For Too Many Women, Joys of Motherhood Are Gone

Finally, it's arrived. Among all of life's other milestones — getting a driver's license, buying that first legal beer, surviving children, surviving a midlife crisis, retiring, wearing socks with sandals and moving to Florida — there's a new one to add to the list, and I happen to have reached it last month by turning 32. That, folks, is apparently the magic age when a woman turns into her mother.

Thanks to the social scientists at Hallmark (yes, the greeting card company), a recent poll finds that two-thirds of 32-year-old women report that this is precisely the time when they start adopting some of their mothers' well-worn adages like "sit up straight" and "don't make that face," while also taking on some of their mothers' more bizarre idiosyncrasies, like worrying about everything all the time, stockpiling groceries, and watching soap operas.

At the same time, while we may be adapting our mothers' mannerisms, we are increasingly distancing ourselves from the cultural trappings of motherhood. As The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported last year, "The fashion for having children later in life could lead to women becoming more fertile in their 40s and beyond, scientists have suggested."

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