This weekend, my friend and I are jogging in the park, sharing on-line dating stories. She’s just been on a date with a guy who sounds great on paper. And then they had an Awkward Conversation.
You see, she’s 40 and he’s 43. And apparently he wants children, and it’s important enough to him that he mentions it on the second date. My friend was a little taken aback that he brought it up so soon, but I wasn’t. After all, I called off a marriage-bound relationship when my boyfriend changed his mind about wanting to have kids. If having children is important, I’m all in favor of getting it on the table early. You could potentially save yourself enormous heartache.
But then Mr. On-line Romeo put his foot in it:
Jogging Buddy: ”So I said to him, “You know, I’m 40.”
Me: “Right. “And he’s not getting any younger himself.”
Jogging Buddy: “Exactly. I said, “Well, I’d consider adoption.”
Me: “What’d he say to that?”
Jogging Buddy: “He just said, ‘Oh, I’d rather have kids of my own. Even if you’re older, the doctors can really make miracles these days.’”
Me: “What the fuck? How fucking cavalier is that? Does he know what fertility treatments are like for women? All the drugs and needles and hormones and shit? Make miracles, my ass! That’s fucking easy for him to say. He just has to wank into a cup!”
Jogging Buddy: “Becky, you’re ranting.”
Now, this beloved friend of mine has already been through two rounds of fertility treatments in her late thirties. They were unsuccessful. So to have this guy breezily suggest that oh, any future wife of his should just get some fertility treatments, is pretty fucking insensitive. Or ignorant. Or both. Oddly, my jogging buddy wasn’t all that fazed by his response, but I was steamed on her behalf.
So ladies, did I overreact? Or is the guy an ignorant assweasel?
Assweasel may (MAY) be putting it a bit strongly but I do think it shows the ignorance a lot of men are living in when it comes to fertility. They just have no idea and never really have to think about it. Plus they think they can fail to commit to a relationship for the first 45 years and then get whatever they want, realize they can’t with a woman of their own age and then are “forced” to find a wife in her twenties. Perpetuating various vicious cycles. Hey maybe he is an assweasel.
Maybe not an assweasel, but definitely ignorant. I think men and women are so used to hearing about miracle fertility treatments, that unless we have first-hand experience, they DO sound easy-breezy-beautiful. I would guess most people also assume the success rate is higher than it is.
But men do often take a blase attitude about their female partners’ bodies when it comes to reproductive issues. They don’t think about the details–the pill can cause side effects, pregnancy can be arduous, fertility treatments can be hard on your health… (Aside: I had a boyfriend who once said, “I would never take a male birth control pill. Putting that stuff into my body everyday? That could be dangerous!” I was on the pill at the time. I was furious. Anyway, later I married him. Such is heterosexuality under patriarchy.)
The “great male narcissists” tag is especially apt here. Yes, wouldn’t it be great to pass on my perfect incredible best of all genes to a kid (he sounds like the type who’d hope for a boy)? I think it’s already a whole fucking lot to ask a woman to carry a child when she’s young and healthy and fecund in the first place, though, so what do I know.
@Spark: Exactly–men have NO idea what contraception, reproduction, fertility treatments actually involve. I find that kind of ignorance pretty fucking infuriating. This issue INVOLVES them, for fuck’s sake. But no, the Patriarchy is all about women bearing 100% of the burden.
It’s one thing when I hear a remark like that from a dumbass twentysomething with relatively little sexual experience. But a 43 year old? He has no excuse for being that ignorant.
I would have had the same reaction. It makes you wonder when people say only women are ‘baby-crazy’. At least his intentions are clear…
However I also know some women who seem to think there is a magic pill they can take to get pregnant at age 45 too…
ignorant assweasal for sure, no need to give him any slack on this. I LOVE when my friends go on rants, it wakes me up to what I’ve been letting slide. “Oh yeah, that was shitty… why didn’t I see that” is what I would have been thinking the rest of the day after hearing you “rant”.
assweasel.
i would have said the same things to her, and been just as confused when she wasn’t as worked up.
and i recognize that just having someone agree with you doesn’t mean you’re right… you and i seem to be in the minority thus far, becky.
but even aside from the fertility treatment fuckery, the idea that he wouldn’t even consider adoption would have made me think twice about him. i don’t have kids of my own, but adoption has been and always will be the number one method for me once i decide to start a family.
i DO feel as though we are making this guy represent a whole score of assholes… he probably never thought for one second he’d be the subject of conversation on a feminist blog… he was just being honest (however misogynist his honesty is… society tells him it’s okay to be that way, so why would he question, right?), so i’m gonna wrap up my own rant here…
@Becky: That’s why I don’t think you’re over-reacting. If we don’t say to guys, “Hey, you’re being kind of an assweasel. Let me explain why,” then they’ll never learn. If they answer, “I never thought about it that way, you’re right, that was a stupid thing to think/say,” then score one for the Revolution.
