in my study. That's an interesting question--and not one I can answer on the basis of the interviews I did, since all the women I spoke to had spent some time in college, all but a very few had a Bachelor's degree, most had a graduate degree, and some more than one. This is less a flaw in the study than a relevant piece of info about later moms these days.

CDC birth data allows us to connect a woman's age at first birth with her education level at the time of that first birth.

As it turns out, of the 133,237 first-time moms in 2003 who were 35 or older, 60% had BAs or higher, and an additional 19% had some college. 1.54% of the birth certificates did not state mom's education level. That leaves 20% of the population of new later moms in the category the reviewer asked about--four fifths of them with a high school diploma, and just 4% of the total with less than a high school degree. (Note, this is not the full number of new later moms who gave birth in 2003, just those who had a first birth in that year. There's no way to determine at what age moms giving birth to second or later-order kids in a given year had their first child. But the educational pattern holds true for all moms who start their families later.)

Compare that 79% with some college or more to the overall data on moms' education: of the 4 million plus moms giving birth at all ages and in all birth orders in 2003, just 26% had a BA or more, 21% had some college, 30% had a high school degree and 21% had less than a high school degree. And those stats include the later moms. Comparing apples to apples percentagewise, that's 60/26; 79/47; 20/51; 16/30; 4/21.

This data tells us loudly that education plays a big part in women's delay. Later moms wait for family in huge proportion because they're in school, at least for the first few years and sometimes for quite a few more. They're in school, they know that the student life is doubly difficult with kids, so many women choose where possible to finish their degrees first. Then they put that education to work for a while. A few years in, they feel ready to start their families. In the US, the average college educated woman starts her family at 30. It's not so much farther to 35.

The question about new later moms with no college resonates a bit differently when you look at the relatively small size of the group we're talking about, though it doesn't disappear the question. As I documented in chapter three, Census data shows that the rises in wages linked to delay of kids accrue largely to women with university degrees. So to the extent that "doing satisfying things" has to do with having more cash and status, the answer is, no, later moms with less education would not have the same opportunities. They would be in a similar situation to moms who didn't defer in that regard. To the extent that "doing satisfying things" as a later mom has to do with being more mature, having seen a bit of the world and being ready to focus on family, the answer might well be yes. Or they may be in entirely different circumstances. That's a question I hope to explore further.

But maybe the answer the reviewer sought was really to another question--one that addressed how class impacts the experience of motherhood in our world. I'm guessing that's so because the next sentence in the review comments on how my study, like other "Mommy War manifestos," skews toward the privileged. (Why is every comment on the lives of modern mothers viewed as part of a war?) Well, we all know that class does affect the options open to moms and their families in big ways.

In so far as class relates to the new later motherhood trend, there isn't just one effect. Education, women and class can add up in at least two ways I've noticed--maybe you can think of others. If you're a woman from a middle class family of origin, as were most of the women I interviewed, whatever your racial or ethnic background, you may have grown up with an expectation that you would go to college. In the terms of the review, you come from privilege and by going to school, establishing at work and starting your family later, you're continuing on the path your parents set you on at birth, while moving into a domain newly available to mothers, of status and control of their own resources.

If you're a woman of lower class origin, as were a number of the women (white, black and Hispanic) I interviewed, you may have chosen education linked with delay of family as a way up the class ladder (see the profiles of Ava and Veronica). By the time you have your kids, you and your family may also be among the privileged. But that's not quite the same as the circumstance of women who start out there.

Later motherhood can sometimes be a way out of lack of privilege. But it's a way by no means always desired by young people, and it's often unavailable as a real option for women whose upbringing didn't involve expectation of college or a sense of real possibility for well-paid work down the line. That lack of expectation is in part created within the family but it's enforced as well by society overall, which gives so little in the way of resources or real hope of class movement to many citizens, in spite of its claims to the contrary.

There's lots of material for future discussion and debate here--but the necessary starting point seems to me that we all have to leave behind the language of mommy wars and work together toward a world not just friendly to mommies of all backgrounds and to their families but active on their behalf. Our fortunes are linked. All our learning ought to teach us that much.

Ready When You Are

This book takes the name Ready from the mouths of the women I spoke to, who said about themselves that they started their families when they felt ready, at or after 35. And they thought they were readier than they would have been earlier in their lives.

Key words in that last bit are they and their lives. Other women feel ready earlier, and more power to them. In contrast with the not-so-remote expectation that every woman would start her family in her early twenties, the good news is that now a woman can start her family whenever she (and often her partner) personally feel ready, not on a prescriptive time table set by social convention. Some women don't want kids at all, though they still want romantic lives, and that is now an option too. "Thank god for birth control," as one of the women I interviewed put it.

But there are other ways of reading the word Ready--and one way, apparently, sees an implied "readier than thou" take. That's not the book's attitude, but perhaps it may seem so on a quick read through. After all, the personal feelings of the women I interviewed were backed up by evidence that women who wait have higher long-term salaries than women with comparable degrees who start their families earlier, by a greater likelihood that later moms will be married or otherwise stably networked (meaning they have help and money), and by evidence that women who start later live longer! Several pieces on the book have understood me to argue that later moms make better moms, or that I'm joining in the fabled War among the Moms (the same war Miriam Peskowitz suggested was a media creation a few years back).

On the contrary, I offered all that info in contrast to the usual negative line we get in the media about later moms (most discussions of later motherhood focus on fertility decline, with no exploration of why so many women choose to delay, let alone of why so many succeed). Fodder for a long-delayed discussion of all the different strategies moms are taking to best provide for their families and themselves in all segments of our often family-hostile world. It could be taken as the basis for an argument against starting earlier--if, that is, the whole idea of expanding women's options were ignored. Or of increasing support for all moms and their kids, and learning from what real women are doing, rather than bossing them around.

In my book, we've had enough of that bossing. At long last women begin to get to write their life stories by their own lights. And they don't all tell the same tale. This book happens to be about the radically new story of women who start their families much later than their mothers did. Of course there are other stories too.

Nor do women today write their stories in a world where everybody gets equal opportunity. For many moms, starting families later provides an effective shadow benefits system--higher salaries and more clout to negotiate family friendly schedules at work. In the current environment, waiting for these benefits makes sense for many women (though that's not the only reason women wait--see post below). For most women, education is also part of the story behind delay. But those aren't the only factors that determine whether a woman feels ready for family. And readiness isn't always required for a happy family--lots of people turn unplanned pregnancies into something wonderful. After all, that was pretty much the way of the world until 1960. But there were a lot of drawbacks to the old way--for many. Nowadays, we can choose when and if we start our families. And readiness, however we define it for ourselves, becomes an important part of that decision-making process.

But the fact that delaying family links to increased benefits raises the follow-up question: Why aren't those benefits available to everybody? Why should women have to wait for family in order to get a decent wage, health benefits and some time to spend with their kids?

Why that's so now, I'd argue, has much to do with the low status that women have had til recently in the work world--and our change in status is linked in some measure to the rise in the delay phenom. But the scene is nothing if not dynamic. It seems possible that the trickle up of women into the upper ranks of business may soon lead to a trickle down of straightforward (not shadowy) family-friendly benefits to women (and men) and their families at all levels of society and regardless of their age at first birth. If we can get it together to recognize that all our nation's kids are essential to our common future--rather than taking the view that "it's your family, it's your problem," we'll be moving toward real positive change. We're already farther down that road than ever before, though there remains a good way still to go.