Mothers, Milfs, and Wives Pt 1

Ever wonder what the one right way to become a mother is? There is no one right way! For many millennia, woman have used all different kinds of reproductive strategies to keep their genes on the planet. We are talking women’s reproductive strategies!

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Ever wonder what the one right wayto become a mother is. Well,
there's no one right way. Infact, for many millennia, women have
used all kinds of reproductive strategies tokeep their genes on the planet. This
is mating matters. I love beinga mother, but if I'm going to

(00:26):
be completely honest with you, Ialso sometimes hate being a mother. That's
because motherhood is all about sacrifices,and the paybacks aren't always measurable by society.
A dimpled, curly grin here,a warm snuggle there, a holiday
singing pageant, or high school graduationwhere your kid makes you proud. All
of these are brief respites between thesleep loss, the embarrassing public tantrums,

(00:52):
usually the kid, but sometimes themom, and the worry. No doubt
about it, motherhood is burdensome.This about eighty percent of women become mothers
one way or another, and mostof the others are mothers to the village.
I always wanted to be a mother, always, always, always.
I was always the one that babysat in the neighborhood, always loved kids,

(01:15):
to love little babies. I wantedto have ten kids when I was
growing up. That changed once Ibecame a mom and realized how much work
was involved, but growing up thatwasn't my dream. Welcome to Mating Matters.
I'm doctor Wendy Walsh. In thisepisode Mothers, MILFs and Wives,
Part one, we're talking about women'sreproductive strategies. If you're a woman,

(01:38):
there are plenty of ways to keepyour genes and evolutions, chain or raise
the species as a whole. Womenhave long had plenty of reproductive choices if
they have a baby, when theyhave a baby, with whom they have
a baby, whether that baby willsurvive, and whether they'll care for their
own or others. If you stillbelieve, though, that love just happens,

(02:00):
and marriage and children are mostly aboutthe luck of the draw, I
want you to listen very closely.Things have changed since the nineteen thirties when
McCall's magazine put out this helpful littlefilm, What a housewife must Know.
She must face death to bring childreninto the world. She must raise them,

(02:23):
care for them, and pile atthem safely to the threshold of manhood
and womanhood. To her husband,she must be a companion of tweetheart wife
and the mother. She must stirhis ambition will improve kids and keep success

(02:44):
from hurting him. Granted, evendecades later, women's gender roles and reproductive
choices seemed pretty limited. The mediaperpetuated the idea that a woman's role was
to be a good wife and motherto one man for life. Even today.
Buried deep inside some progressive career womenlies some version of the dream of

(03:06):
a house with a white picket fence, two children, and a wage earning
husband. Because to some that feelsnatural, and why not. It's been
pumped into women's heads for a coupleof centuries. Here's a nineteen fifty one
educational video on marriage The first yearof marriage. Gee, we got a
good start. I remember coming homefrom a wonderful honeymoon. We were so

(03:32):
fortunate. Her housing problem was takencare of. Pete's mother owned a two
family house. She was a widowand lived upstairs, and we were going
to live downstairs. Pete had agood job, worked in the same plan
as my dad, but dad didn'tintroduce us though we met at the church.

(03:54):
I hate to burst your bubble,but the idea of a nuclear family,
the one with two parents, onebeing male and the other female,
living in a home with children whoare biologically related to both of them while
they live happily ever after is arelatively new invention for human beings, and
it's not attained by the vast majorityof people. More natural for us is

(04:21):
a moving encampment of co operative caregiversthat may include grandmothers, brothers, friends,
cousins, aunties, any one amother can enlist to help her out.
When I say more natural for us, remember that humanoids have been on
the planet for about four million years. That's how old our behavioral memory is.

