To discuss the societal impacts of older parents?

I have a fairly small family...not because we have had older parents or only children, just literally horrible luck in terms of illness/death

Its very interesting. I often hear both irl and on here of "large family gatherings" and parties....as the only children grow and up and have their own families, the concept of having numerous aunts/uncles/cousins will die out. Families will be much more linear... grandparents, parents and child.

If one of my teens was dumb enough to father a child in the next 5 years say, oh dear lord help us, we would make sure he fucking paid for his actions.

They know this.

I feel as someone who had her kids by 30, OP is looking for moral superiority over older mothers.

There's another active thread yesterday where a poster tried to insist a teen mum should say thank you for her paying her taxes even though she hadn't even said whether or not she was on benefits. I've also seen people say a lot worse.

Yet whenever someone says anything relatively mild but negative about older mothers (like down syndrome risk etc) they take it as their god given right to shout about how rude and offensive it is

There are changes, financial, taking this into account. The opt out pension schemes, they are partly to be able to freeze the state pension in future. Or vaguely means test it.

So less tax support will be required.

Statistically again, as a group teen mums have very poor outcomes and tend to be poor and uneducated. Older parents are much more likely to be net contributors to society. The main reason being older parents have time to establish a career, financial stability and finish education.

you don’t need to be a lawyer to be a net contributor. But having a child at a time you don’t have your own home or career is one way that you are far less likely to become one.

Perhaps some older fathers have ND hence no being able to form a relationship until later to have children. It wouldn’t have mattered what age they produced babies it was already predetermined

Just because someone has less money doesn’t mean they are devoid of love and devotion.

Many young people who have children earlier find it’s that which gives them the drive to become better for their children.

No I was saying there’s not an increased ‘risk’. It’s been observed that those who are poor or those who have older fathers have a small (and it’s still very small) correlation with increased neurodivergence. It’s not been proved that being poor causes neurodivergence (or being an older father), just in the sample sizes there is a slight correlation. There is no proof that being poor or being older causes it, there is proof that there is a genetic link, so maybe the discussion should be around that if we are looking at proven factors? It also depends if you see neurodivergence as a negative?

I’ve never ever seen anyone say that. People have pointed out repeatedly that teen parents are not in a good position to look after a child. As a group they overwhelmingly tend to have poor outcomes as do their children sadly

why has this turned into a argument about poor teen mum vs older rich mum and who pays taxes? Regardless of who is having dc there aren't enough dc to support the ageing population.

There are a lot less teen mum's then there was twenty/thirty years ago and the few teens that became mums in the past ten years have to put up with constant nasty assumptions. Honestly the things people say about teen mum's are far worse than what they say about older mums.

Also someone said a little up thread that most people aren't actually net contributers, not everyone will become a lawyer just because they held off family life for a decade or two.

So do poorer people who tend to have lower life expectancies. Quite significantly lower in many communities

Poorer people are less likely to have dc today I thought?

And so are older people who haven’t looked after their heath.

It’s part of the reason we pay taxes to help our other fellow humans.

It isn’t though. A teen mum who needs lifelong public support doesn’t make lower taxes by having children. Not all teen mums of course are dependent on benefits their whole lives but as a group they are overwhelmingly likely to be poor and uneducated. As a group they are a net cost to the taxpayer.

@Lionsniffer you are confused. Having 1 dc will increase taxes regardless if you have them at 20 or 30 or 40. But why blame younger people in the first place for making choices to have fewer or no dc for higher taxes?

People having kids they can’t look after are costing us a fortune in tax.

Is it though? there aren't that many dc being born for one.

Sorry my point was it's tiring seeing posters who assume all teen mum's are unemployed and single mums and accuse teen mum's of being a waste of "their" tax money.
When like you say their choices to wait till they're 40 and have one child is also going to make taxes higher.

So do poorer people who tend to have lower life expectancies. Quite significantly lower in many communities

Statistically teen mothers are much more likely to be on benefits and much much less likely to be net contributors to society (in a tax sense). Older mothers are the opposite. People having kids they can’t look after are costing us a fortune in tax. These tend overwhelmingly to be far more likely to be teen and young mothers than older mothers

I didn’t even know my grandparents on my dad’s side.

But they have a higher chance of burying their parents young which isn’t great either.

Swings and roundabouts

These chaotic mothers start young though when they are not able to look after themselves or children and continue to have children despite still not being able to look after themselves. This isn’t an issue of women holding off having children to finish education and establish a career

And if you add in microplastics which are everywhere now in all our brains and were found in 14 out of 16 ovary fluid something recently, so part of growing embryos I think we can say things are definitely going to change.

But hey who wants to give up their plastic things so microplastics don’t end up in brains and babies? Absolutely no one. And being rich doesn’t help this time they are everywhere, in soil, water, air.

The whole planet, world leaders, with brains full of microplastics!

It will be a bumpy ride!

Having a baby after 30 is the least of our concerns.