3 ms·
One dark issue here is that you can surely let yourself to be immature towards the age of 35, but for women it becomes progressively harder to have children aft
by thriftwy 3y ago
One dark issue here is that you can surely let yourself to be immature towards the age of 35, but for women it becomes progressively harder to have children after this point. Males have it easier, but if you plan to have a "normative" family with small age gap between spouses, these problems are also yours. Quality of the offspring also suffers somewhat, though this may be offset by superior medicine and post-natal care.
That, or exchange a prolonged youth for having effectively no adulthood, while also moving your society in unsustainable mode*
So our social behavior no longer matches our biology, in which by a quirk we (at least women) are only fertile for around 1/4 of our total life, and less than that in socially acceptable fashion.
* Caveat emptor, perhaps it would be great if we could deflate population of most countries by having low birth rate for a while, but this is not what we are good at - instead, countries seem to race into hyperurbanization and population replacement
- Hendrikto 3y ago> we (at least women) are only fertile for around 1/4 of our total life What? Women become infertile around 45-50. Going with the lower bound, your 1/4 figure implies a lifespan of 180 years.
- nerdponx 3y agoMuch higher probability of birth defects and fertility problems at that point, even if you're still menstruating.
- kpw94 3y agoFor people wondering exactly how "much higher probability". This is for example down syndrome, but many of the other syndroms follow the same trend: https://courses.fetalmedicine.com/images/Course/Course.007-000.png https://courses.fetalmedicine.com/images/Course/Course.007-0... Notice the y-axis is a log scale. This may be offset if women froze their eggs beforehand, but, obviously not everyone can afford it, and also until recently, it wasn't really needed as couples would have children earlier in life.
- danjoredd 3y agoMan that's insane! I have always wanted kids but never got married. I am a man in my late 20s so finding someone my own age is starting to scare me a little
- thriftwy 3y agoIt does not get that bad pre 35 so you do have some runway. Do not waste it all on that praised kidult stuff, though.
- htatche 3y agoThat's nonsense. Onwards from 35 it becomes exponentially harder for a woman to become pregnant, let alone the complications the child may have.
- thriftwy 3y agoWomen only become fertile at age 15, and socially acceptably fertile at 20. 45-50 is a very optimistic upper bound, even with that bound you end up with ~1/3 figure.
- Hendrikto 3y ago> Women only become fertile at age 15 More like 12-13, but you are right. I did not consider that.
- dragonwriter 3y agomenarche tends to average around 12 (with a wide range), but most cycles don’t involve actual ovulation for the first few years after menarche, so fertility and menarche aren’t simultaneous.
- Ancapistani 3y agoIt's interesting to me that the average age at menarche has been declining in recent years - and that we don't really know what that's the case. For example: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr146-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr146-508.pdf Now I'm wondering if there has been any change in the age of the onset of menopause, and whether that's been studied...
- thriftwy 3y agoThese who are able to have healthy offspring late in their lives are at tremendous evolutionary advantage now, whereas historically it was a selectionary 'meh'.
- Qem 3y agoI wonder if that leads society to unwittingly be selecting for longer lifespan, if maximum lifespan and maximum reproductive age are correlated.