To discuss the societal impacts of older parents?

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We will all have personal robot assistants to help with everything.

Who will find this though?

@Summer2025 I meant DH at 19 but had things to do so baby wasn't coming until 31.

I mean, a lot of people my generation had had children later because multiple financial crashes and other macro-economic factors meant we were not in stable jobs/ with stable finances until our early 30s.

Also, whilst I'd love a big family, we cannot afford more than 2 kids.

It's not about being selfish. It's factors outside our control have meant housing/ jobs were less stable than our parents generation.

I think the more interesting question is why so many women have children older now- fertility issues (and poor access to help at an early stage combined with terrible access to the right help), financial instability, cost of housing a family, reluctance amongst men to commit, risk of career harm due to sexism and inequality, simply bad luck, etc.

This is something I think about quite a lot. My mother was 40 years older than me, and tragically died of breast cancer that returned in her mid 60s and my mid 20s. It was her cancer that delayed her starting a family originally, not choice. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I could have had more time with her, and that she could have known her granddaughter.

I have always wanted to be a mother. I was fortunately in a position where I’d been with my husband since we were teens, and had financial means to support ourselves and a family via my mother’s inheritance. We started trying to have a baby at 26, started IVF at 27 and successfully conceived at 27. We are lucky to have 8 embryos frozen.

Now that I’ve had a child I know how consuming it is and how much attention one child requires we’ve decided to space our children out several years, but ideally would have 4 children with about 4 years between each child.

For us it’s the frozen embryos that we feel enable that choice - I may have a final pregnancy in my late 30s, using an embryo that is 27 and much less likely to result in some of the risks that are associated with later in life pregnancies (we actually have had genetic testing so have ruled out certain risks, although of course tests are not available for everything that can go “wrong” in life).

And nothing changes the reality that whilst we all hope to live into our 90s in great health, it’s always a possibility that we die much earlier. I don’t smoke, I wear sunscreen, I don’t drink alcohol, I breastfeed and have regular breast checks, I try to eat healthily to reduce whatever risks I can in life but my mother did all the “right” things and died too young anyway. You just never know in life.

That must be pretty unusual though.

One of my great grandparents died in 1904, before his last child was born. And his wife died during WW2.

I’m one of 6, the age difference between the oldest and youngest is 17 years. We are from 2 marriages. One parent was classed as an older parent from the birth of the first one. When it got to the last two they were the age when most started to become Grandparents (46 and 48). One of those children does have a disability, not severe and has lead a relatively normal life not needing care.

The one difference we have all discussed as siblings is the amount of patience the older parent had for us. They’d lived most of their life before us, they had more life experience etc. We didn’t have grandparents from either parent so the age made no difference for us. However our children now don’t have a grandparent from our side but do from their other sides so I guess already that shows a difference. Despite a positive outcome for us, we all had our own children before 30. I think mainly because it was really hard for us to lose a parent at quite young ages. We know life isn’t guaranteed to anyone but attempting to have longer with our children seemed right. I do feel for a lot of children born to parents 40+ that they are more likely to lose parents much younger than previous generations. For example my ex mil at 70 still has both her parents. I think that will be the biggest impact on those generations.

Ah sorry, I read too quickly!

We are all going to live longer and more youthful lives- hopefully. Women who have their last child after 40 are 4 times more likely to live to 100.

healthy life expectancy hasn't increased in years though

Had children 31 and 34.

My DC has 2 great grandparents on paternal side. Both still rocking around in good health. And all 4 Grandparents.

I had only ever had 2 grandparents growing up; one of who passed when I was 7. So then only a nan. No great GPs.

It didn’t do me any harm not to have them. And I wasn’t that close with my grandfather who passed. Although sad about that wasn’t hugely affected as only saw each other a couple of times a year.

