The Social Psychology of Parenting

“So let’s start with one of the key issues, when is the right time to have a baby? We know from medical literature that there is not some time in which a woman should become a mother. I have done research with postgraduate students looking at the experience of women who have become mothers over 35 and 40. One of these studies looked at the media reports on older mothers and it found that older mothers were often constructed as leaving motherhood late through choice because they were pursuing their careers. When the older mothers were interviewed, it became apparent that they were very aware of societal issues around women and infertility post 35 and the ticking biological clock, and many of them claimed that they actually timed their pregnancies because of this, with some of them claiming that they actually became mothers before they had ideally wanted to because they were scared that they wouldn’t become mothers otherwise.”