social network

According to the New York Times, research from everyone from the Department of Health and Human Services to the CDCP, National Survey of Family Growth, the Tinina Q. Cade Foundation, and black women themselves shows that, despite centuries’ old stereotypes and even fears that black women are particularly fertile, well, they’re not. In fact, married black women have twice the odds of infertility than white married women, but it’s rarely talked about.

Regina Townsend of thebrokenbrownegg.org tells the Times:

“With women of color, specifically Hispanic and African-American women, the stigma attached to us is that it’s not hard to have kids, and that we have a lot of kids,” she said. “And when you’re the one that can’t, you feel like, ‘I’ve failed.’”

Some of the disparity in seeking treatment for infertility comes from differing health networks (see our recent piece with Brian Southwell for more on that) and some from differing financial positions (see decades upon decades of research on the wealth gap between black and white U.S. citizens). That is, black women seem less likely to talk to other women, their gynecologists, and their faith communities about fertility (or a lack thereof), and they’re less likely to have the resources—financial, medical, and network-wise—to seek infertility treatment.

Part of the problem, said Arthur L. Greil, a sociologist at Alfred University in western New York who has studied infertility and women of color, is that middle-class white women tend to have the confidence and connections to navigate the health care system better than less affluent minority women.

Even further, since fibroids (benign tumors that can significantly affect fertility) are more prevalent among black women and black women take longer to reach out for fertility advice, problems are compounded by time. Fertility drops naturally over the years, of course, but Dr. David B. Seifer said:

…fibroids [are] just one of various “cultural issues, biological issues and social issues” black women face that can affect their fertility. He said black women often waited longer to seek a diagnosis of or treatment for infertility, which “gives all of these other biological factors more time to become more severe.”

As Cariesha Tate Singleton told the article’s author, she knows she’s up against a stereotype that women like her are naturally “baby-producing machines.” Groups like Fertility for Colored Girls are working to change that notion.

As people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading. Schedules compress, priorities change and people often become pickier in what they want in their friends… [later] people realize how much they have neglected to restock their pool of friends only when they encounter a big life event, like a move, say, or a divorce.

More fish, sure, but are there always more friends in the sea? In its Sunday edition, The New York Times considers the expansive, but shallow pools of friends, associates, and colleagues–the slackening social networks–so many notice with a start in middle age.

As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added.

The article goes on to cite, beyond graduation, increasing couple-dom, divergent careers (even best friends can grow apart when one has mortgage troubles while the other can’t decide whether to spend one month or two in St. Bart’s), parenthood, and the pickiness engendered by self-discovery as reasons adults find themselves with fewer friends–and fewer avenues to find new ones–once they’re out of college and early career stages.

The good news, though, is that social scientists like psychologist Linda L. Carstensen have found that, as friend numbers dwindle (though perhaps not on Facebook), those remaining friendships grow closer.  In fact, Marla Paul, author of The Friendship Crisis, tells the Times, “The bar is higher than when we were younger and were willing to meet almost anyone for a margarita,” but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. People may find that they have just enough time to invest in real, lasting, fruitful friendships with this culled group.

Or, they might follow advice given by others in the Times: go on a search to fill specific “friend niches” or even launch back into the incredibly social, unattached behavior of their early 20s. Exhaustive, to be sure, but quite possibly exhausting.