Broken Biological Clocks?
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Last week, we were all over at Mom’s celebrating her birthday and she said something to me that caught me off guard.
“Maids, you’re not pregnant or trying to get pregnant, are you?”
“No, Mom!” I said defensively. And then, predictably, I ran my hand along my flat, decidedly non-pregnant belly.
“Why do you ask that, Mom? Do I look pregnant?”
“Of course not,” she said. “It’s just that you are talking about pregnancy and babies a lot on your blog these days.”
She’s right. I am. In the past several weeks, I have posted about how not wanting kids is like its own language. Then I followed up with a post inquiring why people want kids. And then there was the post about the whole world being pregnant. And I’ve made it no secret here that despite the compelling kiddie chaos that is my contemporary life, I want two more kids. And soonish.
Why my admitted obsession with all things baby and belly? Is it simply that I am currently a citizen of a world where this is the conversational currency we deal in? Or is there something more? Is my preoccupation with pregnancy rooted in biology? Now that Baby is one and mere inches from toddlerhood, are there hormones coursing through me telling me to have another? Is that proverbial biological clock ticking away, telling me to procreate before it’s too late?
I don’t know.
The biological clock. I have always heard people talking about this clock and its ominous tick, tick, tick. I have always thought of the clock metaphor as appropriate insofar as there is a limited time during which a woman is fertile. (Patently, modern medicine is changing the inner-workings of this clock.) But I am not sure I have ever felt the ticking effect. Looking back, I think that I always wanted kids, I always thought babies were delicious, and after being married for a bit, it felt like the right time to go for it. It was not that one day there was silence and the next, there was that telltale ticking. To the extent that I thought about these things, I always chalked my desire to get pregnant up to reason and not hormones.
I just read Emma Gilbey Keller’s interesting article Why Isn’t My Biological Clock Ticking (Louder)? wherein she introduces us to Hillary Fields, a woman who admits she has never wanted kids, a woman who says she has been waiting for her clock to start ticking – to no avail. Fields remarks that despite her advancing age, she has felt no increased desire, biological or other, to have kids.
With this fascinating article now in my arsenal of baby obsession, I am left wondering once more about our decisions to become parents and to forgo parenthood. Are these decisions rooted in part in biological soil?
Have any of you experienced the ticking of that fabled biological clock? From experience or observation, do men have biological clocks? If so, is the ticking of the male clock almost inaudible insofar as the male fertility window is much bigger? Do you believe that we experience biological urges at certain points in our life to procreate or do you believe this is a metaphysical myth?
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Another wonderful topic, Aidan. I wonder if that biological urge is (biologically?) stronger in some than others, just as libido is stronger in some than others.
I believe that time, timing, and circumstances – including your environment (filled with talk of babies and pregnancy) all seeps into your consciousness.
Biological clocks certainly tick louder when we’re older. At 35+ you’ll hear the ticking more distinctly. At 40, even more so – if you’re someone who wants to parent, whether for the first time, or the fourth.
There are tremendous advantages to being a bit older when you have children; you don’t feel that you’re compromising or sacrificing quite so much, because you’ve lived many experiences without worrying about caring for little people. And you have more patience (I’ve observed). At the same time, you’re more tired. It’s a lot harder chasing toddlers at 40 than at 30, and dealing with teenagers at 50 rather than 40.
Another thoughtful post, and should be an interesting discussion.
sometimes i think my biological clock needs its batteries changed… one week it’ll be strong and working “correctly” and then the next it’s hardly ticking at all.
My biological clock was schizophrenic like nic’s. After Miss D. was born, I was certain that I was DONE. I gave away all of the baby gear, pregnancy clothes, books. And I felt fine about it. I felt like our family was complete.
Then suddenly, Miss D. was 3 and I just suddenly really, really, felt the need for another. I can’t even explain why.
I just remember cursing myself for being such an idiot as to give away ALL things baby-related.
I don’t know the answer, but Tiny Baby is only 7 months old (today!) and I’m already thinking, thinking, thinking about Baby #3.
And I worry it’s my own restlessness, my inability to be happy in the here and now, always looking for the next big thing. (Someone wrote about that recently…Heather maybe?) And what’s a bigger thing than a new baby? Small in size, but big in impact.
