Rachel Lehmann-Haupt was in her 30s and seemed to have it all—a successful career in journalism, a beautiful Manhattan apartment, and a great boyfriend. But when her relationship suddenly ended, she felt compelled to confront her looming biological clock. In her memoir, “In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood,” Lehmann-Haupt, who has always wanted to be a mom, interviews experts and women from around the country about the options available for having a baby later in life—from egg freezing to single motherhood to “insta-families.”
What made you decide to write a book about what you call “delayed” motherhood?
The book is really about the choices that women have when they are getting into a period when their fertility is not as strong. The opportunity I had was really my own personal circumstance. I saw myself single, approaching the age of 35, and also seeing a lot of women and men around me in this situation. Particularly in cities, where people are very focused on their career and where it’s more expensive, people put their dating life and relationship life and their family life on the back burner until later—mostly until they’re in a better economic situation.
You interviewed women from all over the country who chose to become single mothers. What about their experiences surprised you the most?
What surprised me was how open-minded people are about new choices that people are making in terms of getting to motherhood. Single motherhood is so much more accepted, even in more conservative parts of the country. People aren’t batting an eye about it as much as they would have, 20 or even 10 years ago. And there are a lot of [single mothers] now. I do really believe that it’s important for a kid to have a dad. But then again, the other thing about single motherhood is that a lot of these women end up marrying Mr. Right later, and Mr. Right adopts their kids. So there are all kinds of ways to form your “right” family—it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the traditional order.
What do you think are some of the advantages to becoming a mother later in life?
A lot of my friends have had kids in the past year, and the thing that I’ve noticed is that they just have a lot more confidence. I remember talking with friends who had kids in their late 20s or early 30s, and they all talked about this incredible loss of themselves that they felt. I feel like these [older moms] didn’t feel that loss as much because they had so much time to get to know themselves. I’ve seen that across-the-board in older mothers. The
thing that is so sad is I wish the biology would keep up. I wish Mother
Nature would give us another 10 years, because us women deserve it.
You
discuss the phenomenon of “insta-families”: couples who marry later in
life and have children soon after the wedding. What were some of the
positives and negatives you found when you interviewed these types of
families?
Well,
the positive is that they were much more sure of what they wanted and
much more sure of their ability to be parents. But I worry about some
of the instant families I met. I feel like a lot of times, they rushed
into it because the woman wanted to [do it all] before she turned 40,
and so she married a bad guy. But most of these relationships seem to
be much more mature decisions, where they really know themselves and
they are really ready.
Throughout
the book, you debate whether or not to freeze your eggs. Was there a
defining moment that convinced you to finally commit to the procedure?
I
was in a very serious relationship from [age] 36 to 37. It looked like
it was leading towards something that was going to be about the future
and about family. Sadly, he could not commit to me, so I walked away
from the relationship. Right after that breakup, I wasn’t at all in a
position to start dating again, but I felt like I needed to do
something. Maybe it was a false sense of control to freeze my eggs, but
it was the choice that seemed right at the moment.
How
did Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book, “Creating a Life: What Every Woman Needs
to Know About Having a Baby and a Career,” which urged women to get
married and have a baby by age 35, affect you and the direction you
took in writing your own book?
That
book felt very punishing to me. She does have real facts on her side,
but is the answer to simply start earlier? Maybe. Maybe the next
generation coming up needs to have a completely different way of
adjusting their plans for the future.
Maybe
I didn’t make the best choices, maybe that’s why I’m here, now, at 39
without a baby. But my book was not about being a polemic to give an
answer, it was more about just preventing the emotions of being in the
situation rather than telling people the way to be. Sylvia Ann Hewlett
may very well be right that women need to start thinking about having
children younger.
If you could have readers take away one message from your book, what would it be?
Don’t
panic. Live your life, enjoy your life, you only have one life. Just
because you feel that you’re sort of not in the right place, you
shouldn’t feel desperate. Often, I think women of our generation still
buy into some older ideas about what a woman should be by the time
she’s a certain age. But you can be whatever you want to be.
