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Get a free book when you sign up for a 30-day free trial at audiblepodcast.com slash XX. Welcome to the Double X-Gab Fest, the old sperm edition. I'm Hannah Rosen, editor of Double X. I'm joined Rare Treat in the D.C. studio by Noreen Malone, who's a writer for the New Republic. Hello, Noreen. Hey, Hannah. And Alison Benedict, lonely in New York,

the other double X editor. Hi, Allison. Hey, guys. Our topics for today are, first is, should we

really be waiting to have babies until our 40s? The second is the new explosion of gender

neutral toys. And the third is a new study confirming our fears that women never ask men to marry them. And why? Why is that? So let's start with our first topic about babies. Judith Shulovitz, who is a wonderful writer for the New Republic, takes on this phenomenon that we all know is happening but haven't really taken account of. What does it mean that women and men are

having children at older ages? This is, of course, a natural consequence of feminism of the

idea that women's choices should be as little constrained as possible. But it turns out that the

experts are a lot more worried about this than we are, that they are showing an uptick in kids

with birth defects, down, sensory issues, ADHD, autism.

And we haven't even gotten to the social questions, which Allison takes on in a post this week,

having to take care of our toddlers and our own parents at the same time,

and becoming grandparents ourselves at such a late age.

So, Allison, you wrote this week that, what, that you regretted it?

How do I characterize what you wrote? Would you call it regret or just contemplation or what's your feeling about waiting to have children as you are now pregnant? And I don't know how old you are, but, you know, older than you should be, surely. I'm 35. And so actually, you know, in the reactions to these, I'm 35 and I'm having my third kid.

So a lot of people wrote to me saying, like, how old do you think you should be when you're having your third kid?

And so, I mean, I was talking in my post specifically about me, but also just kind of more generally because I think I'm probably on the younger end of old.

But I not regret, contemplation, I think.

It's something that setting aside all of the kind of scary medical stuff that Judith

goes into her piece in such detailed manner, what you said, the social aspects of it,

I don't think many of us consider when we're in our mid and late 20s.

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