Pregnant celebrities on red carpets may make later-in-life motherhood look effortless, but BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey is warning that the reality is far more complicated.
Most recently, Anne Hathaway graced the red carpet in a beautiful dress, showing off her bump at 43 years old. While this is Hathaway’s third baby, many women are taking it as proof that women can and should wait until their 40s to become a mother.
“She’s a beautiful pregnant woman. I am so happy for her,” Stuckey says. “And I’m so glad that she is on social media. She’s on the red carpet showing that you can do all of these things. You can have a baby. I also love that she is showing that you don’t have to stop having a baby when you’re 35 just because they call you ‘geriatric’ or whatever it is.”
“You can keep having a baby, and it’s beautiful. It doesn’t ruin your life,” she adds.
Now, the media is running with Hathaway’s pregnancy and making it seem as if it’s as easy to get pregnant in your 40s as it is in your 20s or 30s.
“The Wall Street Journal published an article on July 13 titled, ‘Your 40s used to be middle age. Not anymore,’” Stuckey explains.
“While I am happy about all the things that I listed, and I’m happy about the contribution of another image-bearer of God to the world, and I think motherhood is fantastic, the risks have not changed in association with pregnancy after 40,” she continues.
“Am I saying that you shouldn’t do it if you are a married woman? No. But just because we changed the name because geriatric was offensive doesn’t mean that the risks don’t exist. It is much more difficult to get pregnant after 35 and especially after 40,” she adds.
But the risks don’t just affect the mother.
“The risks to the baby do increase after that,” she says.
And it’s not just the health risks associated with later pregnancies that have Stuckey concerned, but the unrealistic view of time.
“It is pushing this idea that you can party through your 20s, chase your career through your 30s, choose to settle down when you are 38 and you will be just as likely to get married and have children and be a trad wife when you are 45 as if you did it when you were 25,” she says.
“I just don’t want to sell women this unrealistic vision of what their life will absolutely look like if they defer marriage for promiscuity and for their career to be a girlboss forever,” she continues.
“I don’t have a problem obviously with women getting pregnant later in life. I have a problem with us presenting that as if it … is the ideal,” she adds.
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