(04:43):
We've only been doing widespread modern farmingand industry for about four hundred years.
Farming, by the way, wasthe big downfall for women, because
we were pulled away from our girlpack and plunked into narrow gender roles to
become that barefoot and pregnant in thekitchen gaal. But we women are wired
for something very different from last centuriesidea of a nuclear family, and as

(05:05):
you'll hear in this podcast, themodern women we spoke to are behaving in
many ways like hunter gatherer women interms of their reproductive choices. The only
difference is that many feel like they'refailing because they aren't living up to that
new fangled idea of a nuclear family. Like cave women, we are looking
at our mating marketplace, making unconsciousand sometimes conscious decisions about attracting, keeping,

(05:30):
or replacing mates based on how wellthey provide or give care. We
consider the timing of our pregnancies thatdidn't begin with the invention of the birth
control pill. Women all the timepracticed staying away from men at certain times
or putting all kinds of material insidetheir bodies as a barrier. We also

(05:51):
weighed the pressures of our fertility windowagainst the pressure to make enough money to
feed our babies. There's no oneright way to come a mother, or
a mother's help her. If you'refeeling like you're failing, I'm here to
pull you off the guilt train,because I think we're returning to something more
natural. And this return to whatis more naturally female probably began with the

(06:13):
advent of the birth control pill innineteen sixty two, and then with the
march into offices in the nineteen seventies. That was around the time Helen Ready
was singing, I Am a Woman. Let's start with the statistics. The

(06:33):
research of Harvard trained economist and demographerDavid Foote now at the University of Toronto
shows that the big deciding factor inwhether a woman will reproduce is her level
of education. Graduate degrees are birthcontrol yep. The more education, the
less likely a woman is to havebabies, and she'll likely have only one

(06:54):
or two. The more a coupleis educated, the more likely they are
to have a baronet or be childfree, and that group is growing.
Child Free women were relatively rare inthe nineteen fifties, but today make up
about one in five women. Holdthat thought because in a moment, I'll
explain how this is more natural forour species. Wealthier women maybe having fewer

(07:17):
babies because they run into fertility problemsor a mate crunch in the mating market
place when they spend a large partof the fertility window obtaining education and building
careers. On the other hand,high school educated and lower income women are
likely to have children earlier and havemore children. This may be because reproduction

(07:41):
may seem more urgent to those withfewer life choices. They also get a
jump on finding mates early. Andthen sometimes there are the life changing accidents.
This woman was on birth control,engaged and living with someone when she
accidentally became pregnant at the age oftwenty. Fortunately, the dude just wasn't

(08:01):
having it and he bailed. Yeah, it wasn't in the plans with my
son's dad. It was definitely oneof those that, hey, this would
be great because we're in love inthe future and there was a plan and
everything such as that. But thenthere was the unexpected blessing of my son.
So it was definitely one of thosethings where I realized, oh man,

(08:24):
this is a lot harder. Shesays she comes from a strict family,
and even though she says she's prochoice, she didn't feel she had
many options if she still wanted herfamily's support. And I knew even adoption
wasn't going to be something because mymom was very like, I'm not having
a family member live off with someoneelse, and you know, I'm not
going to know anything. So theywere big on that. She told me

(08:46):
she finally got up the nerve totell her mother what was happening when she
was about four months pregnant. Mymom would always for bad joke, but
she would always joke and be like, Mom, I have something to tell
you. It didn't matter what.She'd be like, you're all the time
you know that was like her joke, right, But I remember, you
know, sending her down, andI was just like, so, I
have something to tell you, andshe was like, you're pregnant. And

(09:09):
then I was like, yes,I was more afraid of seeing my mom
cry in disappointment than having her beatmy butt. My dad was not thrilled.
Oh yeah, my dad actually kindof lunched at me like he was
just like, why you know,my mom was definitely my rock. I
actually became a single mom, soshe was the dad in that aspect.

(09:35):
Ah the man problem. Women's reproductivechoices are intrinsically linked to the potential for
male support, either financial support soshe can hire her babysitters or actual paternal
caregiving. And that could be acrapshoot if you don't know what you're looking
for. Anthropologist and primatologist doctor SarahBlaherhardie if you see. Davis is known

(09:56):
worldwide as one of the most importantwomen in alliance for her contributions to female
evolutionary behavior. Her books Mother Natureand Mothers and Others have always been my
Bibles. Here is some of herUCLA talk called Born Human, How the
utterly dependent Survive you can find iton YouTube. Fathers clearly have this potential

