Bill O’Reilly vs. Jennifer Aniston vs. the biological clock
*Opinion*
If I am in my 40s and still not married with kids, I’d just have a lot of puppies and shoes. Or maybe I’d get artificially inseminated and have a baby. Oh wait, that would be destructive to society.
Bill O’Reilly is known for his abrasive commentating. But what he says about Jennifer Aniston’s message in her new film “The Switch” and her comments about her role is ridiculous. Basically, the movie is about a woman (Jennifer) who decides she wants to have a baby via sperm donor since she isn’t married, there are funny twists but that’s the overall story. She wasn’t playing the role of a high schooler or an advocate for teen pregnancy/single mothers.
According to the article “Jennifer Aniston responds to Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Unfair Statement’” by Sheila Marikar and Katie Morison on abcnews.go.com, O’Reilly said on his show “The O’Reilly Factor,” “She’s throwing a message out to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that ‘Hey, you don’t need a guy. You don’t need a dad.’ That’s destructive to our society.”
The movie isn’t about a middle school/high school kid who decides she wants to be a mother. It’s about an older, single woman who wants to be a mother. You’d think he was watching Teen Mom or something like that. Jennifer didn’t say in an interview that teens don’t need men to have babies. She said women are just less traditional and can make different choices, according to the same article.
Here’s my question, how impressionable do we, and Bill, think teens and preteens really are? When are we going to stop blaming actors/shows/movies for “teaching “ kids things they should have already been taught by their parents or perhaps teachers in sex education?
With teen pregnancy flooding television and the big screen, teen girls with cable should know by now the consequences of unprotected sex. Whether they decide to be smart enough to use a condom or not is their choice, not Jennifer Aniston’s.
Women technically don’t need a “guy” to be a mother, just his sperm. Why shouldn’t an OLDER (not in high school) woman who is financially stable be able to make the choice to have a child without a husband? So women are supposed to never be allowed to experience motherhood unless they get married? That’s unfair. That’s unfair to women who really want to be parents and maybe haven’t had luck meeting Mr. Right and that’s unfair to the geniuses who developed artificial insemination.
Another article on abcnews.go.com by Roger Fortuna and Suzan Clarke, “For Women Who Want Kids, ‘The Sooner The Better’: 90 Percent of Eggs Gone by 30,” explains that conceiving becomes more challenging with age. According to the article, women only have about 3 percent of their eggs remaining by age 40. This insists that women should get pregnant sooner. Not when they’re 12 or 13 though.
First of all it is very challenging knowing that women have this lingering timer reminding us that if we wait too long to have babies we could miss the boat. But, if we have babies too young, we could miss out on being able to focus on our careers and ourselves instead of being stressed with motherhood.
I remember my friend Lo and I discussing relationships while driving home from the beach this summer. She said people shouldn’t waste their time with people they know they won’t want to marry and have kids with. She said, “We’re not getting any younger.”
That was the first time that phrase actually felt like a punch in the ovaries. Now it seems that at 22 I have to keep my eyes peeled for a potential husband so I can breed. Of course I want to get married and have kids one day, but seeing it as a race against time makes it so unromantic and unrealistic. It’s not organic anymore, it’s forced. That comment made me feel like my priorities have been reversed, biologically. The hourglass hath been turned.
By 30, 90 percent of my eggs will lose hope and abandon ship. I never felt that pressure until my abuelos from Peru chimed in while they were in town for three months this summer. While eating burgers after a day at the beach, my grandpa said, “I’d like to be a great-grandpa.”
“I’m sure my brother will get married and have kids one day,” I said. When my grandparents gave me that “you smartass” look I picked up my Chihuahua, Chancho, and said “You already are a great-grandpa!”
Not all women are going to be able to make the deadline to find a husband before 30. Women who put their jobs first and maybe don’t have time to mingle around town and meet someone special should be able to have a child when they want to/can have a child. If it’s when they only have three eggs left, so be it.
And teenagers and their parents (and Bill O’Reilly) can’t blame the views of an actor for teen pregnancies and single motherhood. It’s time to take responsibility for one’s actions, girls. Use a condom! Protect yourself.
Jennifer said, “Women are realizing more and more that you don’t have to settle. They don’t have to fiddle with a man to have a child. They are realizing if it’s that time in their life and they want this part they can do it with or without that,” according to the article by Marikar and Morison.
Damn right, Jennifer.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/women-fertility-falls-lose-90-percent-eggs-30/story?id=9693015
That's What V Said 