But for this particular guy… honestly, I take more offense at the “I’d prefer kids of my own” than the ill-informed “doctors can perform miracles.” There are a lot of reasons to choose fertility treatment over adoption, but there’s something kind of douchey about that statement all the same.
I’m voting assweasel, because not only is he assuming that bio-kids are better and that fertility treatments are No Big Deal, the entire approach is based on the idea that if a couple can’t have bio-kids, IT’S THE WOMAN’S FAULT. Can’t even consider that he might have fertility issues at 43…
Now I am suddenly pissed that men even have thoughts like “I want a family” when it usually depends on some woman carrying and birthing “their” child for them. I realize this is basic feminism 101 and yet I’m not sure it ever occurred to me in so clear a form. On the other hand I am sure it is frustrating to be a man and not have much control over whether you have kids or not but damn, that’s why you support reproductive freedom and adoption (including single father and gay adoption), riiiiight?
Since most media representation of fertility treatments labels them “miracles” I’m not surprised that someone sans female plumbing doesn’t understand what goes into those miracles.
I still vote assweasel, though.
I wouldn’t say assweasel–but I’d say he needs to be sensibilised to what fertility treatments mean for women. I think a LOT of men don’t know (and enough women, too).
As far as preferring a biological child, I wouldn’t throw stones, because I’d like one, too, although I would also consider adoption. It might be narcissistic, or just a desire to have an idea what might be coming to me, or just an innate thing, but I think he is not at all alone on that one.
Also? I love the word assweasel, which I didn’t know until recently (perhaps from this very blog?)
assweasel, for sure. and he’s very selfish to turn down the adoption option flat. there are so many kids on this earth that don’t have loving families. oh, the penis-centric male ego, why do you think your sperm are the most important, bestest on the planet?
I also vote assweasel, and agree on the narcissistic thing.
But I would like to throw this into the mix: What the hell is it about men in their 40s? Is it their hormones or something that causes so many of them to suddenly want to commit, settle down, and have children?
When I was in my 20s and wanted a relationship, they were all into playing around. Now that I want to play around, every guy I date wants to get married. That Mother Nature and her sense of humor…. sheesh.
This post and some conversations with male friends have got me thinking that it’s actually men who have the “biological ticking clocks”–they want children (genetically theirs, preferably male) and suddenly it’s like women’s bodies don’t exist anymore, or if they do, it’s only as receptacles/wombs. One of the most “untraditional” (read: thinks he’s a white shaman) men I know went all squicky on abortion about the same time he decided he “needed” to have a girlfriend and a child. I do think it’s hard to figure out what reproduction means the way our culture frames it. Sometimes we talk about it being 50-50 because men do half the genetic work, but it’s women who do 100% of the body work and about 85% of the child-rearing. Given this imbalance, of course women should make the decisions.
Sperm is one thing that is in no short supply, and yet it’s somehow all-important.
So yes, the rant was appropriate. Verdict: assweasel, though perhaps a teachable one.
It seems like (some) men reach a certain age, realize they want an heir, and just decide whomever they’re with at the time will make a suitable incubator, her own wishes be damned.
I think the “I want my own child” is not necessarily “selfish” (although we all definitely need to sort of interrogate what that’s about for us) but I think in the context of this guy it is more obnoxious. If you are 45 and suddenly want your first child, you have to know it might not be the old fashioned way. To be categorically against adoption in this scenario seems incredibly entitled to me.
This thread is also really driving home for me how much of patriarchy is about controlling women’s fertility and sex lives for mens’ goals (duh, I know) — you can really see how quickly their power is written out when we can control whether and how we have sex and bear and raise children. No wonder they are clinging to that power for dear life. I like how for the patriarch, reproductive technology is really all about men being able to get what they want, whenever they want it, biology be damned.
Uninformed maybe? If he’s really bringing this up on the second date he’s, for lack of a better word EAGER. To be honest he may still be in the magical little world that makes him think that when he’s 80 he can knock up a 25 year old without consequence. We know that’s not the truth but he may not. Uneducated but if she’s really interested, trainable.
Um . . . there was something else that was bothering me about this conversation, that women’s bodies are so pathologized and need to be fixed by doctors (even when they are working the way they were intended to).
Don’t want to get pregnant? Drugs. Want to get pregnant? More drugs and invasiveness. Pregnant a week too long? More drugs to get that baby out. Body not happy with pregnancy-inducing drugs? Major surgery where we weasel around with your internal organs.
