Is 40 Really the New 30? A Probing Billboard

There seems to be something about round numbers that catch my eye now.  Maybe it’s because I landed on a round figure myself a few months ago (30), or maybe it’s because there are certain stigmas attached to most of the decade-ages.  If you are turning 20, you need to know that you are no longer a teenager, you should be doing something about your career path and you need to start putting childish ways behind you and become responsible.  If you are turning 30, ideally your work life should be stable, you should be in a secure relationship and parenthood has either started or is at least in the foreseeable future.  But if you are 40: You are either married, or you aren’t.  You either own a house, or you don’t.  And you either have children, or.....

As I was driving down Khyberpas in Newmarket on my usual route to the gym a few days ago, I couldn’t help but notice the new bulletin board to the left of a set of traffic lights I’d stopped at.  “Is 40 really the new 30?” it asked the question without apology and without beating around the bush.  I felt a surge of panic as I read the remainder of the board; it was posted by Fertility Associates, a group of fertility specialists who operate a clinic by the Mercy Ascot hospital. 

I felt bad enough reading it as a thirty year old.  There might still be time for me, but there isn’t heaps of it.  I feel I’ve almost reached an age where, even if I met someone tomorrow, there is still a year of courting, and then a year of engagement before a marriage would come to be.  I would then ideally need to start having children immediately if I was to have any more than two. 

So what about the female driver who is 40?  Or is 39 and is as single as one can be?  What hope is there?  We know where we are at, because we’ve been told about the reproductive years since we were in high school and sex education states such facts.  We have mothers, and we know what menopause is and generally at what age it occurs.  The board hinted at woman putting their careers first, and so the idea of parenting played second fiddle and was to wait until the last minute.  Of all the Christian women I know though, none of them choose to put their careers first.  The fact of the matter is there simply wasn’t a man waiting for them when the so-called ideal years of reproduction commenced.

 I visited a friend today who I used to flat with six or so years ago.  She got married just over a year ago, and is now more than half way through her first pregnancy.  It struck me (not for the first time) that she is the only friend of sorts that I have who has gotten married, and consequently is also the only one I know who is entering motherhood.  I feel it is odd that I have so many female friends, and yet I’ve never been to an engagement party, I’ve only been to one wedding, and I’ve never gone to visit a friend in hospital who has just had a baby.  It is not that any in my circle are without great qualities, talents, Godly values or attractive traits.   It is not that any of them are clearly single because they haven’t overcome some great ‘issue’.  I honestly believe the reason is simply that no man ever arrived on the scene.

 I stood in the kitchen of my friend’s small unit listening to her tell me all about the costs involved of buying baby gear and what she’d been leant from a number of family members as in-the-family hand me downs.  A bassinet, clothes, a stroller.  She told me how there was quite a few others in her church who had recently had babies and how they’d been passing on advice.   Things like what sort of capsule to purchase (what is a capsule?) as well as an exchange of stories about morning sickness. 

I once dated a guy from her church; this was a few years ago now.  We met at a dance and really hit it off, we were obviously liked each other.

We went out once, and on the day of what was to be our second date he texted me to say he couldn’t see me because he didn’t have the “time or the capacity”.  Another friend of mine who used to go to that same church heard about a year later (that is, a year after we’d gone out), he gotten married to another girl from his church.  I’d be highly surprised if he wasn’t one of these new-to-parenting people, ready to dispense new-father advice without any reluctance.  Who wouldn’t be thinking about kids after having been married a few years?

 

It still hurts, even those some years have gone by.  “No time or capacity” must have been cue for “It’s not me, it’s you”, and so he found another.  Yet even after having seemingly lied to me, he was still lucky enough to find a spouse and live that life which all single Christians yearn for.  I’ve seen a few guys since then, but nothing has worked out. 

 

I feel like the years have been kind to my friend.  By starting married life close to the age of 30 she now gets to decide when to start a family, and how many to have as age will not be a barrier for her.  It is all very well for the rest of us, slowly climbing the ladder in our years, to reflect on the story of Sarah and Abraham, but such a story holds no hope for me personally.  For one, the reality is none of us are going to be able to reproduce at the age of 99 nor are we likely to be sexually active at such an age.  And for another, I’m not even sure I want to live that long let along bring another human being into the world at such a grand old age.

After leaving my friends house I nipped down to a nearby Christian book store to exchange a DVD I’d bought just before Christmas.  As I waited patiently at the counter I noticed the collection of ornamental crosses and engraved stones laid out in the display cabinet.  My eyes landed on one block piece that read: “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him”.  The word reward seemed to embrace all those who’d had babies, and dispel “the rest of us”.  There are other rewards, a small voice seemed to say inside my head.  But the truth is though that the gift of a baby is not a reward I want to miss out on.  I don’t want to be expected to welcome some other reward and have to match the same enthusiasm about it as I would if I was with child.  I don’t think anything else does compare.

I can really only draw the same conclusion here as that which I’ve always ended up with: there are no solid answers.  We don’t know why some people get married and others don’t, we don’t know why some people can have kids and others can’t.  We don’t know why some people can hurt others in their wake and still reap blessings, whilst others are sensitive towards fellow man yet are forever alone.  We don’t often choose the cards we are dealt with in this life, all we can really do is choose how we respond to them.

 -Wendie