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

I’m 49. None of my friends are grandparents!

I don't really get why everyone associates aspirations with work/ career. It's very telling. I'm talking about life experience, such as travel etc I also don't get why people are normalising having kids under 25 when it really isn't a thing now in most circles. Understand in some areas and demographics it might still be. I'd be upset if my kids had kids under 25 before they really got to enjoy their life without the responsibilities that come with settling down and having children. Your 20s are for having fun not tying yourself down. Fully appreciate that for some the goal is getting married and having children, nothing wrong with that if that's what you want.

Older than 25 is not really "so late in life" - people always had kids well into their 30s.

Why are people trying to normalise having kids so late in life when fertility is lower and complications are higher. No wonder the level of disability in this country is so high. It's completely normal and healthier to have children in your 20s

Its rather sad actually

Erm, it's common for mothers to be older these days and have kids in their late 30s and early 40s. So I'm so confused why people think 49 isn't unusual for a grandmother! My youngest will be 9 when I'm that age so yes, I'd be furious! It's rude and weird.

Really no aspirations? How do you figure that out. Many people are qualified in whatever, married, have their baby and far more energy and inclination to be back at work making progress.

Niece of mine was in junior management position at work. Married at 22, baby at 23. 5 months off work. Since then 2 promotions and a professional qualification done. Not 30 just had second baby. ( Same husband)

get over it . I’ve never heard such nonsense. You are upset because someone has made you feel old .

An unspoken assumption in OP's complaint is that looking "old" is "bad". Looking older than you are is especially bad (ugly even, is that the word meant?). Which is why OP seems insulted that she was perceived as looking 'old'.

If you don't perceive looking old as "bad thing" then there is no offence to be taken if being asked if you have grandchildren. Although I could take offence in OP's repeated assumptions that looking old is bad and undesirable...

Yes! I see what you mean about your background….the late Queen Elizabeth was 50 when she became a grandmother for the first time!

This is one of those things where our responses depend entirely on the norm in your family and the people you know.
I'm 53 and was asked similarly by a colleague last year if I had grandchildren and I definitely had a WTF moment as the norm in my family is to become grandparents in your 60s and, among my friendship group I was one of the first to have a child at 30. So I definitely needed to, in Mumsnet terms, give my head a wobble and realise that the woman wasn't being nasty just asking a question based on her own experience. But yeah, I understand the WTF moment

You seem rather put out by this question and mention you have been told you look younger. Could this be about vanity and turning 50? It was not unusual to be a grandparent in your late 40s a couple of generations before yours when people had children sooner. My mum was a nana only a few months after turning 50. My sibling's child was born when they were 20, but they had left home at 18 and been working full time. Your colleague might have simply been making conversation and 49 is so close to 50. It isn't unusual to be grandparents in your 50s. My sibling's child was almost 20 when she gave birth and made my sibling a grandparent at 39. They were angry initially their daughtee was having a baby at only 19, but the LO is adored and my niece's sibling is married and had a baby at 25 making my sibling a grandparent again.

I’m not your “love” and nor do I need to “calm down”. Who are you, David Cameron?

It’s irrelevant what people have posted. Of course a thread like this will attract people who can’t distinguish between their personal life story and statistics (or appropriate and inappropriate manners, it seems). Anecdotes from self-righteous angry people do not constitute statistics.

I referred to the statistical facts based on UK demographic data. In fact, actually the average first time mother in the UK is now 31, not 30 (I just double checked the stats and it’s risen from last time I looked at this data). So, on average (even accounting for the fact the average age of birth of first child has continued to rise in recent decades) it wouldn’t be reasonable to assume someone might be a grandmother until they are in their late-50s at least (and that would be if they were, for example, out on a trip with the first child of their first child).

As I said, statistically it is far, far more likely that a woman seen with a small child who is in their 40s is the mother than the grandmother. Being a grandmother in your 40s in the UK is a rarity these days (although there may well be more prevalence in some geographical areas/ social circles than others) and therefore to ask a complete stranger in their 40s if they are a grandmother is rude because it’s unlikely to be the case, and most grandmothers would be much, much older than that. These are statistical facts. And that’s aside from it being rude and intrusive and potentially insensitive to ask such personal questions to someone you’ve just met, anyway.