(10:20):
to respond to babies, and youhave this species where mothers need help so
very much. In that case,how is it that paternal care varies so
much? I mean, you havesome men who are totally dedicated to their
children. The Missus Doubtfires out there. The character played by the actor Robin

(10:41):
Williams in the movie Missus Doubtfire wasso in love with his children that even
after divorce, he went to greatlengths to get hired as their nanny.
He's still the same old dad,only better dude he served. And you
have other men men certain opaternity,who behave as if they didn't even know

(11:05):
they had children. How can thisbe? Bad? Dads still find mates?
Listen to the Mating Matters episode calledthe Trouble with Testosterone to understand why.
Besides testosterone, though, are thereother reasons why some men are good
dads and other are cads? Well? For one, when there are more
men in a mating marketplace compared towomen, men are more likely to be

(11:28):
monogamous and more into fatherhood, Andwhen they spend more time with babies,
their testosterone goes down and their prolactinand oxytocin go up. Men become better
fathers by actively fathering. But rightnow we have an oversupply of successful women

(11:50):
and an undersupply of corresponding successful men. Thus, many men are focused on
mating over child rearing, and manyof them are balked at the idea of
paying child support. I bring homeone six hundred and twenty six dollars a
week and three hundred and fifty goto child support. Bryan says eighteen thousand
dollars a year in child support forhis infant son is too steep. At

(12:13):
twenty nine years old, he sayshe had to move back in with his
parents. And there's another reason there'ssuch variance in whether men help with kids.
According to doctor Herdie, men getlazy when the family lives in a
mat alocal setting, meaning with herfamily and friends, rather than moving in
with his family and friends. Whena mother lives with her man's family,

(12:35):
there's less support, so he hasto help. You see, grandmothers tend
to invest less in their son's childrenand focus more on their daughter's kids.
One of the reasons for this isbecause grandmothers are assured that their genes came
out of their daughter, but theirdaughter in law. Who knows if another
man has gotten access to her hiddeneggs. This maternal grandmother preference is so

(12:58):
prevalent in human beings that at leastone government accidentally created a child welfare social
policy in the form of an oldage pension. According to the economist Esther
Dufflo of Mit, grandmothers in SouthAfrica who received pensions turned out to have
taller and healthier grandchildren when they wereborn to their daughters compared with those born

(13:22):
to their sons. Bottom line,men can't always be counted on, and
grandmothers may or may not be available. But what about those one in five
educated women with no kids. Well, according to these women, they made
their decision not to have children fora number of reasons, for instance financial
reasons or because they couldn't find amate on time. If I found the

(13:46):
perfect partner, I would want to, perhaps I would want to. I
don't have the feeling of that wantinglike some women do. Off have a
baby in the past. What Ihave with partners that have felt in love
with I've thought about it, butit hasn't worked out. I haven't ever
really wanted to be in a partnershipand it break up with kids involved.

(14:09):
I could have been interested in havingkids, but the guy had to come
first, and I wasn't so hellbent on having kids that I would have
done it at any cost, youknow, by myself for anything like that,
Like I had to have the partnerthat I wanted, and he never
showed up, you know, atleast not in time, and so that
was that. Or they made thedecision because their career is so fulfilling.

(14:33):
I guess I would say I ammarried to my job, and some people
would think that was sad. However, I think it's great because I love
the people I work with, Ilove the events that I go to,
and it's really about my lifestyle thatI love. Leading. Yeah, I've
moved around a lot in my lifeand I feel like I've put career first.

(14:54):
So children have never really been agoal of mine, and recently I
decided that I don't think I wantto have children. My work is very
challenging, very demanding. You alwayshave to be on mentally. You know.
It's hard enough trying to take careof myself sometimes because the job is

(15:16):
so demanding, it's hard to imaginehaving to take care of a whole other
person. Some child free women sayit's for ethical reasons they want to save
the planet from overpopulation, and forothers, it just might not have happened
biologically. This woman says she neverused birth control and never became pregnant.
I never consciously decided not to havechildren. It just never happened for me.

