I was recently in contact with an ex-gf of mine. This is the gal I was in a 2.5 year relationship until a short while before I met Lynn. One of the reasons we didn't work out is that she didn't want children. Not for vanity, but she just wasn't interested.

She is quite happily married in another city, loves her career, and has a marvelous outlook on life. She travels, and is a David-Bowie-Aholic, catching his shows all over the US. It was very nice to talk with her. I hope she looks us up when she comes to town (I rarely make it to her part of the NW.)

One thing that struck me is that she NOW wants kids. She is 38 years old. We had kids late in the game (our youngest was born when Lynn was 40), but I think she would ahve prefered to be a bit younger.

I wonder if the desire to "keep it sexy" into motherhood is a reaction to our overemphasis of (imaginary) sexual compulsion within our society as whole. Is it linked to the doomed failure of (everything-is-perfectly-equal-so-ignore-all-differences) feminism?

Or is it because the daughters of the post-bra-burning feminists so readily jumped to accept strip-bars and thong panties?

Or is this nothing more than women reclaiming their sexuality as a form of parental identity?

This is something OTHER than the Murphy Brown-style have your kid and eat the career stuff that Quayle didn't understand. Not the same vibe.

OTOH, maybe its externally applied. Maybe the *men* in our culture are demanding this of our women. Perhaps too many years of "Juggies" magazines and MTV?

One important thing to remember about Marketers is that they always play to weakness; theirs or yours. If they say they have "Phenomenal Customer Service," you can be dang sure that you will end up getting cheesed off. If they say it will help you lose 40 lbs, then it's a ripoff, sure as a mile. The best products speak for themselves. Customer Service isn't advertised, its learned by word of mouth.

The short answer: i agree with Jill. They have found their market.