#childlessness

#childlessness

It hit me hard, out of nowhere. I'm never going to have children. I'm 55 years old; that ship has sailed. It disappeared from my biological horizon years ago a once fertile landscape that held so much hope, promise and seemingly endless possibility. A horizon that, sadly, I took for granted. Did I forget to wind my biological clock? I admit to hearing it ticking, but at some point the throes of everyday life and loss drowned out the alarm until it eventually perished

Yet perhaps it's time we ask not only why aren't women having babies?, but also why aren't men? Men are largely invisible in the birthrate debate. It's ironic that amid all the pontificating and the policy ideas for encouraging more women to have babies a conversation often being had by men the other half of humanity is strikingly underexamined. Part of the problem is an absence of data: like many European countries, we don't really have any on male fertility.