Related topics: •  Book Review: Woman: An Intimate Geography •  Sex & Relationships

Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children
By Sylvia Ann Hewlett
Talk Miramax Books
334 pp $22

Headlines about the precarious state of motherhood always seem to be everywhere: The higher a woman rises on the career ladder, they proclaimed, the less likely she is to have a child. In fact, about 33 percent of high-earning career women are childless at ages 40 to 55, according to one survey in the recent book, Creating a Life. For women in corporate America, the figure is 42 percent.

"Women can be playwrights, presidential candidates, and CEOs," writes economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the book's author. "But increasingly, they cannot be mothers."

Hewlett's finding isn't exactly news, but it has clearly hit a nerve among women in America. The release of her book, coupled with scientific news that a woman's fertility starts to decline in her late 20s, sparked a firestorm of coverage: a lead story in Time, appearances on Oprah, CNN, and 60 Minutes, reviews by every major publication in the country, and even a lively skewering on Saturday Night Live.

Yet for all the hype, Creating a Life is a publishing paradox. The book has been a commercial flop: By early summer 2002, only about 10,000 books had been sold, disappointing by any standard -- this after a six-figure advance and a promotion campaign to die for, orchestrated by media legend Tina Brown. A closer look at the book may explain why the reading public -- and women in particular -- haven't rushed out in droves to buy it.

More than most nonfiction books, Creating a Life reflects the life of its author. Hewlett is an economist and founder of the National Parenting Association. In previous books like The War Against Parents, she has made eloquent arguments about the need for corporate and government support for parents and families. Few can argue with her when she writes that women in high-powered professions can often succeed only by putting in grueling hours. Many find they simply don't have time for a personal life.

"Few companies offer work options like part-time jobs, shared or flex-time hours," says Hewlett, who also found that even when such policies do exist, workers who take advantage of them are given less challenging assignments, excluded from decision making, and generally not considered as serious or "professional" as their childless peers.

But Hewlett gets into stickier ground when she talks about why high-achieving women are not likely to find a partner among their peers, primarily because much of her research is anecdotal in nature. Hewlett contends that men who achieve the highest pinnacles of the professional world generally don't want to marry women peers who are as skilled, competitive, and successful as themselves. In fact, she contends, women in the higher reaches of the professional world are less likely to be married than women in the lower rungs. For men, the opposite is true: The more successful a man is, the more likely he is to be married with children.

Given this unfriendly climate, it no surprise that so many women who plan to have families put off having children until it is too late. And it turns out that "too late" is earlier than many women think. Hewlett found that 90 percent of 28- to 40-year-old women interviewed had confidence that assisted reproductive technologies (ART) would allow them to get pregnant well into their 40s.

But despite the availability and prevalence of such technologies as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and donor eggs, the statistic Hewlett cites are slim. In 2007, these procedures resulted in a live birth only about 11 percent of the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Not only do women have an extremely hard time getting pregnant at these ages," Hewlett writes, "but a 42- or 44-year-old woman who gets pregnant faces a 50 to 80 percent chance of losing her baby through miscarriage."

In the end, then, Hewlett's research shows -- one more time -- just how hard it is for women to have both children and a satisfying career. This may be one reason why no one is buying the book: Who wants to pay $22 to find out what we already know? Plenty of things have changed for women in the last few decades, but many of us still have to choose between work and family. Sure, there are women who manage both, but it is a constant, painful juggling act, and few women I know are happy with the balance -- or more precisely imbalance -- they achieve.

Hewlett's answers are not exactly comforting. She urges women to marry young and even invokes the notorious findings that a 40-year-old woman has a greater chance of being shot by a terrorist than making it to the altar -- findings that Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Susan Faludi refuted more than a decade ago in her 1991 book Backlash.

Creating a Life has other serious flaws. In several key areas, Hewlett chooses interpretations of her statistics that best serve her thesis. For example, she makes much of her finding that 33 percent of high-achieving women have no children, but pays less attention to the 20 percent of all American women over 40 who are childless regardless of career choice. Hewlett appears to assume that a desire for children is a given for most, if not all, women.

Critics have also questioned the interview techniques she used to reach her conclusion that only 14 percent of childless high achievers chose not to have children. Hewlett based this finding on what the women reported their intentions to be while they were in college, but how many of us know at that point what we will choose later in life?

Finally, Hewlett's analysis is clearly swayed by her own life choices. After having three children, Hewlett decided in her mid-40s to have one more -- despite the reluctance of her husband. After numerous interventions, she finally had a child at age 51. It is odd that Hewlett, who writes eloquently on the risks and costs of assisted reproductive technologies, doesn't tell us how much she and her husband spent on the effort.

Given her own determination to continue mothering well into old age, Hewlett may exaggerate what she considers to be the sad and lonely futures in store for childless women. I know women who regret their childlessness and others who have no regrets at all; in both cases these women are managing to lead rich and satisfying lives. Moreover, many women I know in their 40s have chosen to adopt children -- a choice to which Hewlett gives short shrift.

Reviewers have pointed out the cognitive dissonance that makes Creating a Life such a confusing read. Hewlett is a Harvard-trained economist who presents herself as a policy wonk; her book includes concrete and sensible recommendations for reform.

In these areas, Hewlett is convincing about the dilemmas women face and what can be done about them. It is confusing, then, to find, buried amidst her reasoned analysis, flagrant lapses like those cited above, as if Hewlett's personal prejudices were sneaking in when she isn't careful. In the end, Hewlett seems to be a social scientist with an ax to grind, a supposedly objective observer with a hidden (and often not so hidden) agenda.

Hewlett's book does score valuable points, if only because the issues she tackles are of passionate interest to many women. I found myself wishing that both Hewlett and her critics had spent more time focusing on the real roadblocks for women. Why is it still so hard for American women to pursue a challenging career and also have a family? Why does corporate America continue to resist family-friendly work options -- like paid maternity leave, reduced work days, flex time, telecommuting, and job sharing -- that are established elements of the economic structure in other developed countries?

I wish this kind of debate had been generated by Hewlett's book, rather than arguments about whether women should marry early, or whether Hewlett is in fact a feminist, or why people aren't buying this book. Why must women continue to make such painful tradeoffs? Why can't our society choose a humanistic and enlightened approach to work and families that would benefit everyone?

As Hewlett points out, "Women are quite prepared to shoulder more than their fair share of the work involved in having both career and family. So why on earth shouldn't they feel entitled to rich, multidimensional lives? At the end of the day, women simply want the choices in love and work that men take so completely for granted."

-- Connie Matthiessen is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.

Last updated October 27, 2008
Copyright © 2002 Consumer Health Interactive

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