Comments on: Who Is Giving Birth in the U.S.?

By: Noah

Noah — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:43:51 +0000

Im having issues with your post images in Internet Explorer

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:03:18 +0000

I found this article to be very one-sided. There are many many reasons why women wait to have children and they do not always involve being educated. Some women do not want to have children, but become pregnant when birth-control fails. Some women abandon their children and the fathers or grandparents take the responsibility of raising the child. Many, many people have children so that they can receive more aid from the government, (this angers me the most). There are so many reasons why women choose to have or not have children. I have always believed that I would be a mother. I am still young at 28 years old, but have been busy with forming my career and going to school. With time I have begun to really think about the way that I would like my life to be and I’m not quite sure that it involves having children. This has come with growing up and not with being college educated. I watch my friends having children and don’t appreciate their lives. I love working with children, but like the choice of doing what I would like as an adult. Perhaps in more time. It is no woman’s fault how they have children, unless they refuse to make something of themselves and do the best for their children. Aka keep them safe (ex. abusive fathers, boyfriends,drugs), fed, clothed, and sheltered. Forget the IPODS and 400,000 houses. Number 1 goal is to take care of your responsibility WITH OUT draining the government as much as possible. Just my opinion anyways.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:40:53 +0000

“New fertility technology, for those who cannot get pregnant, or waited too long to try, is making parenthood possible later in life for those who can afford it.”

I have to disagree with this; I know more than one woman who experienced fertility problems in her 30s, tried fertility treatments ranging from hormone injections to in-vitro, and failed to conceive. Then some of them get desperate and load themselves up with multiple embryos, because their desire for a child is more important than the potential negative health outcomes for multiple-birth babies. Women are massively uninformed about the success of fertility treatment as they get older, and posts like yours, reassuring women that parenthood is possible later in life as long as you can afford it, don’t do anything to dispel these myths. I know a woman who, at 40, has been through 3 unsuccessful in-vitro treatments. Yet she’s lived with the same partner for 10 or 12 years now; maybe if she’d had a true understanding of the risks, she would have started her family earlier. Or maybe not, but at least her infertility wouldn’t have come as such a shock.

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:38:25 +0000

@cladner, I have to agree with your question/concern. It is not a wise decision to rear a child alone no matter what our society dictates as okay. I think some women have been given no other choice due to abandonment. While others had a choice and have decided that they can parent alone and have no desire for further input. A man’s economic role can make a difference, but the actual rearing-accountable-strategic upbringing of a little boy &/or girl is a duty. Parenting is a fulltime heart wrenching J O B and no child should be neglected of a male and female’s guidance on lifes lessons to be nurtured and protectd and most of all LOVED!

By: cladner

cladner — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:29:00 +0000

I don’t understand how this logic works:
“Perhaps…the willingness of women, especially mothers, to participate in the paid labor force, … demonstrate[s] that women can be trusted to make their own wise decisions when given the opportunity and resources to do so.”

First, I don’t know what you are defining as a wise decision. Putting off having children til a later age? For me, that worked, but for many, it’s just as wise to have children earlier.

And how does the willingness of women to work demonstrate that we can be trusted to make wise decisions? For stay-at-home moms (I am not one), they can be trusted, too.

I simply am not following your logic, so please clarify. Thank you!