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"Someday you'll meet someone, fall in love, get married and have children." Sound familiar? But what our mothers didn't tell us was that it doesn't necessarily have to be in that order.
"For me, the time for the whole marriage and children thing just never lined up," says Kirsten, 36, an investment banker in New York City. "I was too busy building my career in my twenties. The men I met were busy with their careers too and not serious about relationships. I kept thinking it would just 'happen,' that it would all fall into place and it wasn't until I was celebrating my 35th birthday, that I realized the whole procreation scene was not adding up for me . I was not in a relationship and even if I did meet someone, it would take some time for things to develop. For me it was a time issue. I had the money but I was running out of time."
That's when Kirsten got out her calendar and took the matter of family planning in her own hands. She checked out the viability of her remaining eggs, researched sperm donors, scheduled an artificial insemination procedure and within a few months she was pregnant. Time was no longer the issue for Kirsten.
More and more single women of a certain age are choosing to heed the alarms of the biological clock . The Census Bureau reports that 40 percent of never-married women in their 30s have a child. And single motherhood for both divorced and never-married women continues to rise. In 1970 there were 3.4 million single mothers in the United States; now there are nearly 10 million.
Although this population is on the rise and the social stigma once associated with single parenthood seems to be fading, advocates for marriage and the family express concern for the child. "It's not the social stigma of single parenthood that worries me," says Tian Dayton, Ph.D., author of Heartwounds and Trauma and Addiction, "it's that the richness and depth of the child's outer life - the longevity and commitment of parental relationships - translate into a more solid inner world for a growing child." While Barbara Curry, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Charleston, South Carolina, may agree with the importance of a family structure for the development of a child, she also supports the decision of women in their thirties choosing to have children on their own. "Fertility starts to decrease after a woman is 35 and further reduces to a 30% chance of becoming pregnant after she is forty. This is not a fact that well educated, single women take lightly," says Barbara.
Deborah Wolf, a psychotherapist in New York City, says of her clients deciding to be single mothers, "These women have more wisdom and self knowledge by this age. They actually want a child, have done their homework and are in an emotionally good place to mother." She goes on to say that these women have developed strong extended family networks and systems of support. However both therapists stress the importance of examining the choice to have a child alone.
Ask yourself these questions if you're deciding to have a child on your own.
These are based on questions from The Complete Single Mother by Andrea Engber and Leah Klunger, PhD:
How will the father play a role in your child's life?
Do you have an extended family in place that can support you and your choice?
Are you emotionally prepared to be judged by others and to handle negative feedback?
Do you think having a child will fill a void in your own life?
Are you able to mother yourself when you need to?
How will you explain your choice to become a single mother to your child?
Are you having a child so a relationship can continue?
Are you prepared for the physical and emotional stress of pregnancy?
Do you have all of your legal and financial matters in order?
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