On making beds and making babies

I changed the sheets on my bed last weekend, and it occurred to me that I was born at least thirty years too late. Despite having done this countless times in my life, and several times with this particular set of sheets, I noticed something for the first time. As I spread the fitted sheet over the mattress, I saw a small tag that read: "Side." Then I found another that read: "Top or Bottom."

That was it. The moment that separated me from generations of bed-makers. In our enlightened age, sheets include tags that indicate "side" vs. "bottom or top." My mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother lived long and fulfilled lives, making beds for decades without ever needing a 'top' or 'side' tag. They looked at a sheet and figured out what was what in about four seconds. Now we have tags. This is called progress.

I can hear you already. 'What difference does it make? Isn't it easier to read a tag and know how to make the bed? What's wrong with that?'

There's nothing wrong with it, although I never knew I needed that much help. Then I read something a day or two later that made me think: Here we go again. I can't tell if this latest story makes something easier by providing assistance you're not even certain you need or complicates something that is usually pretty simple. Maybe it's just about options.

If you're an adult in the western hemisphere, you know there is no end to the circumstances women will contrive in order to share an evening. We walk and run together. We read and discuss books together. We attend parties where we bring cookies to share; or buy skin care products, jewelry, cookware or baskets. In the past few years, we've gathered to paint canvases together and lately we've started coloring together. Fine. Lovely. But that's all so yesterday.

Apparently, women of a certain age are now gathering for egg-freezing parties, AKA "Elective Fertility Preservation." [Brief Biology 101 aside: A baby girl is born with all the eggs she will ever carry. Her body won't make any more and it won't replace eggs that are unfertilized. And on top of that finite number, a thirty-year-old egg, even if it's been frozen for ten years, is more viable for fertilization than a forty-year old egg.] Ranging in age from their twenties to their forties, many women are considering their options when it comes to motherhood and hedging their bets against infertility by pre-emptively freezing their eggs. This way, they'll be available and viable when motherhood beckons.

Leaving aside my notion of perhaps needlessly complicating something simple, I realize there are many reasons why preserving your eggs makes sense. It's a solemn, soul-searching, deeply complex and fully responsible choice. Or not. As one woman put it: "I'm not super-dedicated to the task of settling down right now." Full disclosure: I miscarried my first pregnancy and even though it was very early, I felt the loss deeply. I'm thankful I had other pregnancies and gave birth to my children; and have enormous respect for women who are willing and able to do whatever it takes to bear a child. But what amused me in the story I read was the fact that in some circles, parents are making that solemn, soul-searching, deeply complex and fully responsible choice - for their adult daughters. They're giving "egg-freezing" as a gift to their daughters as they graduate from college.

Just. Stop. Now. If this is true, I have a few things to say to these parents.

1. It's entirely possible that you may have reached a point where you really do have too much money. That's one explanation.

2. Isn't it enough that you orchestrated her entire life? Assuming there are no serious health issues or reasons for concern, now you're going to "help" her manage when and how she conceives her first child? Maybe you plan to be a "helicopter grandparent." (Bad news for everyone.)

My mom and women of her generation would have considered this the stuff of science fiction. Just one generation ago, you had children or you didn't. To put it another way: they simply made the bed and then simply made a baby in that bed. The idea of not bearing a child was a sad, immutable reality for some women and the men who loved them. In those days, couples who wanted to raise a family but couldn't conceive adopted children.

So now I find myself wondering about my rule of life: Simpler is better. Could that be true in a case like this, where life itself is the goal? Egg-freezing offers women an option; doctors call it "an opportunity" for a pregnancy, not a guarantee. Is freezing your eggs and choosing first-time motherhood (once you're "really super-dedicated to the task of settling down,") even if that happens when you're also four years away from your AARP card, selfless or selfish? Is wanting a child enough of a reason to have one? Is it that simple?

I don't know. As one of my sons likes to remind me: "We live in the future." That's a good thing until the numerous advances that emerge with "the future" offer us almost too many options. Because that's also when those unambiguous times, where things like instructions-free fitted sheets, start to look pretty appealing.

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Renee James writes social commentary and resolves daily to keep up with her blog: It's Not Me, It's You. Her essays have appeared in 101 Damnations: A Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells and May Contain Nuts: A Very Loose Canon of American Humor. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Sentinel, The Morning Call and other Tribune newspapers, as well as The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Women's Quarterly and Tango Magazine.

Previously:
• Recurgitating Makes Me Hangry, and Other Thoughts on Neologisms
• Crayons, Clubhouses, and Crushes: Women Go Girlie
• First World Problems: 'Ash to Flash'
• Where has everybody gone? Choose your friends -- and coffee -- carefully
• Our fakes lives
• Now what? Grounding kites and raising kids
• The real truth that no one seems to ever tell you
• The NFL stats no one wants to claim
• You think education prepares kids for their futures? Stacks of cash say otherwise
• Is lowering the drinking age to 18 really such a good idea?
• The goods news: You've earned a degree. The bad news: You didn't learn much
• Mark Twain, Snooki, and the decline of American literature