Quirkyalone

Time To Wake Up to the Male Biological Clock?

Apr 16, 2009 - Written by Elline Lipkin  |  Filed under: Featured, Parenting, Quirkytogether

Here’s a preview of what’s to come has Quirkyalone expands to become a group blog. This piece is written by my fantastic, quirkytogether poet friend Elline Lipkin. It’s cross-posted on girlwpen.com.

Lisa Belkin, ever on top of the nuances and foibles of dating, mating and family making in our time, points in a recent Sunday New York Times magazine piece to a new study that is sure to make (at least some) men squirm and women, as she puts it, “chortle” with delight; although the news is, for anyone who thinks about having kids, actually sobering.

Women often bear excruciating pressures around choosing when to have a child, from all angles, while men are told their biology is limitless, hence their chance at fatherhood is as well. Not so anymore. Throughout the past few years more and more evidence is coming to light linking a father’s age at conception to schizophrenia, autism, and bipolar disorder, as she points out (while the mother’s age at conception shows no such correlation). Two years ago the New York Times also ran a piece entitled “It Seems the Fertility Clock Ticks for Men, Too”. Now, Belkin highlights an Australian study that shows that children born to “older fathers have, on average, lower scores on tests of intelligence than those born to younger dads.

There are those who will take issue with the research, claim there’s no adjustment for environment, individual father’s IQ, parental involvement and more. But here are the two lines that made me want to sit up and shout “so there!”: “French researchers reported last year that the chance of a couple’s conceiving begins to fall when the man is older than 35 and falls sharply if he is older than 40.” Later in the article Belkin quotes Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center who says, “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.” Ha! I wanted to shout at the screen as I was reading.

Really, what I wanted was to do was shout this to all the 50something men who, when I was 35 and entering into the online dating world, contacted me, ignoring their agemates, specifically because they felt they were “finally ready” to get around to starting a family. Most were utterly unapologetic that part of what they were seeking was a woman they perceived to be still fertile enough to incubate their suddenly desired offspring. My response that being contacted in part so I could incubate a legacy child for them was insulting often fell on deaf ears.

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Beyonce Takes On a Single Alter Ego: Sasha Fierce

Dec 02, 2008 - Written by Sasha Cagen  |  Filed under: Uncategorized

Beyonce may be married to Jay-Z, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be perceived that way by fans. To keep her connection to single women fans alive, she’s created a new alter ego “Sasha Fierce.” Is “Sasha Fierce” a sign that being single is desirable, or just that Beyonce understands the power of marketing to a growing demographic? Either way, I’m fascinated. And flattered she chose my name! She must have been reading Quirkyalone!

During a recent overseas interview, Beyonce explained her new persona. “I wouldn’t like Sasha if I met her off stage. She’s too aggressive, too strong, too sassy, too sexy! I’m not like her in real life at all. I’m not flirtatious and super-confident and fearless like her.

“What I feel onstage I don’t feel anywhere else. It’s an out-of-body experience. I created my stage persona … so that when I go home, I don’t have to think about what it is I do. Sasha isn’t me. The people around me know who I really am.”