When sitting down with your gynecologist it can be heartbreaking and anger inducing when they tell you to start thinking about having kids because you’re about to hit thirty-five. As though it’s something that has never crossed your mind before. Many women don’t want to have kids, so sure, they probably haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about when it’s the right time to have kids. But the majority of women will have children, and thanks to our biological clock there will be thought into when and how it will happen.
Research has found that women don’t put off children because of their careers or because they forgot to think about it, it’s simply because they haven’t found the right partner to have children with. When envisioning creating a family many women make the assumption that they will undertake the huge responsibility with a partner. And if the people you’re dating turn out t be duds, then popping out a few kids gets put on the backburner.
A recent study conducted by researchers at De Montfort University found that in order to prevent ‘panic partnering’ women were choosing to freeze their eggs. Two-thirds of the women interviewed didn’t want to rush into parenthood with the wrong person, and that was the reason for their choice. It, in fact, had very little to do with career choices. There have been very few qualitative studies regarding the reasons women choose social freezing, but the idea of a one-track minded career woman is an outdated one.