As is calling people dense because your personal experiences don’t happen to correlate to national statistical data, or accepted social norms in terms of polite conversation.

You need to calm down love. The op is nearly 50, which is no spring chicken and is at the age where yes can be a grandmother. If you read the thread there are PLENTY of posters on here that had their kids in their 20s, and mothers were grandmothers on their late 40s. So hardly rare. Just because it didn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. The op is sensitive because she thinks she’s old. Your opinion isn’t fact. Louder for the dense people at the back 👍🏼

No it isn’t!! The average age of a first time mother in the UK is 30. Therefore on average you’d expect that a woman of 40 might have a ten year old and perhaps some younger children. It would be a rarity to find someone whose mother had children very early AND had done the same themselves and become a grandmother at 40, not remotely the norm or a question that anybody of 40 would expect to be asked. It’d be more likely for a woman of 40 to have a toddler child of her own than a grandchild!

A little, maybe it is better if we all never ask anyone anything and op how do you know you haven't said something in conversation that someone else then turns into some dramatic thing?

There are definitely regional differernces, which I suspect have a lot to do with cost of living. People in very hig CoL areas tend to be longer before feeling secure enough to have families.

And there are also things that creep in with income and class. For people who are going for expensive professional degrees, there can be a real push for them to do that younger and delay kids while establishing a career after that.

That often makes sense for people with no spouse, however I do think that for many women a better model would actually be to have kids earlier and push education a little later, and then establish a career, and I wish people would allow for more flexibility around those things. (Of course if you are very wealthy you will have more options around this stuff.)

If you are in a trade on the other hand you may well be done your training and into work, maybe even owning a home, by your mid 20s. And with other kinds of jobs there may be no particular benefit to waiting to have children in terms of your career so why wait to have them until you are older?

But people saying that anyone having kids in their 20s is some kind of uneducated low class person is really ignorant. They are probably mainly people who live a very narrow life, tbh, and only know people just like themselves.

Yes, but surely people are not so blinkered that they don't know that many people have children in their 20s?

That is just not weird or unusual.

Why would the OP assume that her work colleague's social circle is the same as her own?

People need to broaden their perspective a bit.

Oh for sure there are always some people who have them young. I know a woman who had six starting at 21 between degree and postgrad. And I’m not ascribing a value to any choice (I don’t have any children myself and I’m delighted others do cos we need them). But it’s not the norm in the degree, work for a few years, get married around 30 track, was my point, which is a lot of MN. It’s a lot more so, elsewhere. I remember going camping aged about 32 with a boyfriend, in Northumberland. We had this massive bell tent, no kids, no pets, just us. And everyone else there seemed to be families with at least 2 kids, often 3 or 4. And most of the parents were younger than us. Or our age. And I could tell
they didn’t know quite what to make of us. And in return I felt quite immature. But it was noticeably massively demographically different from our life in the south east. I don’t think that’s a particularly horrendous thing to say.

According to gov.uk average age of a first time grandparent is 49, so actually yes it is the 'norm'. Presumably because 20 years ago it was more usual to have children in your early 20's. As the trend now is to have children later in life that norm will presumably start to increase.

I can’t think of anything I wanted to do in my 20s that I didn’t want to do in my 30s or 40s. Quite the reverse - the thought of doing a skydive would have appalled me in my 20s, I absolutely loved it when I finally did it.

🤣🤣🤣 are you sure, I'm pretty sure you know who did and didn't come out of your vagina

I had DC quite late in life. I was out at a soft play many years ago and some random woman came up to me and said something about taking the grandchildren out. I said "I don't have grandchildren - I'm the mother" and instead of just saying "ok" or anything similar, she said "Are you sure?"

Yes lots of women my age have grandchildren. But equally lots don't. How about instead of making assumptions we just keep conversation sensible.
So, you have grandchildren and the other person doesn't, or you don't know if they do - you could say, "My grandchildren love [xyz]" which gives the other person time to contribute with "so do mine" or "My kids love it - I don't have grandchildren" or whatever else is necessary.

Well that's certainly true 😁 But then you don't have the same adventures as when you're in your 20s (and you wouldn't want to either). All I'm saying is it would be quite rare for someone to plan to have a baby at 25 now, fully accept that was more normal 40 or so years ago. It's rare for me to come across anyone in their 40s with adult children, let alone grandchildren.