In times gone by, mothers would hope to have their daughters “married off” by the age of 25, or, at most, 30. They had a disconcerting way of talking about “getting your daughters off your hands”.
Thank heavens women are freer today to carve out their own careers and make their own decisions about when, where and if they choose to marry.
But if there are now no pushy mammas harrying young women into “making a good match”, with a view to future parenthood, there is still the ominous presence of the biological clock ticking ever louder as a young woman crosses that Rubicon of 30.
It is a genuine problem for many young women: they want to build their careers, and find a nice man with whom to build a nest. But sometimes it just takes time.
And an increasing number of such women are “buying” time by freezing their ovaries (or eggs) so that they may retrieve them later to conceive a child.
Most commonly, women embark on the egg-freezing endeavour in their 30s, when the biological clock begins to tick louder. But recently the BJOG – an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology – has urged women to have their eggs frozen while in their 20s, when the ovaries are “in good condition”. More than a thousand women froze their eggs in Britain in 2016, but the vast majority were over the age of 35, with reduced “quality”.
There’s a blog about egg-freezing (eggedonblog.com) written by Alice Mann, who has a touching story to tell. She froze 14 of her eggs (at a cost of £14,000) aged 37, but none brought her a baby. She felt cheated and disappointed.
Even with the help of modern biological science, Nature doesn’t always oblige. But there is another subtext here. For many women like Alice Mann, it’s about finding the right man, and getting men to commit.
Women in their 30s are putting their eggs on ice in the hope of having a baby later, because too many men of their own age or thereabouts just won’t commit to marriage and parenthood.
I’ve met these thirtysomething men. They’re often very nice, but in no hurry to settle down and start nesting. Why should they? They’re having a grand time just as things are. They can wait.
The pushy mammas (and papas) of old would have had something to say to say to them. “What are your intentions with regard to my daughter?” was the question barked out. But now, these chaps may well reply: “She can freeze her eggs, can’t she?”
………
When I’ve been asked to comment – by overseas media organisations, for example – about paedophile clergy in the Catholic Church, I’ve had to reply that I don’t know what to say. I’m baffled (and appalled) by the numbers quoted in American reports, and indeed, in relation to Ireland, too.
With one – utterly surprising – exception, I have never personally known, or known of, among my peers or direct acquaintances, a priest involved in a crime against minors. The one exception was a man who seemed a fine pastor whose single fall from grace was in isolated circumstances, and probably linked with alcohol. We must give priority to the victims, not the offenders, but his friends still recall the good things he did too.
I have never, either, read a forensically convincing analysis of the crime of child abuse. Such an analysis would need to begin by a candid description of what exactly is meant, in each case, by “abuse”.
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I was explaining to a visiting French student that there is an increase in the fox population in English towns; and that until recent years, there was a tradition of fox-hunting with hounds.
“Excuse me?” he said, puzzled.
“La chasse,” I explained. “Like you do in France, with stags.”
“Ah yes,” he nodded. “For venison, yes.” He still looked puzzled. “But you cannot eat a fox?”
And there, my friends, is a little illustration of the cultural divide across the Channel. The French, too, like to hunt – but only what they can eat. Chasing a fox for the sheer thrill of the chase itself (even accompanied by the argument that it benefits country life) is incomprehensible.
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