Becoming a Mom at 45 Is One of the Most Feminist Things I Ever Did
As a woman, did I have a choice?
Go ahead, ask me why I had a kid at 45, and you’ll see my eye roll.
It’s not exactly conventional, is it, choosing to be an older mom? I’ve been judged for it plenty, thank you very much.
But there’s a reason why I didn’t have kids earlier. I had the opportunity. I married young. We thought about having kids, but our values weren’t compatible, so we divorced. It was a smart decision.
My work as a journalist and editor required me to work odd hours and travel, something not conducive for a mother. But, as a result, I could give my 100% to work and get promoted.
Most mothers can’t and are instead penalized for it. That’s why becoming a mom at 45 is one of the most feminist things I ever did. It’s a byproduct of a sexist culture where mothers with career ambitions fall behind at work.
I learned that the only way for a woman to stand up for what she wants is to alter nature’s course so she can have what men take for granted — the permission to focus and progress in their careers.
Mom’s shadow
My first husband was a good, conventional man.
He did everything society asked of him: graduated at the top of his university, secured a sales job at a top pharmaceutical conglomerate, and got an MBA while working.
The only problem was he married an unconventional woman. I was an English graduate who wanted to become a journalist. You could call it an intertwining of two extremes: the artsy-fartsy and the office man.
We married when I was 24 and he was 27. We wanted to marry later, but we did it earlier so we could be together without me having to return to Nepal — a patriarchal country.
But as years passed by, it became clear to me that I didn’t want children with him. His family was influential in our marriage. They expected us to send our imaginary child to an expensive all-boys school, the one my ex attended. They expected me to quit work and become a full-time mom.
I wanted to explore the world with my ex, but he was like his parents. It was a huge red flag for me, especially because I grew up watching my mom in a trapped marriage.
Mom was a battered wife. When I behaved badly, Dad blamed Mom. He said I was just like her — stubborn and unruly. He wasn’t wrong. I raged against anyone who told me I couldn’t do this or that because I was a girl.
I naturally became that way because I had Nepali parents and grew up in Japan — two countries with traditional views about how a woman should behave.
Yes, I was like Mom.
Mom worked part-time teaching Nepali to Japanese folks, created a bank account with her name, and invested that money in savings. She created a savings account with my name, too, and deposited a certain amount every month.
It's not surprising when you consider that she was a bank manager before she married Dad — a man 13 years older and the boss of an engineering company — in her early 20s.
Mom knew how to get ahead. She could’ve climbed the corporate ladder and become the big boss. But she didn’t have a choice about whether she would get married or have kids. Mom gave birth to three girls before she turned 30.
Being childless or declaring you don’t want children is very rare in Nepal. That’s partly because living alone as a woman is taboo and unheard of. The typical route is for a woman to move to her in-laws once she’s married.
And parents don’t welcome back their once-married daughters with open arms. It’s a source of shame.
Mom found a loophole and married a guy who had plans to go abroad. That must have been Mom’s way to rebel against the system; just like mine was to marry so I didn’t have to live in Nepal.
I saw what having children did to my mom. She was like a mouse caught in a mousetrap. Yet my aunts and uncles warned me about being childless. They said I’d have no one to take care of me and die a lonely existence.
Well, they sure didn’t know me at all. My no. 1 prerequisite for having a child was a partner who modeled a healthy relationship. I knew too well what an unhappy mother does to a child. It sprouts guilt. It eats at your self-esteem and worth.
I vowed never to be in my mom’s position. There was no way I would go to Nepal and marry. I’d walk with a skip in my steps. I’d live life my way without any shackles.
So I became an American citizen.
The United States hates mothers
You could say America gave me wings, and I’m forever grateful. It was my ticket to independence.
But it exposed me to the grim reality. Living in the U.S. meant I would have to work my ass off to make ends meet. It also meant delaying or choosing not to have a child.
Ironically, if I left for Nepal, I might’ve had a child earlier. It’s much easier to raise children there since you have a village — in-laws, parents, husband’s siblings, and maids — helping you.
But it’s not perfect there, either. Many laws are biased against women — like how single moms with absent husbands can’t provide citizenship for their children.
The U.S. has a different problem. You and your partner (if you have one) are a two-person village, and the U.S. has the highest rate of single-parent families. Almost a quarter of children (23%) live with one parent and no other adults.
My ex and I were struggling to put a roof over our heads. A baby would have created more woes. But many of our friends were popping out babies — partners working high-paying jobs.
My ex made a good salary, but my journalist job paid pennies in comparison. I felt intense pressure from him, his family, and the society at large to quit the job I loved to instead work as a corporate editor, where I earned double the salary.
It was a rat race, and that’s what people don’t understand about America. You have to work, work, work to get the freedom you want, with working mothers struggling to balance work life and parenting.
America is a difficult place for working mothers, and many are delaying motherhood through their 20s and having babies at 40–44, the end of the childbearing years.
Even though the share of moms working either full or part-time has increased by 41% over the past 50 years, the U.S. is the only nation among 41 developed countries that doesn’t mandate any paid leave for new parents.
America also doesn’t provide universal health care, meaning Americans are at the mercy of their jobs’ health coverage. And once you have a family, the whole health of your family rests on your shoulders.
My friend lives in Florida. Her husband had a stroke, but his health insurance only covers a certain number of rehabilitation therapies. They had to pay for the rest themselves and ask for donations through a GoFundMe page.
Ridiculous, no? But this is quite common in America.
And then there’s the lack of reliable and affordable daycare, keeping mothers out of the workforce to be stay-at-home moms.
Women are more likely (27%) than men (3%) to say family or childcare responsibilities are a major reason they’re not working. Men are likelier to say they’re not working because they lost a job or can’t find work.
For women in the workforce, it’s no better. They suffer a ‘motherhood penalty,’ the price women pay for growing their families while in the workforce.
Working moms are “less likely to be chosen for new roles and promotions, will earn lower salaries, and be held to a higher standard than fathers and non-mothers.”
And this Harvard study doesn’t bode well for motherhood, either. The study found employers are less likely to hire mothers and offer them a lower salary than child-free women.
On the flip side, fathers aren’t penalized.
Mothers were also six times less likely to receive job recommendations, and if they do secure employment, they’re more prone to being overlooked for promotions.
These are real penalties for American mothers.
It’d be different if I were a multi-millionaire and could fork out thousands of dollars for daycare, healthcare, and living expenses. But for average middle-class working mothers, the so-called land of the free is failing them.
It was a feminist decision to have children later on in life.
In my 30s, while my friends were having babies, I was a journalist living in Nepal. I started an online youth magazine that eventually got a grant to start a media arts center.
In my early 40s, I was a founding editor of a Myanmar women’s magazine and trained Shan (endangered ethnic group) students to become citizen journalists. When I met my husband at 42, he was 25, and backpacking around Southeast Asia after finishing his graduate studies.
Living in Germany (my husband is German) played a big part in wanting a child because the country has generous maternity leave, universal health care, and subsidized daycare.
I’m proud to say that our son will be five in a month.
There are risks to becoming an older mom, but I did everything I wanted to do without motherhood interfering with my career. Isn’t that what men do? Marry a younger woman, have kids late with nothing to hurt their career prospects?
So, can you really blame me or any women who choose to delay having kids?
Did we ever have a choice?
June Kirri is the founding editor of Bitchy. She used to be a former journalist and magazine editor in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southeast Asia. She currently lives in Germany with her husband, their 5-year-old son, and a teenage cat named Snowy.