The media is full of it.  In fact I could probably just stop typing right now and let that first sentence, with all its insinuated meanings, speak for me.  The media is full of it. 

It's all over the news, documentary specials are covering it, newspaper's are running double page spreads, loud mouth DJs are adding to the hysteria, even women's magazines, who should know better, are jumping on the bandwagon.  All this media frenzy is aimed at putting out the same basic message - Women Are Bad.  Today's women are selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed and, finally, they are getting their comeuppance.

Of course nobody's actually saying that in so many words, oh no that wouldn't be at all PC.  Instead the media is dressing the issue up in a protective coat of concern but the message remains the same - women bad - and don't say we didn't tell you so. 

So what have women done to deserve all this media interest?  Simple, they are leaving it too late in life to have babies and therefore an increasing number of them are suffering problems with conception.  However there is no attempt by the media to investigate the deeper reasons for why this is.  According to the media the reason for this rise in fertility problems is simple - women are putting their careers ahead of childbirth, women are not settling down until later in life because they are having too much fun.  In short - women are selfish and now they are paying the price. 

But as is so often the case the media have missed the point, or in this case, a whole quiver full of points.  Let's start off with the ‘career woman' myth.  The media would have you believe that most women now facing fertility problems was a ‘career woman'.  The insinuation is that at one time these women were in high powered positions - doctors, lawyers or business women.  According to the media these career women were so involved in climbing the corporate ladder that they delayed having children until it was too late.  The idea of a career woman delaying having a family for the sake of job advancement has been thrown at us by the media for so long that it is now an accepted version of events, and one that fails to incite much public sympathy for the poor woman who later finds herself unable to have children. 

Unfortunately this media view is bollocks.

Sure the career woman does exist but the media is dramatizing a small section of the problem, creating a stereotype where none exists.  They are conveniently ignoring the fact that for most couples to survive at all these days they both have to go out to work.  Certainly a young couple starting out in the world and hoping to afford to own a house someday will find it next to impossible to achieve this on a single wage. So if we accept that women are required to work to survive does this mean that we accept that they should only work at jobs that they will be able to easily give up to have children?  Should women be restricted from having careers at all and merely be allowed jobs behind the checkout till for the minimum wage?  Of course the answer to this is no.  So why then all the hoo-ha about women with careers by the media?  To survive women need to work therefore it is reasonable to expect that they will want to work at jobs that are interesting, financially rewarding and hold the promise of future advancement.

So if we accept that women are entitled to a career without being vilified by the media, how then do we expect a woman to get a career?  The most common path is to go to university and get some sort of qualification.  Of course nowadays a Bachelor's Degree does not hold as much weight as it used to, therefore many students are staying on to achieve a Master's Degree.  If we take our typical female student we can expect her to graduate and be ready to join the workforce when she's about 24.  Except of course she isn't.  She may want to take a bit of time off, see the world, have a break after all those years of study.  The idea of young people taking a break to go traveling is now a common part of modern society.  So our graduate goes off traveling for a year.  On her return she is ready and keen to start workto start paying her debts.

The problem is that doctors agree that the best time for a woman to have children is before 30, after that the chances of her having fertility problems increases dramatically.  So our poor student now has 5 years in which to carve out a successful career, clear her debts, meet a nice man, get married, and have the three children she always assumed she'd like to have. 

This is going to be a tall order even for a gender known for their multitasking skills. 

Unfortunately our student has a far bigger problem, perhaps the biggest problem facing women who want to start a family.  This problem is very likely to be the cause for most women beginning conception late, yet strangely the problem is never reported by the media, never commented on by the doctors, in fact never acknowledged as a problem at all.  The biggest problem here - is men. 

The right age for a woman to have children may be before thirty but many men of that age are not ready to make that commitment.  Why on earth would any right thinking male want to trade in nights out with the boys, weekends away with the team, the simple spontaneity of just being able to leave the house, for constraint, responsibility and dirty nappies? 

It's not all our fault, we don't hear our biological clocks ticking away in the dark of night, and we can happily father children well into our dotage.  Therefore we do not share the same sense of urgency that a women does and it is easy for a man to make the decision to delay having a family just a little bit longer.  Society also expects more of fathers these days.  The time where a man goes off to work while the mother stays home and raises the kids is long gone.  Now we are expected to help out, to change nappies, to do the midnight feed, to clean the rooms and cook the meals.  All these things mean that a man knows that having a child will disrupt his life in a major way, so why rush into it? 

We, in short, do not feel the need to have children while we are still young enough to have fun.  After all, there's plenty of time, and there's that great party next weekend that we would hate to miss. Most women reach a point in their lives where they start to get broody; the idea of children suddenly becomes appealing.  That process in men often does not happen until they either get children or are forced to associate with them, most often because their mates start to have families.  Suddenly our friends are not around so much any more; we can't rock up at two in the morning and expect to be allowed to crash on their couches like in the old days. 

Things are different. 

We see that our mates dote on their kids, we start to see the joys that parenthood can bring, and we decide that we want to be in the gang.  So we turn to our partner one day and say ‘Hey, how about you and me trying for a baby?'  Once our partner has recovered from the shock, and made sure we're sober, they agree.  Now the problems start.  First of all we might have about six months for the last residue of the pill, that we insisted she take because we ‘just can't feel anything' through condoms, to leave her body. This adds another six months to the women's age before we can even begin. Once that is taken care of we can start to have ‘conception sex'. 

This is great for a man - we get to have all the shags we want.  Hell, sometimes we even get to rush home during our lunch break for a quickie.  What we miss is the heartbreak and fear that the women experiences when each month brings the disappointment of another period.  Sure we might be a bit upset but it is not the same deep sorrow that she feels as another young and vibrant egg is lost.  We are not that worried, after all we are man and our seed is potent.  After all there is still plenty of time.

But what has happened to the woman who stood by us while she waited for us to grow up?  She has gotten older and less fertile.  Pity the woman who has spent years waiting for her partner to be ready, and lost her best eggs while she waited.  Pity her even more if she passed the time advancing her career, for she is now the villain of the media - the woman who put her career first at the expense of her family.  Nobody mentions that she wanted children ten years ago but stuck by her man when he didn't.  She alone is to blame for her predicament, it is sad that she now faces a life without children, but after all it was her choice to wait.  Nobody steps forward and accuses the man of putting his life first.

The greatest tragedy of the growing number of women who may never be able to have children of their own is that many will believe the media hype - and blame themselves.