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All right!

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Today, I am going to talk about

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a worry that I have.

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And it is one that I think

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a lot of women in 
their 30s and 40s might share.

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I think I maybe forgot 
to accidentally get pregnant.

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(Laughter)

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So, let me break that down 
a little bit, ok ?

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Years ago, when the possibility

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of me accidentally becoming 
pregnant became a possibility.

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I took care of business.

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I did my research,

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I made an appointment way ahead of time,

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I read everything.

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It was my way. It is still my way.

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I can spend three hours researching 
which to flanel sheets to buy,

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I definitely read fine print 
on shampoo bottles,

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this is my way.

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So, of course when the time came, 
I was on top of that.

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I was on top of that.

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And, of course, I was. 
I have been told for a long time

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that it was... that having a baby 
too young was bad.

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Having a baby outside of 
the committed relationship was bad.

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Having a baby without enough
folic acid in my blood was bad.

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So, I listened to this.

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And, I took it very seriously.

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So of course, I was on top 
of that situation by that time.

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But, in my 20's, I had things to do.

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I was busy having a life,

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I was busy having the experiences

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I needed 
to get that first internship,

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to get that first job, 
the second job, then grad school...

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I was learning things,

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I was learning about myself, 
and I dated.

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I dated great people.

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Just nobody that ever 
made me feel like

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it was really urgent 
to have a baby.

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So, here I am, mid 30's.

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I have done neat things.

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I like who I am.

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I even almost have Ph.D.

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But then I look around,
then I think, Oh!

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Oh! So, if I'm going to have a baby,

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this is going to need to...
this is gonna need to happen soon.

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And there is a lot of fear mongering 
out there in the media.

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Some of that is true.

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There is a greater risk of
not being able to get pregnant

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after a certain age.

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And there are risks that 
your child might have a problem.

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But a lot of that is actually overblown.

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But knowing that there are some risks,

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you'd think that a planner 
like myself would have a plan.

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But, I don't have a plan.

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I'm not sure how I feel about that.

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I'm not even sure 
what a plan would look like.

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Would a plan be an Okcupid profile?

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Would the plan be freezing my eggs?

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Would that be buying a house?

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I am... I really am not sure.

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And I know that I am not alone.

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Lots of women are waiting
to have children

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or deciding not to have children.

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In 2008,

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the average age for a woman
to have her first child was 25.1 years.

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In 1970's, it was 21.4.

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That was the average age 
to have her first child.

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Also in 1970, only 1 out of 100 women 
had a baby past age 35.

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Now it is 1 in 5.

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So, this is changing that's 
affecting a lot of people.

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And there is a lot of reasons
for this change.

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Of course, there is a birth control now,

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so women have a lot more control 
over their fertility.

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We also getting married later 
and less frequently.

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But then a lot of women
are also working more,

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so we have got issues to think about like

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if we can take the maternity leave,

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will we lose traction in our jobs,

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lose money in our paychecks, maybe?

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A lot of women are also 
pursuing higher education,

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so you spend all that time in training

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and there is a different, you know,

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a different question at the end of that.

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Do I want to risk my training,

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the profitability I have, the career 
I worked for, to have a child?

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And it is a question.

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And, you know,

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these reasons why women 
maybe are having children later

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or deciding not to,

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tap into another debate 
about how we support

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women with children 
who also choose to work.

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And there are policies 
that work great for that.

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For example, maternity leave
is really important,

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flexible schedules are really important,

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and child care is really important.

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In some places, these are available.

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But they're definitely not 
available consistently.

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And even when they are available,

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they don't necessarily alleviate 
all the anxiety

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of trying to "have it all".

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So, there's this 
complicated set of factors,

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and women are making 
their own decisions about

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what to do about this

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and make sense with all this in flux.

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And by the way, young women
know all about the struggles

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that other women face 
in having children.

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And they maybe 
making decisions based on that.

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It makes sense to feel ambivalent about

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whether you want to have a child.

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And, amid this complicated 
set of factors though,

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we see in the media

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portrayals of women 
in their 30's as baby crazy.

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She is a walking uterus.

