To discuss the societal impacts of older parents?

Todays parents of young dc won't get to retire until 70 or older so they won't be providing care for older generations due to time constraints.

I find this really hard to believe

Hence the societal impact when people don't live in the same country as their family. There will be an impact on the children/care of the older generation.

There is a correlation between parental age and additional needs whether physical or ASD etc.

Grandparents can be a mixed bag.
I was raised by my maternal grandparents and they were the most loving and caring people I’ve ever known.
My paternal grandmother was mean - I learned at an early age to stay far away from her.
Still, while you don’t miss what you don’t know, I’m sorry you never got to meet your grandparents. I bet they were lovely.

No

She said 1990. That was 35 years ago not 10. And statistics seem to agree

This is the case on a statistical level too. Teenage mums and their kids have much poorer outcomes than older parents. It’s a huge advantage for people to be mature and financially and emotionally stable before having kids

I wouldn't be surprised if a robot would work out cheaper than a care home. Care home fees are extremely high.

But I have friends who have siblings who are disabled and they will have to have state care because my friends cannot take care of their disabled sibling. I don't think that's really unique to this situation.

Everything is happening later. A consequence of most families needing two incomes to buy a house or even rent so couples need to establish careers, save for a deposit and then get financially stable enough to live off reduced income while the mother/caregiver is on maternity leave. Once you factor in the cost of childcare and maybe private education a lot of families are sticking at one child and don't start a family until late thirties or even forties. This might mean even grandparents are too old to help out let alone great grandparents.

When I was a child (in the 1960s) my mum was a SAHM and was 26 when she had me and 37 by the time she had my brother. I also had our first child at 26 and our second at 28 but we had moved to a cheaper part of the country to make our living costs affordable on just one income. Even so I had to return to part time work when my youngest was 2 when mortgage rates shot up to 15%. My DD had her first child when she was 28 so under 30 still. She works full time.

My mum is still alive so my GC have a great grandmother but only one. We will pay as a society for not making it affordable for young couples to buy a home and have children without needing fertility treatment because they are too old. It is also more common to have children with disabilities if parents are older.

It’s not really under discussed though is it. This seems like a reaction to the threads on 15 year old having babies. I was born in the 70s to parents in their 20s and I didn’t know my great grandparents nor did anyone I knew. My grandparents didn’t so much childcare yet my mother cared for my elderly relatives when we were children. That’s life

I certainly don’t wish my mum had been 15 when she had me just so I could know her grandparents. That would be nuts

It's all 'me me me and my career' and travel.

How on earth is that a bad thing? Or selfish?

You sound incredibly bitter.

I’m nearly 50 my my great grandparents were long dead when I was born as was one grand parent. My grandmas mum was 40 when she was born. Often looking after parents is down to one sibling.

People are staying healthy a lot longer and working later.

People moving away from home towns and divorce are likely to be much bigger issues

How many did they have when they were five?

Agree to some of your points. But in our case daughter had baby at 37 one and done. I her mother am 67 and help a lot with childcare.Daughter will certainly not be helping an ‘ elderly ‘ parent, whilst having a young child. If I follow my parents, I should only need help in my eighties, by which time dgc will be in her twenties, so not a young child. Tonight child is with me, so parents can have a social life together.
My family had children fairly young. As a result, as I near 70 am still helping my mother and could very easily enter my seventies with my mum still here. At 64 had both parents alive and independent , but perhaps I am unusual. I think there are pros and cons in having children at various ages. There is also the issue of my sandwich generation of boomers having to help with both dgc and mother of 90plus. They do adore each other though and I know my dcc will remember her great gm with love. To my Gc Grandma is not old, Nanny, her great gm is old

😂Hilarious

You have problems.

Not engaging anymore, you clearly have issues

Posted too soon…

I had my dd at age 39, after nearly ten years of fertility struggles. I would have loved to have had her earlier and would have loved to have had more

I had young parents and had my own three children between the ages of 26-31. I never knew any of my great-grandparents as my mother only knew one grandfather until she was a teenager and all my parents' other grandparents died either long before my parents were born (my Dad's mother, born in 1909, was an orphan by the time she was four and both her parents were under thirty at the time) or when they were babies. I was lucky enough to have three grandparents live until I was an adult and they knew their great-grandchildren when the children were small. However, this was relatively unusual among my friends. If my own children ever have children, they will be older and my husband and I will also be older. My mother, who is now in her eighties, is my children's only living grandparent. She may or may not live to see grandchildren. These things are circumstantial.

And if great grandparents are the concern, despite being the dreaded older mother, my DC had two great grandparents when they were born.

I think if everything else is in place, 30 is a sweet spot as it balances the 2 extremes.

"But the average age of women at first birth today (29.6) is not very different to what it was in 1938 (29.0), and fertility among women in their forties was higher at the start of WWII and during the 1940s than it was in 2010."

I have a friend who had their child at 40. And their child has also not started their family until almost 40. Consequently my friend's parents never met her children. And although she knows her grandchild, she's not going to be around for much of the DGC's life.

It's kind of the opposite of the extended family. Fewer siblings and limited time with grandparents. Also parents of retirement age with older children that are still dependent.

Also the issue of more birth defects with older families (because contrary to popular belief, older fathers are responsible for birth defects at least as much, if not more, than older mothers).

It's a cultural sea change for sure.

I was discussing this with a friend who had babies in her 20s (we are now in our 30s).

I think (generally speaking) that people who have children in their 30s/40s have made more of a conscious decision to have a family. I am basing this view on me and my small circle of friends but being older, we have waited until we are more stable financially, emotionally, and have achieved career goals that we have set out to achieve. My friend who had children earlier had almost a "it just happened” attitude. I didn’t want to live month to month, you could maybe say I’m selfish? I like my life and I didn’t want to subject my child to a worse upbringing than I had.

Im not saying either is right or wrong but studies have shown that older parents are generally more likely to view parenting as a “life project”, a decision they made intentionally, with a view to raising their child/ren in the best possible way. We are also seeing couples having the one child (probably linked to the cost of living) where all their focus can be on that one child. I think all of the above will lead to more stable adults being raised.

When my parents had me and my siblings, my grandparents were still young. That meant that my parents had no support because they were still in their prime working years. Me having children later means that my parents can be more involved if they want to be, the same will be the case for my in-laws!

Hopefully, me waiting to have children later means that my investments/ pension from achieving my career goals will take care of me in my old age and they won’t have to lift a finger 🤞🏻