OPINION:Today's professionally ambitious women aren't ready to settle down in their 20s, writes Ailish Connelly.
THE NEXT time someone queries why aren't you married yet, with all the attendant implications, and a question that's asked rather more of women than men, you can tell them you have quite enough laundry to do, thank you. (Or that you are still hoping to have a shot at Miss/Mr Ireland, or that you don't want your parents to drop dead from sheer happiness.) It has been shown recently that Europe-wide, women do many more hours per week housework than men. Like we needed a survey to winkle out such groundbreaking news. Every couple, married or otherwise, could attest to this fact and it seems getting the ring on the finger makes things worse.
So why is it that some women, younger ones in particular, still seem so gung-ho for the big bash, the fairytale do in a castle, currently very popular in post boom Ireland? Despite the tightening pockets, people see nothing odd in lashing out tens of thousands on the perfect day. Time was when you'd say, "sure it's only the once". But that's no longer a racing certainty.
And yet gangs of 30 and 40-something-year-old women are swarming around wearing their cocktail dresses, having a whale of a time, putting the whole commitment and family issue on the back burner.
According to Central Statistics Office figures for 2005, the birth rate among women in their 20s that year was the lowest recorded, while the birth rate for late thirtysomethings was the highest since 1982. Have younger women really given up in despair or is it the dirty socks on the floor syndrome and the stinky, (Michelle Obama's word) baggage that comes with it? Hype or not, lavish weddings or not, it seems we have a somewhat schizophrenic attitude towards the whole settling down business.
One 27-year-old woman told me it's the fault of the guys. Somewhere in the mid-20s, the tables turn; where the girls were once in charge, now the men are - and gorgeous young women are left reeling, wondering where are all the men? Hint, girls, staring at a goggle box in your nearest watering hole, bellowing about offside rules and penalty shoot-outs.
"They see a woman in her late 20s and they run for the hills. They think every girl their own age wants to settle down and are desperate to have their babies. Pull...ease." This from a stunning woman groomed within an inch of her life. And does she? Significant eye roll. "Well, yes, I'd love to some day, with the right guy but I'm not settling for just anyone."
But the right guys, ie the ones her age, are man-boys, men who behave like boys and are chasing after the 18 and 19 year olds who totter around, Lolita like, on weekend nights in their Topshop platforms. These fellas aren't long out of college, are tasting independence, money and freedom for the first time. Very often the last thing on their minds is settling down, not to mention scientific evidence that the slightly older man/younger woman dynamic has evolved in most cultures because of significant biological advantages.
Age differences have historically promoted the birth and survival of more children. So that makes it all right then? The men-boys get to hare around because it's their nature and the women are accused of being too into their careers to have children, or of being needy or hysterical or desperate.
Anecdotally, what many of the women don't want is to parent alone. And this generation of 20/30 somethings are, unlike their fiftysomething parents who met and married in their early 20s, the first generation of professionally ambitious women who aren't ready to settle down in their 20s.
Celebrity culture - I use the term loosely - has also deluded us into imagining we can parade around until our mid to late 30s and then think about finding a mate and having children. If Nicole can do it and Madonna did it, and Halle Berry did it, why can't I? Well, of course you can try, and careers and society will often dictate that you can, but it may not go as smoothly as you planned. While it doesn't dawn on some people that their fertility will decline from their late 30s onwards, many couples do assume now they may find it difficult to conceive.
Because biologically the best time for women to have children is in their mid-20s to early 30s, whether your career is established or not, whether you are a Hollywood star and have so much money you can buy your way out of angst or not. We store up huge amounts of trouble trying to circumvent this fact, with increasing rates of infertility, secondary infertility, miscarriage and birth defects. Our grandmothers had no choice as to when they had their children; young women today do. Paternal leave, when it is eventually legislated for, will help young people with their choices. And learning the finer points of the offside rules won't hurt either.