(15:41):
And believe me, I worked inan industry where I knew people in
you know, IVF, where Icould have gone that way, I could
have gone the seregacy way. Inever wanted to put my body through it.
And psychology plays a role too inwhether a woman becomes a mother.
Good mothers beget good mothers. ButI always knew I wanted to have kids
because I thought my mom was agreat mom, and she made it a

(16:02):
wonderful experience for me, so Ithought, well, maybe you could do
this as well. And sometimes ithappens the other way around. Ah.
My childhood was great, but itwasn't the best. I had a mom
who wasn't necessarily the most loving becauseshe was very selfish, But I don't
think it was. I don't thinkthat played a part in it so much.

(16:23):
Like I know, i'd want tobe different, but maybe in the
back of my mind it was Idon't know whether it's by choice or by
circumstance. Child free women and menare paramount to human survival. Could this
be Mother Nature's way of creating somethingevolutionary psychologists called extra allo parents. Allo

(16:45):
parents are adults who may not bebiologically related to children, but have a
big impact on their survival. InSarah Blafferhardie's book Mothers and Others, she
makes a great case that our explosionin intelligence is linked to the stimulation and
care provided by other adults, teachers, doctors, coaches, pastors, neighbors,

(17:07):
other mothers in that mommy group,and child free women. My cousin
is a single mother and she isgoing through absolute hell. Her partner left
her, like with absolutely nothing anddoesn't pay child support. So you know,
I very much feel even more soto help them out financially. So

(17:30):
I just never had that absolute needto be a mother. And I think
that's because I have lots of niecesand nephews. I'm very close with them.
I've been with them growing up,and it kind of felt like that
fulfilled the need. Evanece He's followingin the same steps as may. So
I'm constantly mentoring her about her rolein the company because she's doing the same

(17:55):
thing that I do. Yeah,and then I have two other naces and
a nephew, so yeah, Ilook at them and I think of them
as my own. I had momswho said, hey, I'll pick up
your kids so that you can dothis, or there were times when I
would pick up their kids, orhey, you don't feel well well,

(18:15):
I'll pick them up and take themto church and they can still have you
can have a few hours of yourselfand that kind of thing. Having that
support system has helped me to understandhow we all need each other. The
nuclear family is giving way to somethingelse. In fact, for more than
two decades, according to the NationalCenter for Health Statistics, about forty of

(18:36):
American babies have been born out ofwedlock, and the rest are vulnerable to
a high parental divorce rate. Singlemothers with an allow parent village are fast
becoming the societal norm, and allowparents even include that single dude hanging around
helping out single mothers. I happento be a single mother. My personal
trainer lugs our Christmas tree up thestairs every year. And he taught both

(19:00):
my girls how to ride bikes.Thank you, Troy. I've also had
plenty of what I call hovermen,guys who hover around hoping for sex,
but not before I audition them byputting them to work in my house.
And women know to keep men happyand helping, they need to look good.
Thus the rise of the milf amom I'd like to fight a hot

(19:23):
mom seeking allow parents or a bettermate, and looking very attractive while doing
it. Fergie knows about MILFs.She wrote her song milf Money after the
birth of her son. You gotto see this video. It's filled with
hot celebrity moms in laingerie tempting amilkman, some of them breastfeeding. Even

(19:49):
if child free women and men aren'tgiving direct care to other people's kids,
they may be doing it indirectly.They may employ parents, or work in
law or government making rules that supportparents. So even if you don't have
a cave woman grandmother around, youmight have a female boss who helps feed
your kids via a paycheck. Asa mother, we have to kind of

(20:12):
prioritize our energy into these lives thatare dependent upon us. But I have
one friend who prioritizes our energy intogoing to all these places all over the
world and helping to dig wells forkids who already exist and don't have access
to clean water. I would loveto do that, but for her,
that's her way of giving back,contributing to the future, making life better

(20:34):
for so many more children than whatI can do with my four. It's
just we need all kinds, andwe all balance each other out. Another
fascinating thing about human mothers and cooperativebreeding is that will love and raise a
child that isn't genetically ours. Thinkadoptive parents and stepparents. Evidence of the
fact that allow parents and the villageare paramount to breeding is the fact that