For the first time in my life, I think I really understand the biological clock. I never used to get it, which obviously meant I wasn’t ready. But it’s loud and clear now. And for me, the “clock” is about a lot of things. Wanting a child, of course, but also wanted the identity of being a mother. And wanting to share that with my husband. And then of course there’s the ancy “what if it takes a long time?” Etc etc.
I never felt (or heard) my biological clock ticking. Like you, I just thought it was the right next step after I got married and then I knew I’d have trouble with #2 so I got started way in advance of even being ready for #2 so that by the time it worked out, I’d be ready. I know it’s impossible for me to have another baby so I try not to think about it anymore (although my dozen or so pregnant friends certainly make it challenging) . But I know if it was possible, I’d probably desire a third because I think babies keep us young. I feel “young” when I tell people I have an 18 month old knowing their kids are all in grade school (even if I’m older than them in age). Although I may be more exhausted and more haggard looking from lack of sleep than the other moms with older kids, it’s my baby that keeps me energized. It’s my baby that keeps me going and warms me up on the tough days.
As far as men… I haven’t heard of any of my male friends stomping their feet, pressing for a baby. And since physiologically they don’t have as many issues with fertility due to age, I don’t think their clock is quite as loud.
such good questions … sort of hard for me because my first pregnancy was a surprise and so then it kind of followed from there and i never really had a tick-tock … but i do think from observing that there is something for women that’s real – the question i have is whether its biological or societal … not sure. do not sense that in men?
I never felt my biological clock urging me to have kids per se though like you after a couple of years of marriage, the time just seemed right to have a baby and 3 years later, a sibling. Now at 39, I feel it a little bit because I feel like I need to trade in that clock for an ipod or something and declare that I am officially done (perhaps I’m straining the metaphor?) My kids are nearly 8 1/2 and 5 1/2, well-adjusted and happy and we get to go on vacations, a baby would complicate that and yet, my husband and both feel like we have to decide soon, to fish or cut bait on this 3rd kid thing. That is our gender neutral “biological clock.”
I keep hoping for my clock to stop. I knew, after #6, that I was not having more children. It was not immediate, although my OB/GYN told me that I should not have more due to complications in my final pregnancy. I just knew, and as time went on it became more real to me. I could look at other people’s babies and want to hold them but not want to have them.
While the clock has stopped ticking, it only needs to be rewound to start again. I had a slight scare last month and it made me even sure that I want the clock to break for good!
Hi! I’m here from A Design So Vast. I’m a sucker for a well-written blog and am loving what I see here. I’m going to be 30 soon (tomorrow actually) and am currently childless *sniff* *sniff*. My biological clock is not really ticking, as much as it is banging and clanging LOUD.
I think heredity plays a part in baby lust (I have a supremely fertile family) BUT Also, I think the character of the potential co-creator plays in too. In my previous life, I was married. During that time I NEVER wanted children. Looking back, I think it was because subconsciously I knew that man would be a horrible father and that his genetic makeup was not a good match with mine. Now that I’m happily divorced and involved with a man who is more my equal–emotionally, mentally, physically–*I can’t wait* to be a Mom. But yes again, there is also that pesky part about being 30 which probably contributes too…
I am a happily married twenty-seven year old woman. I don’t want kids. I’ve never felt any urges to have kids. Sometimes, I lay awake at night and wonder why I fee this way. I wonder if something really is wrong with me or if one day I’ll change my mind. The article you gave the link for summed up how I feel so neatly.
However, when I’m with my husband and I look at that face that I love so much, I feel such an immense sense of sadness that I don’t want children and that no matter how much I try to talk myself into wanting them, I still don’t. In him I see everything, I see all the things I would hope we would pass on to a little boy (or girl), I see what an amazing father he would make, and I feel so sad that even this image of our little boy running around and laughing still does not illicit that want to become a parent.
Sometimes I just want to want to have a baby. And yet, no matter how much I want to want to be a mom, when I search my self for answers I know – I don’t want kids.
I was never interested in having kids or spending time with them. As a teenager, I always tried to get out of being drafted as the local neighborhood babysitter.
Then about a year ago, everything changed. I suddenly can’t get enough of babies, and yet it’s not as though I’m married and feel I should be having kids – i’m 27 and single. It happened so suddenly and completely I couldn’t not feel it was like a biological switch turned on.