It seems like there is a trend toward more and more medicalization of the “female condition,” and that embracing each step leads to a kind of tacit consent of the next step, when maybe it shouldn’t.
Caveat: Not saying anything about your friend or fertility treatments in general which are a blessing for many, many people.
Of course men have biological clocks, along with fertility that declines with age. They always have, they just don’t get called “baby crazy” for it.
The thing that stood out the most for me about this ignorant assweasel is the “Even if you’re older” stuff. He’s older than she is! Funny how some things haven’t changed since Henry VIII.
bellacoker I know what you mean and am equally grossed out by this man’s assumption that he and the male medical world can just invent “solutions” to women’s fertility, but unfortunately I associate these arguments with my supposedly “progressive” yet traditional Catholic friends who use the argument that women’s bodies have been pathologized medically in order to argue against contraceptives and reproductive technology.
A couple of reactions:
1) Clearly the guy is clueless AND insensitive, to be both so cavalier about her body (grrr) and so blasee about fertility treatments. Good lord, it’s that kind of “it’s the woman’s job” attitude that feeds the flames of societal gender imbalances.
2) At the same time, until I needed fertility treatments, I really had no clue how screwed up they would be, and how much they would mess with my body AND mind. And I knew a heck of a lot about it already from having written about reproductive technologies as a science writer. I knew the TECHNICAL aspects. Not how heart-wrenching they’d be. I really didn’t understand the depth of both how infrequently fertility treatments actually work (having read about “the miracles” regularly – and then getting told we only had a six percent chance of success, though there was no specific issue), and how all the hormones really, really screw up your brain. (Not to mention longterm effects – those I was aware of)
Now, on the other side, knowing just how slim a chance we had, and how much science went into making our baby happen, he seems all the more “miraculous” that we conceived and I carried him to term at all. All the platitudes have new meaning for me. So I feel like giving many men (and women) some slack for not knowing that medicine can’t fix everything. I feel like I and many women I know got sold a bill of goods that was faulty in terms of how good and successful fertility treatments can be – and how late. I’m not surprised that men – who tend to put off the issue even more than women – get taken unawares, too.
However, that DOES NOT excuse this guy’s being so friggin’ cavalier about what is really very serious, and what will wreak havoc on HER body. Especially since it’s clearly on HIS mind already. This guy needs to read some recent research. I’d be happy to send your friend some links.
And no, BeckySharper – you did NOT overreact!
elibard, thanks for sharing your experience. Interesting to see how far apart perception and reality are in our culture when it comes to fertility treatments. I agree that attitudes such as this guy’s are assweasely. Though as others mentioned above, wanting biological kids shouldn’t make someone “selfish.” We shouldn’t judge how people build their families. As in this case, for a guy to be unwilling to consider adoption in lieu of IVF etc. is unfair. For a couple to hope it works out “the old fashioned way” before moving on to other options is entirely reasonable.
I also don’t like the argument that people who want biological children are selfish because there are millions of children that need to be adopted. I also find it interesting that these types of arguments come from childless people.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to have biological children and wanting to go through the process of being pregnant.
I think as someone said before this guy is just ignorant about fertility treatments. Until a few years ago I didn’t even know the ins and outs of IVF. But Becky as you mentioned this was there second date. How was he to know she had been through IVF before, maybe if he did he would not have mentioned it.
I agree that he’s an asshat, but I can’t quite work out whether I think he’s better or worse than the 45 year olds who will only date women in their 20s because those women have fresh eggs.
You know the ones I’m talking about – on their Match.com profile it lists their age as 45 but says they’re only interested in women from 18 to 29 and are looking to settle down. They’re womb-shopping! They’ve suddenly decided they want children but aren’t going to deal with having to support a woman near their own age with these issues of late maternal age, infertility and the adoption question. So while I think he’s kind of a jerk for being so dismissive of adoption and treating the concerns of a woman in having to deal with the fertility madness but I also think maybe he’s got to get a little bit less distain for at least dating a woman near his own age.
Marylynn, you took the words out of my mouth.
Ditto Marylynn! The cavalier attitude towards IVF (that flagrant lack of regard for all the crap a woman undergoing these procedures and treatments has to endure) is definitely sneer-worthy, but a guy gets maturity points from me for not using his ticking biological clock as an excuse to shop around for a mate old enough to be his daughter (or thereabouts). He sounds like he might be trainable, if your friend has the patience and likes everything else about him.
Er, make that “young enough to be his daughter”. Or the creepy immature perv in the midst of a mid-life crisis is old enough to be her father…Whichever!
Assweasel.
Not for his desires, but for being forty-f**king-three years old and not bothering to think about those desires.
[...] So ladies, I have an update to my Friday post about my friend and her possibly assweaselly suitor . [...]