(20:57):
we are one of the only thatwill hand our newborn to a stranger,
say the doctor or midwife. Trydoing that with a chimp. It's easy
to imagine that last century's nuclear familyis the best thing for kids. There's
plenty of research to show that ourculture doesn't yet provide enough supports for single

(21:18):
parents, free childcare, tax breaksfor parents, and adequate parental leaves.
But things are changing as women andmen evolve into families that may look more
like our hunter gather ancestors than afather knows best. Nineteen fifties style family
mother too, changes from her daytimeclothes. The women of this family seem

(21:41):
to feel that they owe it tothe men of the family to look relaxed,
rested, and attractive at dinner time. Here's an example of a single
woman with three children, aged twenty, fourteen and two. She's a great
example of what our cave women ancestorsmight have chosen. How she risked her
life bearing babies, how she spacedher babies, lost a baby, and

(22:03):
replaced a partner. Her maternal lifebegan with an unplanned pregnancy in her early
twenties that she chose to terminate.She later married the man who had impregnated
her, and later they gave birthto a daughter. When her daughter was
four years old, this woman wasnine months pregnant with her second child,
a son named Kyle. The couplewas excited as they arrived at the hospital

(22:26):
for a scheduled cesarean section. II knew that when I got to the
hospital and they were prepping me forthe C section, and technician after technician
kept coming because they clearly couldn't heara heartbeat. I kind of knew until
my doctor came in, looked atme and said, I'm really sorry,

(22:48):
but your baby didn't survive. Iwas given four months maternity leave. In
Canada, you're given a lot oftime. I had to bury my son
because he was a full term baby. I actually still think that I probably
haven't really dealt with that. Thecouple did go on to give birth to

(23:11):
a healthy baby boy fourteen months later, but soon after she replaced her partner
because he wasn't providing. Single motherhoodwas hard, but in some ways easier
for her. You know, inmy case, it was a different dynamic
because I was the provider protector inour household. My husband's income so I

(23:33):
was the redwinner. So my husband'sincome was nice and certainly missed when it
wasn't there. Because I was carryinga mortgage, two small children, I
had to get a nanny. Hewasn't. He didn't even I didn't see
him as a provider. Hence thereason why this relationship ended. Now,
what I did get from that relationshipwas the physical intimacy to be completely honest,

(23:55):
and that was nice, but itwasn't enough. After spending a decade
a single mother, her support systemincluded an aloe parent in the form of
an on again, off again boyfriend. Then she accidentally became pregnant again.
So I had been dating my partnerfor about nine years on and off.
At the time, we were ina good period. He's eight years younger

(24:18):
than me, and I'd been workingso hard that I had just forgot that
I didn't have a period for abouttwo months, I decided to take a
pregnancy test. For some reason,I just didn't think I could get pregnant.
I'm forty four years old, andso I wasn't even thinking about protection.
It was just a non issue untilit became an issue and I had

(24:41):
a decision to make. Her decisionmeant looking at these factors. She was
forty four, she had two childrento continue to support. She had a
boyfriend, but the relationship had beenunstable, and she was the main provider.
But get this, she was alsoa milf our jaw was to look
hot, young, and sexy onTV. What a pressure for a mother.

(25:04):
I am the main featured person inthis show, and the first thing
I'm thinking it is, what isthe impact of this pregnancy on this show?
Because they hired me for the sexyperson that I am this sassy you
know, able to do anything anywhereand travel, and now I'm pregnant and
I'm doing the math saying, oh, I have a season to be on

(25:26):
and I'll have a baby who's twomonths old. How am I going to
do this? This is the terrifyingstruggle of every mother, whether she is
a hunter gatherer worried about keeping amate while finding enough food for herself and
any living children, or a modernday Homo sapien female scrounging up resources on
a TV set, the feelings arethe same. The fear is equal.

