@PumpkinsandTea
Can I just give my opinion as the child of a mother who was 39 & a father who was 45? Honestly, there were so many downsides. My parents were already slowing down & becoming 'tired' before we came along. They were far too knackered to run around with us and play with us properly and I remember all my school friends thinking they were my grandparents! The age difference between us was just far, far too vast. We couldn't bond over anything, they understood nothing at all about us & our interests and vice versa.
Obviously I know it won't be like that for everyone. I'm sure there's some people out there who were raised by much older parents and were ten times happier. I'm just sharing my experience.
Of course there was the bonus of all my Mum & Dad's fascinating stories from his travels during his career as an 'old school' travel agent (back when they used to go visit each resort etc).
Naturally this also meant that I ended up losing my Dad in my early twenties and I can't help but use the almost simplistic logic that had I been born earlier, I'd have a had a Dad longer! 🤷🏼♀️
I'm now almost 39 myself and desperately want a second child. However after my own experience having older parents, I certainly won't be having another and risking bereaving my kids whilst they're still young.
Can I just give my opinion as the child of a mother who was very nearly 38 when I was born and a father who was 43? Honestly there were/ are so many upsides.
My parents were fantastic parents to me - I have older siblings who were teenagers when I was born (I was a bit of a surprise) and my sisters often say that I had a better childhood than them and that mum and dad were better parents with me than them. They were more confident and wiser - didn’t make the same mistakes as with my sisters - for example - I was never ever smacked, rarely even shouted at, but my parents admit they used to smack my sisters because at the time they didn’t know what else to do. They were more financially stable so we were able to have good holidays and they were a lot more emotionally available too. All this talk about not having the energy? I’ve got plenty memories of my dad running around after me - we often went rock climbing, cycling, swimming, all sorts, with my dad as he was always very active despite being an older dad. Less so with my mum, but my sisters recall that she wasn’t very active even as a young mum in her 20s.
@PumpkinsandTea I’m sorry you lost your Dad in your early 20s. I really am sorry to hear that. But I don’t think that’s ‘natural’ at all. I am thinking he would have only been touching 70? That’s still too young to go in my opinion. My Parents are now 70 and 75 and still active and able to do everything they used to do - they are even still fostering a teenager (they’ve been fostering for 20 years) and before my dad having covid earlier this year he was cycling 10 miles every week. They look after their grandchildren and live very independent lives that I would hope to have them around for at least a few years longer. I’m now 32.
Obviously I know everyone’s experience is different, but I just wanted to give my experience as being a child of older parents, but having a really positive experience. I’m grateful and happy to have parents at all. I don’t believe that I have missed out or had a bad deal in any way. And my own mother lost her mother when she was just 21 and her mother was sadly only 44, so even young parents may still even tragically go before their time.