What They Don’t Tell You in Sex Ed

The fertility industry in the United States is predicted to generate nearly $50 billion a year in revenue by the end of the decade. This industry would all but disappear if American women learned just one important fact in high school: Female fertility is not forever. The American Academy for Reproductive Medicine notes that “a woman’s best reproductive years are in her 20s. Fertility gradually declines in the 30s, particularly after age 35.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that “the fecundity of women decreases gradually but significantly beginning approximately at age 32 years and decreases more rapidly after age 37 years.” Somehow, this basic medical information is not being transmitted to young people.

If a woman wishes to have three children, some simple backwards arithmetic is in order. Let’s say that the last year she would want to have a child is at age 35, both for reasons of fertility and because after age 35 the risk of miscarriage, birth defects, Down syndrome, etc. increase significantly. She probably does not want to have her children “back-to-back,” either, so consider an “every other year” pattern of child spacing. This means that the third child is born when she is 35, the second when she is 33, and the first when she is 31. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that she needs to start trying to get pregnant when she is 30, at the latest, so that she can have the best chance of having those three kids, and avoiding expensive, uncomfortable, and often unsuccessful fertility treatments.

For the sake of this example, I will assume that this young woman would prefer to enter into parenthood married to the father of her children. Let’s take the age of 29 as the “honeymoon” year, where marriage is not yet complicated by parenting and the couple can do some traveling, eat out at restaurants, etc. That means marriage by age 28, and, engaged by aged 27, which probably means meeting the person you will be raising a family with no later than age 26. (By the way, the median age at first marriage for women in the United States in 2017 was 28.1 years, so this scenario is not far-fetched.)

At this point, I will say that I am glad that the Psychology Today site no longer allows reader commentary, because I am sure that a great deal of invective would otherwise be headed my way. I am reminded of a cartoon I saw recently with two people sitting at tables, one with a long line of eager buyers, and the other quite alone, with no one interested in what was on offer. The first, busy, popular table was selling “Pleasant Falsehoods.” The second, lonely table was dealing in “Unpleasant Truths.” Now, unmarried, childless women in their 30s are not going to enjoy reading the above paragraphs. I don’t blame them. I only wish that someone had laid out this timeline when they were 16. Then, their reaction might have been different: “Ten whole years to find the father of my children? No problem!”

Now what about the other side of this equation? What should we be telling 16-year-old boys about parenthood? Obviously, issues of fertility are only a concern to them vis-a-vis their partners. Perhaps what boys need to hear is that they are actually capable of becoming the type of men who a woman would want to marry, and that the surest way to achieve this state is to develop the habits of hard work and thrift. Through early and continued experience with paid work, by the time they turn 30 (men tend to marry women about two years younger than they are, on average), the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood will be nothing to fear.

Work is the best way to prepare boys and young men for the challenges of marriage and fatherhood. After-school and summer jobs used to be near-universal in our society and something was lost when we stopped valuing them. It has often been observed that college admissions officers don’t much value applicants who worked during high school, but prefer those with perfect GPAs and a host of (unpaid) extracurriculars, instead. Well, maybe that says a lot about college admissions officers, and about how going to college may not be the unalloyed good that we have been led to believe. Nearly two-thirds of high school graduates go off to college, but less than 60% of them end up earning a degree over the next six years. The other 40% would have been far better off never having started college in the first place, given the outrageous expense, opportunity costs, and debt associated with the endeavor. Add to those who don’t finish, the approximately one-third of college graduates who have not been adequately prepared to compete effectively in the marketplace. At best, only 40% of high school graduates should be going to college (and even those who do should be aware that college as it is currently structured takes way too long, costs way too much, and is way too easy).

Starting at age 16, young males could start learning a skilled trade, such as welding, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc. They could also start learning and advancing in the field of retail management (some might scoff, but store managers at Starbucks make much more than most mental health clinicians with master’s degrees). Starting one’s own business has always been an important engine of wealth creation in this country, but it is a path that is hardly mentioned in high school or college. Nor does saving and investing get much attention. A hard-working 16-year-old who gives up football for an after-school job and who invests $250 a week into a mutual fund will be worth at least $300,000 by the time he is ready to get married at age 30. And if our hard-working new husband keeps up with this savings and investment plan, he will have more than $4 million at his disposal by the time he is 60 years old.

If young people want to get married and to start families, they should be encouraged to do so. Working hard, saving and investing money, getting and staying married, and raising multiple children are not impossible goals. Just a generation ago, they were considered quite ordinary features of adult life. Nothing has changed about this but our attitudes.