The uncertain transition to motherhood in the mid 30s Lia ...€¦ · – My professional life is: today I’m here; tomorrow I'm elsewhere in the world. I'm with someone for some

Childbearing intentions and postponement in times of uncertainty

30th May 2013 | ICS-UL | Lisbon

The uncertain transition to motherhood in the mid 30s

Lia Pappámikail



• Objectives

– Youth, transitions and the «eternal» delayed adulthood debate (social and scientific arenas)

– Brief overview of cases: Maria and Carla

– Diversities and commonalities between cases and some themes and issues to explore



• The issue of postponed parenthood in the context of the transitions to adulthood debate: – the role of education and labour market

– patterns and models for the life cycle organization (conventional sequences, but later in the life cycle and new sequences linked to some urge of singular pathways) culture or structural constraints?

– Parenthood as the ultimate transition to adulthood? the issue of social recognition as an adult

– Mid thirties and the challenges of biological limits: identity vs. body



Overview of cases • Maria, 35, lives alone, is in a relationship at a distance

– Conservative, catholic family background – Remembers a not very pleasant family climate while growing up – Family and peer pressures towards a «conventional» life course

and gender role – Professional life marked by instability (4 jobs, several periods of

unemployment, international career – 4 different countries and a new one to follow)

– Identity centered in professional activity, devaluation of other life dimensions (leisure, relationships and unwillingness to have children) freedom to explore life and «help others» and no responsibility to hold her back



Overview of cases • Carla, 35, lives alone but with parental support, isn’t in a

relationship at present – Middle class family background, interior Portugal – Good relationships with parents and sibling – Professional trajectory marked by instability, unemployment

between jobs (up to 1 year); – Rising professional vulnerability at present (working with no

salary, waiting for clarification from employer) – Refusal of «conventional» life course and gender roles – Unwillingness to have children at present (no stable

relationship, no biological appeal)... But some fears regarding loneliness in the future.



Some interpretative clues to explore.... • Willingness to have children and «alternative» gender

identities: refusal of normative life cycle patterns – Society brainwashes us, isn’t it? Happiness, is to have a

degree, to marry, to have children, a car parked outside, a mortgage to pay, a dog, two cars ... and that is what we are taught that happiness is. I never saw much of it. When you were 18, 20 years, did you already think that way? It was when I started to think: “This is not what I want, nor it is how I see my life”. (Maria)

– The idea of marriage, children, having a degree... never crossed my mind. (...) Do you think that women’s fulfilment implies necessarily to have children? No. I think this is something that ... Here is the tyranny of the norm! The primacy of the biological question, I do not think so. (Carla)



Some interpretative clues to explore... • Willingness to have children and «alternative» gender identities:

personal fulfilment, freedom and career centred trajectories

– My professional life is: today I’m here; tomorrow I'm elsewhere in the world. (...) I'm with someone for some time now, but a few years ago, when I was working at an international level but still living in Portugal, [mobility] was exactly the ingredient that was admired in the beginning [of a relationship] and that would eventually end up breaking it. Because my life was to go from one side to another, meeting people, and this caused insecurities. [My professional life] interferes [with my personal life] because of the distance, but if I have to choose, I choose my professional life.

– I take responsibility for my life and I decide for myself. If I had a child, I wouldn’t

take a child to the middle of Africa at a remote place where a child could have a disease like malaria or so. I’m not able to have that responsibility, nor to live with that guilt. (...) Having children, maybe it’s like living a second childhood. I do not want responsibility, I want freedom, I want to live my own life and do what I like. I want to be with people I care about. (Maria)



Some interpretative clues to explore...

• Biology, Choice and the Relationship with the future: (un)certainties

Choice...

[I don’t want to have children]. It is not definitive still, but it is probably a “No”. And taking in account my age, think is increasingly ... because, until now, I have never felt it [the desire to have children] and my idea, when I think about it, is still “No”. The first thought that cross my mind is: “Children? No! Maybe this will be difficult to change. (Maria)





Biology...

When I see a child: “So cute!” But it's not something that I feel... for instance, there are many women for whom the biological issue at age 35... they feel it strongly. I don’t feel it ... because I think that this is a very biological issue. I think that people who decide to have children do it basically for biological reasons, because rationally I don’t think there is so much reason to have children. Therefore, this biological issue (maybe because I was always late, even from the biological point of view), maybe that's why I still don’t feel it. (Carla)





Future... (...). I have some fear of having this idea, fear of

regretting it in the future. (...) A negative aspect? (...) It is the loneliness issue, when I have 70, 80 years. (Carla)



• Under pressure?: childless women above 35

– Can constrained postponements became assertive choices? The fact that I didn’t find a job, didn’t have a stable economic situation, was

undoubtedly a circumstance that conditioned and determined the fact that I didn’t have children in the past. Another circumstance is the biological one: as I took too long to make the decision, now I think that I don’t feel like it, no longer want to (...). It is the issue of freedom, much more than the economic question. (Maria)

– Can convicted unwillingness to have children fall in certain conditions? So, when I think about it ... except if in a few years there is a biological card

that makes me nullify these questions, rational reasons are still more important (Carla)

I like children. Once I was in Africa, in Guinea-Bissau, there was a child, crying, because her mother had abandoned her, and at that moment I thought: “Don’t tell me that I'll have to take this child and that I will have to adopt someone!” (Maria)



• Unwillingness to have children, because... ... It would interfere with professional life, projects and

present life style: total freedom and lack of responsibility.

... In the present context there are no social or economic conditions (employment vulnerability, ineffective or absent family policies).

... There is no biological urge or need to have children of one’s own, refusal to adopt conventional gender roles and behaviours.

...there are concerns about what kind of parent one would become.



• Unwillingness to have children in principle, however... ... 35 is still too soon for a definitive no to the idea

of having children.

... There is some fear of possible future regrets, fear of loneliness.

... There is a chance to find the right/different partner.

... An accidental pregnancy may occur, forcing the subject to a difficult decision.



I don’t want to be a mother and I sometimes have the propensity to criticize. But if people were like me, I wouldn’t have been born! (Carla)

Documents

The uncertain transition to motherhood in the mid 30s Lia ...€¦ · – My professional life is: today I’m here; tomorrow I'm elsewhere in the world. I'm with someone for some