Monday, February 13, 2006

A Doomed Society

This is some social commentary.

In Western Worlds the course for many is to go to school until they are 23, work until they are 30, then try to have kids. People are getting married later now. And having kids even later.

Many of use in our 30s were brought into the world by parents in their early 20s. My mom was 23 and my dad 25.

It is so ironic now that we have to spend so much effort getting our life on track before we think about children. A degree is standard now for most. And most women want to get a couple of years of work under their belt before they consider children. And of course, so do men.

So we have more and more women and men trying to conceive in their 30’s. Many of them do. Only 1 in 8 couple will be infertile. Although hanging around these blogs it seems everyone is that way.

Fewer and fewer couples have more than 2 children. In Canada we have 1.7 children per woman in 1992. I would think the US is similar.

http://atlas-dev.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/family/family1996/childrenathome/1

If we didn’t have immigrants Canada’s population would shrink generation in and generation out. And we would be in a whole world of trouble.

And many of us don’t get not being able to have children until it happens to us. We are told by sex education workers that is only takes one sperm and one egg. Although technically true, that one sperm needs to be one of 20 Million+. A man with just one sperm per go has essentially a zero chance of getting a woman pregnant. We spend our earlier years trying not to get pregnant or catch a STD. I wonder if this could be a pick-up line in a bar of women looking for a good time but not a baby or husband: “Hi, I have a low sperm count!”? Is that funny? Maybe not, my wife will likely groan when she reads this.

Enough. Back to work.

4 Comments:

At 5:41 PM, February 13, 2006, Blogger Winnifred said...

had my dh said that to me (although for us it's not low sperm count it's NO sperm count!) I would have jumped for joy and saved myself years of birth control pill.. but of course neither of us knew that then!

It's true that age has a lot to do with it - but we started trying to concieve at 24. We're 26 now, and still praying. And the stat i've always read on infertility is 1 in 6.... AND we plan on having at least 4 kids to up that 1.7 average! (kidding - has nothing to do with stats... but i do want more than 1.7 kids!)

:)

 
At 7:38 PM, February 13, 2006, Blogger DI_Dad said...

We laerned of my zero sperm count when I was 31 and she was 26. Besides being emotionally shocked we were financially unable to consider IVF and ICSI yet. Only after 4 years of marriage were we able to start all the medical stuff to no avail. After ywo IVF/ICSI ops and several plus IUI/DI cycles did we end up with our first child when I was 38 and my wife 33. My own parents had me at 29, dad, and 24, mom, back in the early 60s. A different time indeed. A nine year difference between each spouse across both couples. Wild.

I am enjoyimng your blog as its rare to see a H/W team on one blog such as yours. Most as you know are the Ws with a few H blogs especially on this topic.

 
At 8:44 PM, February 14, 2006, Blogger MAX said...

I've thought about that on occasions..if only I had known that I had zero sperm when I was in my late teens early twenties, I'm sure I would have had a lot more fun without flipping out about getting someone pregnant !

 
At 6:26 AM, February 17, 2006, Blogger x said...

you are so right. Sex education scares us into believing that getting pg is so easy and then you grow up and realize that there is alot of misinformation out there. My mom was 23 when she had me. I'm 30. I know that's not old but sometimes it feels like it.

 

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