To think asking people if they have grandchildren is like asking if they are pregnant - just don't!

If she is early 30s and have an infant and a nursery going kids. She had a child in late 20s. Say 28, by the time she will be 49, her older child will be 21 and given she is a professional woman, it’s more likely her children will be in university, studying / training than having already had kids. There are plenty of people who speak without thinking much about how other person may take it and this colleague of op sounds like one.

Even if it was a norm for her, why wouldn’t she ask op first about her kids rather than her grandkids out of the blue?

Is that what happens when you have kids early? You lose any patience and social etiquettes, and think it’s ok calling people who have different opinion or feel differently to you butt hurt and haggard? I hope that’s not how you talk to your children or grandchildren at least.

If she has infant school age children in her early 30's, she would have been late 20's when she had them. Her children will be in their mid/late 20's by the time she's 49, so she may well expect to be a grandmother at your age and see that as the norm.

Your posts come across so badly, I'm not sure you realise how patently bizarre you are?

You keep referencing the modern 2025 age without thinking that women can choose to have DC whenever they like and also, in the modern age, unplanned DC can still occur but you seem to think having a DC under the age of 30 equals an underclass.

It doesn't.

Oh dear did I touch a nerve?

I don't look down on anyone. I take my hat off to people who had a much harder path to climb to get degrees and career success. Indeed I spend a chunk of my free time volunteering as a trustee for a charity that helps fund training and other opportunities for people who have had a difficult start on life.

But there were a whole host of assumptions made about younger parents and grandparents and who they are and it's perfectly reasonable for some of us to come out and counter those stereotypes.

Maybe it's the parents that are living with their adult children. It's quite common in many Asian families that a newly married woman goes to live with her inlaws

Why does it have to be a female child? Are the children of her sons not counted as grandchildren.?

So person 1 has a son st 24. Son at 25 is married to a woman of 30. They have a child. Person 1 a grandmother at 49

I think there are a lot of mumsnetters who are newly middle class and therefore feel the need to make these very strident statements to reassure themselves they have "made it". Hence all the endless threads about what is /is not MC etc. People who have been MC for generations tend to be far less obsessed by these things.

Most of my uni contemporaries aimed to have their children in their 20s.

In Scotland, there's now a bigger window for NHS IVF so it might be that today's 20 yr olds are a bit more laid back about when they start families.

In my case, I had the experience of an NHS Fife gynaecologist offering me IVF (immediately after giving me a laparoscopy, when I was still a bit woozy) and then coming back very quickly thereafter to apologise and withdraw the offer - he'd not checked my date of birth and I'd passed the cut-off: "I wouldn't advise going privately. You have just as much chance as any women your age of having a child."

Nowadays, I'd have been offered one round of IVF, I believe.

Some women are fortunate enough to be able to have their first child when they're older, but the safest bet is to start when you're younger if you possibly can.

My mum had 4 children between the ages of 21 and 30. She already had a decent degree by 21. She then became a highly skilled professional who is very respected internationally in her (scientific) field

I had two degrees by 23, and a well established and specialised professional career by the time I had my first child in my late twenties - including published articles and contributions to a book. I continued to climb the career ladder (rapidly) while working part time after that. I also managed to travel widely and compete at a national level in a sport before I had children.

I'd say it's more unambitious to think it's not possible to manage career success and to have children at a biologically sensible age.

What don't you get?

Outside of the average doesn't = not normal or a rarity.

The number of gay people in the UK is less than 4%. Statistically, that's a significant number when we're talking about millions of people but it also means the average person in the UK is heterosexual.

It doesn't mean gay people are unusual or a rarity.

The average clothes size of UK women is size 16, doesn't mean people above or below that size are rarities or unusual.

Just because YOU seem to not personally know Grandparents in their 40s doesn't make it unusual or a rarity. The same as it wouldn't make gay people rare or unusual just because YOU don't personally know any.

How can you be so self-absorbed as to think your social circle is indicative of entire populations?

Ambitious people can do both

Half of women have children in their 20s so it's pretty normal.

As I'm sure you realise, I brought up that example because of the snobbery being exhibited here by some posters.

I am not talking about you. I am talking about those who think this is the norm that a woman would have kids in early 20s and then her female child will also do the same.

Brought up to be happy and free to decide their future is the best way to bring up kids.

Similarly, there are many women who chosr to focus on their career, ambitious and then pursue path of family.

I know many people now who are choosing not to go to university and are taking up apprenticeships or other employment instead.

Thinking about it, a cousin's daughter chose to work with her father and took her vocational degree after becoming the mother of two boys.

My cousin was a teenager when she got married. (No, she wasn't pregnant at the time.) She did various jobs and qualified as an accountant after having her child.

A former colleague's son decided to take up a joinery apprenticeship instead of going to uni. Another cousin's son decided that uni wasn't for him - he's working hard and earning well.

49 is a perfectly normal age to be a grandparent.
I would love to be a grandparent at that age

No i brought my children up to be happy and to follow their own dreams not mine

By current I mean, current 40 something year old royals. Because we are talking of women being grandmother's in late 40s being a norm in 2025.
I don't why you are talking about another era and using a someone example of someone who would be about 120 year old today.

It’s entirely possible for both a mother and a grandmother aged 49 to be in highly skilled professions. The maths has been laid out numerous times on this thread, perhaps you should read it. It might help with your prejudice.

I had contemporaries who had their first child very soon after graduating. One of the girls on my Russian course married at 19 and had her first child before she graduated.

I acknowledge that it made things harder for her, but she certainly didn't lack ambition.

Maybe they're a highly ambitious hairdresser, electrician or police officer?

The current King made the Queen Mother a grandmother when he was born in 1948.

For you to have multiple grand kids by age 49, you had your kids in early 20s or even before, and then your child also did the same. I know shit happens, there are circumstances but if this is a norm for someone.
So for me that person did not bring up their daughter wanting to be a doctor, scientist or a highly skilled professional for her to also become a mother so young in last 5 years, when we live in a world of technology and information. It's not year 1950.