Inevitably, most women will have to deal with a litany of unsolicited pregnancy tropes. I’ve experienced the following gems from friends and family alike: You’re not getting any younger, or have you ever thought of freezing your eggs?
Hopefully, this latest development from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will ease the pressures women feel to conceive at a younger age.
According to the CDC, more women are having babies in their 30s than women in their 20s. What’s more, the average age women in the U.S. have their first child have also increased.
First-time mothers are waiting until the age of 28 to take the leap, a two-year uptick from 2014. In 2000 the average age women conceived was 24 and in 1970 it was 21. Wowzers!
Here are some powerful quotes on the joys of motherhood:
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of the rainbow. “— Maya Angelou
“Birth is the epicenter of women’s power.”— Ani DiFranco
“I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is.”— Oprah
“We have a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong.” Laura Stavoe Harm
“Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.”— Robert Browning
Motherhood isn’t for everyone, so I have much respect for women who choose otherwise, like these brave souls:
“To abjure [motherhood’s] joys is to call into question your capacity for unconditional love, selfless care for others, dedication to the wellbeing of future generations and service to your country.”— Catherine Mayer
“We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own “happily ever after” for ourselves”— Jennifer Aniston
“Motherhood has never been an ambition. I don’t think like that.”— Renee Zellweger
“Everybody with a womb doesn’t have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal cords has to be an opera singer”— Gloria Steinem
” I want to have kids when there’s nothing else I want more.”— Sarah Silverman
Photo via Modern Hepburn
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