(25:49):
Did you think about terminating the pregnancy? One hundred percent? And for many
reasons. I had weighed pros andcons I was looking at it from a
financial point of view. I waslooking at it from the impact of my
family, the relationship my two olderchildren. How are they going to feel?
They were equally shocked when they knew, and I had committed to not

(26:11):
sharing it with anyone until I hadmade the decision. We're keeping the baby
and we're happy about it. ButI also at forty four, I went
to my doctor and said, whatare the tests I need to happen?
What are the risks? So manypregnancies, it's a high risk. It's
over fifty percent of women over fortythat give birth to a child with some

(26:32):
genetic defect over forty. On topof the fact that I'm highly stressed and
have no time and another mouth tofee, like, what is going to
happen here? So yes, Iabsolutely contemplated it. So my daughter might
not have been here had I madethe other decision. And what was the
thing that put you over the edge? Do you believe to decide to give
birth to her? I really lookedat my pregnancy at that time. Really,

(26:56):
I looked at it as a miracle. In fact, the research shows
the number one factor and whether awoman will terminate her pregnancy is maternal age.
Younger women are far more likely tohave an abortion, as this woman
did when she was much Younger womennear the end of their fertility window believe
this may be their last chance tohave a baby. In the end,
this forty four year old woman hasa career, a boyfriend who is a

(27:19):
very involved father, and three healthychildren. I think she's winning the maiden
game. And when mothers do decideto raise children, the payoff. According
to one mom of four and grandmotheris that motherhood brings the village together.
Cooperative breeding spreads love, that lovethat you have as a mother for your

(27:41):
children. It's universal. You seeit in animals in the animal kingdom,
you see it in different cultures indifferent ways, in different countries, and
it just supersedes almost everything you canthink of that would be divisive. While
some people may think the decline ofthe nuclear family is a signal that society
is collapsing, social scientists like methink it's a welcome move backward back to

(28:07):
a time when women had far morereproductive choice, to something more similar to
our hunter gatherer days, more abilityto extract resources from the environment, and
plenty of aloe parents around to help. This family evolution is not without speed
bumps, though, and this newmovement to create a culture where women are
more free to be well women iscoming in loudly and not without conflict.

(28:32):
It's cloaked in the current women's rightsmovement that's sweeping the planet, and if
you listen closely, it's about women'srights to attract a mate by how they
dress, to mother freely, andto control the timing of their pregnancies.
A group of mothers staged a uniqueprotest outside the pool. They gathered to
nurse their children in a show ofsolidarity. Iran is one of two countries

(28:53):
that requires women to cover their headin public. Protests against compulsory hijab have
gotten bolder this year, and they'reall being worth. Thousands gathered this morning
on Manhattan's Upper West Side for thesecond Women's March on New York City.
Historic change in Saudi Arabia, womengetting behind the wheel. Our politicians don't

(29:23):
have a clue what they're subjecting womento. Probable amount of activity going on
both in our federal government and acrossthe states to try to close the gender
wage gap and to fight pay discriminationstates are espected. Last month, she
announced that she is asking the FederalElection Commission to approve the use of campaign
funds for childcare. It's a noisytime in our evolution. Humans continue to

(29:47):
adapt to the challenges of their environmentsand find ways to reproduce. Evolutionary psychologists
like me never predict the future.I can tell you one thing. We're
in a time of fast pay socialchange. In Part two of Mothers,
MILFs and Wives, how the femalesin our species are adapting to our environment,

(30:11):
an environment that increasingly involves changing technology, from adoption databases to egg freezing,
to in vitro fertilization and the veryemotional choice of terminating a pregnancy.
Have women bodies are operating in avery high tech age. Mating Matters is

(30:34):
produced in partnership with iHeartMedia. Itis researched, interviewed, and written by
me, doctor Wendy Walsh, andit is edited and produced by Brooke Peterson.
You know, people don't learn aboutpodcasts usually by just searching around.
They learn about a podcast because somebodywho loved that podcast told them about it.
So I encourage you to please subscribe, write a review, and more

(30:56):
than anything, hit that share button. Now, think of somebody who would
like to hear this information as muchas you enjoyed it. Follow us on
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagramat doctor Wendy Walsh. Listen to Mating
Matters on the iHeartRadio app or whereveryou listen to your podcasts. Thanks for
listening. I'm doctor Wendy Walsh.