I do think it’s going to worse for my children when the grandparents pass. They are much closer and that will affect them deeply 😓

And the few countries with high birth rates are poor, the dc there will have tiny carbon footprints compared to an adult in the west. Population growth has been caused by people living longer which many seem to struggle to get their head around...

By the time the 35 years olds having babies today are in their 70s+, AI will well and truly be a normal part of life. We will all have personal robot assistants to help with everything.

I met the love of my life at 21! We married at 22. I am pregnant with first (and last) child at 32 mostly due to infertility.

No guarantees lol. In fact my contribution to the birth rate is the same as a woman who met love of her life at 39 and had baby at 41.

OP, you are a younger parent than the category of parents you express concern about. This is in your original post. It’s not a very sensitive complaint to raise on a parenting forum, although mumsnetters are pretty tough. But it strikes me as inventing an issue that doesn’t exist which seems to paint one group as preferable to another. Or is there an older parent in your life that you feel jealous of or intimidated somehow? I think it’s odd.

As the world is overpopulated I'd say the fewer kids we have the better. And yes I know we need people to wipe the elderly's bottoms but you can't trash the climate (even more) for that reason.

Why would fewer dc be better? From a financial perspective younger societies are more secure and progressive.

You're comparing older parenting with teenage parenting though

Whereas a better conversation would be to compare the merits of starting a family aged 25-35 with starting one much later.

It's a fact,.whether we like it or not,.that there are a host of developmental and other health risks for children of who are much older when they start their family

I also know a few older parents of my son's peer group who just seem to have totally wound down and don't do anything with their teenagers. It's like they just have no energy for parenting them or enjoying being their parents

A significant number of people just don't meet the right partner until later. I think that the current societal norm is for women to be happy with their choice as opposed to marrying the first person they ever dated. To me that is a good thing.

OP - there are large segments of society where very few people have kids before their thirties, and most in their mid to late thirties, and this has been the case for decades. None of this is particularly new.

In my social circle (I’m talking professional, reasonably high earning families in the South East) you would absolutely be considered a young parent having had a child in your twenties, and your second at only 30. Living in an expensive area, most people I know needed to wait until their mid-thirties to be able to afford to raise children the way we wanted.

There probably are, just due to survival rates from premature birth and other disabilities that would previously have been life threatening.

But actually I don’t think that was the point the poster was making. I think she was saying that a parent who has a disabled child when they’re 25 can care for that child longer than if they’re 45 when the child is born. Therefore leading to more need for state care. I’ve no idea whether that’s a significant issue, that’s just what I think the point was, rather than higher rates of disability.

I don’t think we’ve really seen the results yet. I’m in my 30s and when I was born it was normal for first time parents to be about 25.

@Kindersurprising when were you born?!

"When fertility was high and an average woman hadbetween four and six children, even if she had herfirst birth in her mid-20s, her youngest child would have been born in her late 30s or even her early 40s, and this meant that the average age of childbirth was necessarily high. It is likely that theaverage age at which mothers had their children was in their 30s as far back as the 16th century, or even earlier."

Yes, but proportionately more children are born to older parents now, in part because far fewer people are having kids in their 20s or teens. My Grandmother had hers in her 20s 30s and 40s. Two of her grandchildren have had children so far - one in his 30s, the other at 40.

I do think it’s a factor, my parents were late thirties and now have hit ill health at the point my kid is in primary school. Sandwich generation and it’s brutal. My DH is the youngest of three and he says it’s noticeable how much less energetic his parents were when we had kids than his older sibling. I feel there is so much demographic shift about to happen though that this is only going to be one element of a myriad of problems.

We are all going to live longer and more youthful lives- hopefully. Women who have their last child after 40 are 4 times more likely to live to 100.

I had my kids recently at 33 and 36. My grandmother had her kids in the 50s/60s at 30 and 34 so not a million miles different and she lived until 96 and was very hands on with all her grandchildren

Having children in your 40s isn't actually that common. Most babies are born to mothers 25-35.