In the 70s and 80s, the average age at which our mothers decided to have their first child ranged 25 years, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE). Then our generation arrived and the buts came: "I am still very young", "when I finish the race" and "we will seek stability".
The reality is that in Spain the average maternity rate is 32 years and according to experts this is due to unemployment, increase in the age of emancipation, the extension of studies, the penalty suffered by women in their professional career when they have children or the lack of family conciliation measures. But we wanted to know the reasons why Spanish women delay motherhood through the testimony of real people and not figures or data without a name and surname.
Bea, Sonia and Mari Carmen they have something in common, all three are mothers, professionals and would have liked to advance their motherhood.
All agree on one thing, were conditioned by the lack of economic stability or overly absorbent work. In the end everything always comes down to the same and life happens.
Bea He is currently two children of 9 and 6 years old. Although she was a mother below what the statistics mark, she acknowledges that she wanted to advance her motherhood a couple of years. The reason? After years and years with your partner, why wait any longer?
Bea playing with her two daughters In case of Sonia it is something different, maternity arrived suddenly, with no time to think about it. Both she and her partner had very absorbent professions but at the same time exciting and despite having talked about having children, they were relegating it year after year.
“When you have such an absorbing profession, when you don't have a very regulated schedule, you don't see the opportunity and think: with this job I have, when?”
Thus, almost without realizing the time passed and both she and her partner remained focused on their professional career, occasionally mentioning the issue of children but without making a clear decision about it.
“It was a we will see it and we did not realize that age limits you. When you are 20 years old, you will eat the world, when you are 30 you still have time but it is that immediately you get 40 ”.
To her nine-year-old girl, Sonia would advise her that if she really wants to have children she has them as soon as possible because they enjoy themselves in a totally different way.
Sonia with her little girl Mari Carmen He is currently 44 years old and two children are 4 and 6 years old. Remembering his story he confesses that his pregnancies were not easy. Stress played bad times, family losses did not allow her to enjoy a start with her children as she would have liked, as they would have deserved. He acknowledges that he sometimes looks with healthy envy at those pregnant women who enjoy their triplet carefree because their situation was totally different.
Although he would have liked to be a mother much earlier, he confesses that he does not regret having delayed motherhood, because perhaps he had missed other experiences or opportunities. Nor does he consider that because he was a younger mother he would have enjoyed his children in a different way.
"There are very mature people to be a father with 20 and people who have no head with 40."
Mari Carmen with her two children Labor and economic instability
Those are the main reasons that led our three protagonists to delay their motherhood. To them and almost all couples currently. The search for a fixed contract, to finish paying those pending letters, to grow at work or the fear of not doing so, end up conditioning the decision of when to have a baby, without realizing that the years pass and do not wait for anyone. In Bea's case, the lack of economic and labor stability they upset their plans, first with their wedding and then with their motherhood.
“When I could financially be a mother I had zero conciliation. In the end it was without thinking and without looking back "
Mari Carmen also looked for that job stability before embarking on the adventure of being a mother. A fixed contract that would allow you to create a more leisurely family. He never arrived, so he decided to take a risk and not wait any longer and with his pregnancy came the dismissal.
Shortly after he returned to the world of work and decided that he would not make the same mistake, he would not expect again a stability that perhaps would never come. He went for his second baby. So much fear, so much to delay motherhood until getting a fixed position and coincidentally it came like this, pregnant.
"I delayed motherhood for work and in the end it didn't matter."
In spite of everything, would you expand the family?
Bea acknowledges that she wanted a third child running around the house but fear of job instability prevented her from taking the plunge.
Sonia matches her. Despite not having planned the arrival of her first daughter, she confesses that she would not have liked him to remain as an only child and although for a while the idea of a second baby was around her head they did not get a stable job at the same time she and your partner what conditioned your decision.
Mari Carmen on the other hand, assures that it is something that she would not have ruled out but for her a handicap was the age and the risks that a pregnancy entails after 40.
Inevitable talk about conciliation and labor discrimination
We knew that by addressing the issue of maternity and investigating why women delay their decision, there were reasons directly related to family reconciliation and discrimination suffered by women in their workplace after having a baby.
Bea left her job voluntarily to change cities and tells us that never noticed discrimination at work level for being a mother in their bosses. Maybe a partner would pout if he left on time to pick up his children, those misunderstandings that many mothers suffer.
Sonia, on the other hand, noticed that her work suffered, she was relegated to a position of inferior category and noticing on her shoulders the weight felt by so many women when motherhood begins to displace them little by little from the working world. Finally, he decided to undertake and considers it one of the best decisions he has made so far. He also comments with us the recent study published by Malasmadres where it was confirmed that most women entrepreneurs were able to reconcile.
"In my previous job, I earned considerably more but among the worries I gave you and the concerns that you as a mother had I am not doing what I really owe the truth is that psychologically compensates me to be like this."
Mari Carmen lived a dismissal in full pregnancy but also an indefinite contract waiting for a new baby.
In Babies and More, the conclusion we draw from this interview is that all our protagonists agree on one thing, it is best not to think about it, to leave the idyllic dream of stability and good economic position because the ideal moment is never found and the years go by without we figure out.
- Photos: Mari Carmen photo rights: Violeta Rodríguez
- In Babies and more | American mothers further delay their maternity, but they also have more children, Being a mother widens, even more, the wage gap in Spain
