Late motherhood as ‘big a problem’ as teenage mums

[iota]

anyone see this article in the ST?

I actually felt quite offended for about 10 minutes

[rabbitrabbit]

I felt the same. I ranted-to poor dh-for five minutes and then felt better.
People will do anything to make a name for themselves won't they

[iota]

I ranted to dh as well

[iota]

Knowing the constraints, rational women would choose to have completed their families by 35

so I'm not rational then...or maybe I didn't meet the right man until I was in my 30s

[acnebride]

I note that Dr Bewley is attempting to raise funding for services for older mothers.

The writer of the ST article has no such excuse for including THIS paragraph which certainly increases my blood pressure:

'Nevertheless, the comparison with teenage mothers will still sting. The two groups could not be more different. One is made up largely of deprived and feckless girls while the other is dominated by highly educated and successful career women.'

I see a lot of posts by younger mothers on here saying how people regard them as a problem just for having children. Couldn't be clearer than it is in that article.

Also education has nothing at all to do with your level of feck. At 21 I had more education than you could shake a stick at but about as much feck as a cushion.

[acnebride]

Oh, I'm unsuccessful as well BTW.

Fuck it I am so angry about the ST writer. I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of responding but for the first time I'm actually glad we're trying to go cold turkey on newspapers on cost grounds.

[Iklboo]

"MIDDLE-CLASS women who become pregnant in their late thirties and early forties are as big a public health problem as teenage mothers" - that's alright then, I'm working class

As for her call for government intervention - what does she expect them to do? Drag all women over the age of 35 in for compulsory sterilisation??

I didn't put off having DS until I was 36 because of some wonderful highly paid career - it was because I hadn't met the right man until I married DH at 35. I suppose this woman would rather I had a child to my verbally, mentally & physically abusive ex would she? Grrrrrr

[Pruni]

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[Pruni]

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[Quootiepie]

what about the teenage mums who dont live off the state?

[MadamePlatypus]

I always find these anti-late motherhood articles confusing. What did people do before the pill came along - stop having sex when they got to 35? Surely there have always been people who had children later?

Re: reduced fertility, point taken, but what are people supposed to do? Find a sperm donor when they get to 34? As a 35 year old 'professional' I don't know one single person who is putting off having a relationship/baby because of her wonderful career, and I didn't know anybody who did this in their late twenties or early thirties either. Maybe these people exist, but I can't believe that they are a significant part of the population.

Meanwhile look at the flack that 'apprentice' michelle has got for getting pregnant in her mid twenties. Whatever age you become a mum, there is somebody out there to criticise you.

[Iklboo]

Oh - didn't you know Quootie - it's the law that all teenage mums have to be living off the state. So you'd think the way they're portrayed in the press!
As for only "feckless and deprived" girls being teen mums - where the bleedin' hell did THAT sweeping statement come from?

[Iklboo]

Perhaps the press should just print an article

"ALL MOTHERS ARE SH!T REGARDLESS OF AGE, CREED, CLASS, COLOUR, LOCATION......."

[KathyMCMLXXII]

Like Acnebride's comment about fecklessness. The mothers on the Cutting Edge docu last night were certainly not short of feck either.

Pruni it really makes me mad when this is presented as a problem with silly women making the wrong decisions, rather than a generation of men who don't feel they are ready to have children till they are nearly 40. The solution is obvious though - government intervention to make it illegal for a man to refuse to have children on the grounds that he's not ready yet.

[expatinscotland]

Oh, yes, I've had such a cracking 'career'.

That'd be funny if it weren't such a pathetic statement.

I had mine in my 30s b/c my former husband didn't want kids. Ever. Then I dated a string of so-called men who were more interested in playing in the sandpit wearng Peter Pan costumes.

What was I supposed to do, magic up a sperm donor w/enough cash to afford a detached house in Surrey and 2 4x4s?

Cuz I'd have just magicked up a pile of dosh and gone about my merry way.

Of course, it's all womens' fault for not being able to impregnate themselves at will and conjure up piles of dosh to allow them to support their progency and stay at home.

Mea culpa for having a uterus.

[acnebride]

Funnily enough, my xh would have been no more willing to have a child with me had I had a letter from my doctor, than he was when I was aged 26 - 30.

I suppose more articles like this would have made me likely to leave him slightly earlier than I actually did. But it would have made me spend even more time lying awake, crying in toilets, having therapy and taking antidepressants than I did at the time. Fucking doctors, sometimes I think they really haven't a clue about anything except the small area of the body which they see 300 times a day.

[Bozza]

MadameP - yes babies were always been born to the 35+ age group. Usually the 10th rather than the first though. And I suppose a fair few had been killed off in childbirth etc so there were less 35+ yo women around. Actually my great-grandmother was ahead of her time - she had her first child in 1916 aged 39 and went on to have another three children. Just like what some of these "middle-class career women" of today are doing - apart from that she was a weaver.

[acnebride]

Ok, I've calmed down a bit now.

I suppose what is true is that I regarded anyone I knew having a child between the ages of 17 and 26 as slightly weird.

So I'm probably only reacting so strongly to this because I recognise an echo of my earlier attitudes, about which I'm quite ashamed, except that for me personally, it would have been weird to have a child at that time. And to have a child now who was a tiny version of my xh would be fairly depressing.

Oh well.

[blueshoes]

Was in the Daily Mail as well. I just dismissed the article as being another one of their "divide and rule" nonsense. Interesting to see it reported in the Times as well.

Silly silly article. It means to say: women are "problems" full stop, unless they have children in what society/doctors feel is the ideal age, from a biological, financial and emotional standpoint. Only then, will they be allowed to be a "burden" on the NHS/public services.

You don't hear anything about the similar problems associated with older fathers as well (eg difficulties impregnating etc).

[Quootiepie]

WEll, bugger them. My mum had me at 38 because of her career... in the NHS (!) and I had DS at 19 but own my own house etc. I hate stereotyping.

[fennel]

It's very silly. There was an article a few weeks ago which argued that actually it would be cost-effective to pay for lots more IVF as it would lead to a higher birth rate and more future workers and tax-payers.

[bubblepop]

just to let any one know who is worrying about this article, i had a baby at 34 and one at 36 with no health problems whatsoever . both absolutlely straighforward pregnancies and textbook births with 6 hour hospital discharge. however my first pregnancy at 25 years was full of complications resulting in two weeks in hospital, child in special care, hospital transfer..the lot. so explain that one..

[doggiesayswoof]

The ST is a rag - I've always said so - and this is just misogyny. The 'feckless girls' comment is really shocking & should not have got past her editor imo. I also hate the way this type of article always talks about 'mothers' making decisions - fathers are usually involved in the decision-making too, as others have pointed out much more eloquently than me. This piece manages to be anti-women and anti-men at the same time. The other thing is that people do sometimes just get pregnant without meaning to - even the mythical middle class professionals with lots of feck.
At the end of the day it's just something else we are supposed to feel guilty about.

[colditz]

I was 22 when I fell pregnant with ds1. I was feckless. I stopped being feckless the second he was laid in my arms. Most 'feckless girls' do.

Yes, I do feel weird for having a baby at 22. Everyone I know with children the same ageas mine are either just hitting their 20s or rapidly approaching their 40s. The first group think I am an old fart, the second tend to think I am a thick slag, when in fact I am neither