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She is baby-daddy hunting.

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Baby panic...

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And for goodness sake, 
poor Jennifer Aniston!

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(Laughter)

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We're putting this out there

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that women in the 30's 
are baby crazy, or

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need to be baby crazy or

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if you partner with a woman in her 30's,

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you need to be worried
about her baby crazy.

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So, being the researcher that I am,

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I decided to take a look at

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what was in literature about 
how women like me

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feel about their future fertility.

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What they were thinking about it.

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How they were feeling about it.

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But you know what?

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There is nothing out there.

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There is no research.

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There is plenty of research 
on women experiencing in fertility.

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But, there is nothing on women

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in this biological clock worry place

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that we hear so much about.

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So, the whole baby panic thing
is totally anecdotal.

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No research on it.

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Well, I decided to change that

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and I just recently completed
my doctoral dissertation,

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in which I got information 
from 600 women

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between the ages of 25 and 40,

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about their thoughts and feelings,

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and how much they were worrying 
about this idea of future fertility.

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25... 600 women who had 
never had children so far.

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And here is what I found.

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First, women really, really 
want to talk about this topic.

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I had planned to get 
200 people to participate,

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and I got that in 12 hours.

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No problem.

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And ... women just 
really wanted to participate.

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Not only that they participated
fully in the survey,

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but I had open-ended questions 
at the end

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where they could elaborate on 
what they were thinking and feeling.

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Everyone filled it out in detail.

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My poor boyfriend helped me 
read all those, by the way.

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So, what I found is women really,
really want to talk about this.

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and, I am really excited 
to be talking to them about it.

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I think it is really interesting thing 
that we need to talk more about.

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Two, I found that women are worrying.

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This worry about future fertility is real.

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But, at the moderate level.

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They are worrying about it
along with other things like

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how they are going to pay the bills,

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how they are going 
to take care of their parents.

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it's one of many background stressors

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that we all have.

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There is no baby panic.

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The worriers are at moderate level.

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Third, I found,

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and this is really interesting,

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I expected that the women
who are worrying the most

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would be the oldest 
of those women in my study.

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That would actually increase with age.

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But, that's not the case,

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not the case at all.

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In fact, the thing that was 
most closely related

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to high levels of worry 
about future fertility

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was a little measure that I put in there

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about the importance of motherhood:

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how much the women 
valued that as an identity;

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how much she wanted that in her future.

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Which it makes sense, right?

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The women who are worried

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are the ones who
really care about this topic.

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And that was different across the board.

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And then, fourth,

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I found that high levels of worry 
about future fertility

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were not necessarily related to 
clinical depression or clinical anxiety.

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There is no baby crazy, ok?

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So, yes.

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Women are worried

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and this is an issue that 
we need to be talking about

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and not in this myopic, baby panic way.

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But also it's not the same
for every woman.

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Lots of women 
don't want to have kids.

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And that needs to be just ok

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as having kids late 
or having kids early

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or having kids middle

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or whatever it is that 
you choose for yourself.

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And what really matters are

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a woman's personal values

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and how she makes that decision

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about how she feels 
about her future fertility.

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So, people are marrying later;

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they're having children later;

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they're making different choices.

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There is no perfect age to have a baby.

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And women need not make that decision 
based on social pressures.

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There is nobody saying:

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"it has to happen by 30."

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"it has to happen by 35."

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And there shouldn't be.

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Because that is not 
the reality for every woman.

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Bottom line is that

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it'ss not fair to characterize,

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characterize women as baby crazy.

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We need to stop doing that.

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When we do that, we devalue 
the individual experiences of women

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and we really devalue 
the society that we've created

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that allows people to create 
their lives the way they want.

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Which is a great thing.

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And we need to support that

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also for women in their 30's.

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So, we need to contextualize 
this biological clock thing better

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and stop yelling about our crazy ovaries.

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We need to do a better job

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supporting people who do parents

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so that it’s not so scary
to have a child,

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and is a rational choice for someone 
with a great career.

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We definitely need
to let up on the baby panic,

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and we need to add this topic 
to the overall conversation

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about "women having it all."

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(Applause)