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Ever-Greenes: Revisit Radiolab’s Thirty-Something

Originally Aired: Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Overview

Tune in to this encore video stream of Radiolab‘s exploration of the thirty-something years with The Daily Show‘s Dulcé SloanLily Binns of acclaimed modern dance company Pilobolus, writer and scientist Joseph Osmundson and comedian and Saturday Night Live writer Sam Jay. This show originally aired on March 13, 2018.

Watch live at 4pm ET:

Radiolab‘s Molly Webster had been digging into baby making — why we do it, how science is changing the ways we do it, why some of us don’t do it — and over and over she kept hearing this number: 35.

It’s a “reproductive cliff,” people told her; any pregnancy after 35 is “geriatric.” In fact, when one fertility doctor found out Molly was about to turn 35, he told her to get on a plane and fly out to his clinic: “You gotta freeze those eggs.”

And the anxiety about 35 wasn’t just an issue for women: it popped up in conversations with straight men and in the LGBTQ+ community; on the East Coast and in the Midwest; in twenty-somethings as well as folks older than 35. Because it wasn’t just about babies. Thirty-five had seemed to become a deadline for having the perfect job, the right home and your dream relationship.

Molly started wondering: is 35 a real deadline? Or is it all in our heads? And if it is, where did this anxiety around the age come from and what should we do with it?

 

Radiolab Presents: Thirty-Something is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.

 

 

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