{"id":241,"date":"2014-10-16T12:52:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html"},"modified":"2015-02-26T23:15:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T05:15:56","slug":"what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html","title":{"rendered":"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I didn\u2019t write about this yesterday, because I\u2019m skeptical.<\/p>\n

Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of $20,000. \u00a0Everyone is aghast that this means that they\u2019re asking their female employees to work 80 hours\/week until they hit, what, early retirement age, I guess, at which point they have their frozen-egg-children.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe it. \u00a0I think that this is just part of the game of expanding fertility treatments to any potential type of fertility treatment. \u00a0I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they cover non-infertility-related services like surrogacy for gay men, either. \u00a0Unless I see a statement from Apple to the contrary, I won\u2019t believe that they are offering this with the intent that young women will freeze eggs for the specific reason of deferring motherhood later than it would otherwise be biologically possible.<\/p>\n

Which is too bad, because it would make for a great \u201chow outrageous!\u201d blog post.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/p>\n

Maybe this is a real thing. . . at least, everyone\u2019s treating it as if Apple and Facebook\u2019s intention is exactly to enable their female employees to freeze their eggs at age 25 to enable pregnancy at age 45. \u00a0And, in the real world, women don\u2019t get to slack off in their career at age 45, but maybe in the Silicon Valley world, it has some logic, to the people instituting these policies. \u00a0After all, they\u2019re known for massive age discrimination, whining that they can\u2019t find good workers without importing them from abroad, but turning anyone down who\u2019s not a fresh college graduate. \u00a0Periodically there are articles about men in their late 30s, afraid of being perceived of as over-the-hill, going to great lengths to mask any sign of aging. \u00a0And in this world, if you\u2019re washed up by the time you hit forty, it might well have made perfect sense to the HR department: \u00a0\u201cfreeze your eggs at 25, work 80-hour weeks with bonus hack-a-thons until you can\u2019t, well, hack it any longer, then have a kid or two and consider being a stay-at-home mom because you\u2019re no good to us any longer and we\u2019d just be looking for an excuse to can you and bring in your 22-year-old replacement anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the New York Time\u2019s Room for Debate<\/a> debated this. \u00a0Slate has its defense<\/a>, as did Forbes<\/a>, which I first saw when I looked, in vain, for an article that provided some context for this benefit.<\/p>\n

And the reasons they (and their commenters) give for why women need this option, and can\u2019t reasonably be expected to have their children in their early 30s any longer, let alone their late 20s, aren\u2019t even a matter of needing to establish careers first, or of financial insecurity. \u00a0It\u2019s that the process of finding Mr. Right, and of the couple being \u201cready\u201d to start a family, now, apparently, takes a good decade or more longer than it did in the past. <\/p>\n

I admit that I don\u2019t really understand this. \u00a0I don\u2019t buy that work is so all-consuming that women at the companies simply don\u2019t have the time to meet men \u2014 there\u2019s an overabundance of men among their co-workers (unless those men are all geeks and unworthy of their female colleagues). \u00a0Is it that they don\u2019t judge the men in their lives to be mature enough to be considered husband-and-father-material until a much later age? \u00a0Is it that these women themselves just don\u2019t consider themselves able to settle into a mature, adult relationship leading to marriage until much later than in the past? \u00a0Is it, in fact, truly the fault of \u201cmen on strike\u201d would would rather spend their time playing video games or going to bars with their buddies than in the company of a woman, or who are willing to \u201cget the milk for free\u201d but not \u201cbuy the cow\u201d? \u00a0Is their a heightened expectation, that a relationship, and a partner, must be perfect, and can only be deemed to be so after having stood the test of time? \u00a0\u2014 Or, to the contrary, does cohabitation produce too many Megan McArdles, who stay in mediocre relationships for too long? \u00a0(That\u2019s in her book.) \u00a0Or is the \u201cit takes so long to find a man these days\u201d lament simply a matter of explaining away a young adulthood spent with every determination to \u201chave fun\u201d without being tied down for as long as possible?<\/p>\n

Sorry, all questions, no answers. <\/p>\n

MORE:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another article, from another Bloomberg columnist<\/a>, though I haven\u2019t heard of her before. \u00a0Her bottom line: \u00a0to oppose egg-freezing to cheat menopause \u201csuggests that the only good time to have a family is in your 20s or 30s, and the only good way to do it is by getting pregnant,\u201d because all women deserve to have the \u201cright\u201d to cheat time with childbirth in their 40s, or whenever in their lives they lose interest in prioritizing their career or have ticked off their career and other goals of their life-list. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest version of \u201chaving it all\u201d \u2014 the risks of late-in-life childbearing, even with \u201cyoung\u201d eggs, and the low odds of succeeding in getting pregnant are wished away, and the disadvantages of parenting a toddler in your late 40s (that is<\/i> the age we\u2019re talking about here, right?) and a teenager at retirement age are rationalized as being balanced by greater \u201cmaturity\u201d and more comfortable finances, in order to pursue that dream of total control, and no sacrifices needed. \u00a0Yes, we know it\u2019s nice to be able to travel wherever you want to in your 20s, and even extend this freedom into your 30s, but to imagine that biology, or, if not, then technology, should conform to your wishes to extend your carefree youth, is foolish. <\/p>\n

Besides which, this is in the end, a very short-sighted view. \u00a0After all, kids do grow up. \u00a0If you have them early enough, you\u2019ll have plenty of time to be an empty-nester and still be hale and hearty enough to travel. \u00a0Heck, even before they leave the nest, kids are portable. \u00a0And, even though very-late-in-life-childbearing proponents claim that children help keep you youthful, I would strongly suspect that going straight from parenting to retirement makes for a poor transition.<\/p>\n

ALSO:<\/p>\n

Ann Althouse has a completely different theory<\/a>: <\/p>\n

I think that egg-freezing, though promoted as a way to prolong life\u2019s window of fertility, is secretly a way to fulfill the desire not to have children at all, as the woman buys ease in the passage of time.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The longer she goes without finding a place in her life for a child, the clearer the picture becomes. She really doesn\u2019t want that child. And with that clarity, she finally sees her true and free choice, and she has been spared the old-fashioned anguish of the years of hearing the \u201cticking biological clock\u201d that had, in the past, pressured women into having a baby as a bulwark against the regret that crystallizes after age wreaks infertility.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, egg-freezing is a way to avoid having that child that you have just to avoid regret later.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn\u2019t write about this yesterday, because I\u2019m skeptical. Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of $20,000. \u00a0Everyone is aghast that this means that they\u2019re asking their female employees to work 80 hours\/week until they hit, what, early retirement age, I guess, at which point they have their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[183],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fertility-treatments"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I didn't write about this yesterday, because I'm skeptical.Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I didn't write about this yesterday, because I'm skeptical.Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-16T18:52:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-27T05:15:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html\",\"name\":\"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-16T18:52:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-02-27T05:15:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"I didn't write about this yesterday, because I'm skeptical.Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?","description":"I didn't write about this yesterday, because I'm skeptical.Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?","og_description":"I didn't write about this yesterday, because I'm skeptical.Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2014-10-16T18:52:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-27T05:15:56+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html","name":"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-10-16T18:52:00+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-27T05:15:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"I didn't write about this yesterday, because I'm skeptical.Apple has announced that egg-freezing procedures are now covered, up to a maximum of","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/what-do-you-make-of-the-whole-apple-egg-freezing-benefit.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What do you make of the whole Apple egg-freezing benefit?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}