Did you consider the age of your parents when deciding to start a family?

[neeor]

Curious really if anyone gave it much thought?

I know none of us know what the future holds but I’d really like to hope my parents will see our DC to adulthood and beyond. They had me older, as did DHs parents, which has led to us choosing to start a family in our mid 20s so that we have plenty of time together as a big family unit like at Christmases and suchlike. I only had one grandparent alive by the time I was born and she was in her 70s so I never had the same memories growing up with her around, she always seemed ‘old’.

My DH's parents- along with all 4 of his grandparents - died when he was a teenager. We are painfully aware that whether you get to see your kids grow up is luck of the draw, but of course we had our kids quickly, and young. The fact that he'd inherited a 3-bed semi which meant we owned our first starter home outright helped though, obviously!

I feel very lucky to have my parents, who were in their fifties when the kids arrived.

Never occurred to me. My parents were active 60 year olds when my dc were born but weren’t that interested in them. ( former teachers- had had enough of children they said). Though they were very generous financially.

@RedToothBrush it being the majority doesn't mean it applies to everyone and therefore is a terrible decision for everybody and impossible to imagine a situation in which people might be able to consider this factor. I know lots of people that have had kids in their 20s, myself included. I'm not married but I'm settled, I own property, and my parents have moved close to me.

I don’t get free childcare :(
my parents both live over 2.5 hour away from me. I just meant them playing with our children if they come to visit at for a weekend

A lot of grandparents don’t live around the corner from their Gdcs, though.

I do one-offs with mine, but I’m 60 miles away so everyday school pickups etc. are out of the question.

No. My mum had been dead for 20 years when my 1st child was born.

No. Why should we have?

My parents had me in their forties and I had my dd when I was forty. Happily, they are still both in relatively good health despite now being 89 & 91, and my dd has a great relationship with them both.

In some ways it worked out quite nicely as they always have time for her and aren't too busy with other stuff as they would've been in their 60s/70s. We are very fortunate that they are still around though and in an ideal world I would've liked to have had children earlier.

No guarantees in life, but I do hope that if dd has children she manages it sooner rather than later as I want as much time as possible to enjoy them!

Hypothetically I did . My parents were in their 40s when they had me and it was always such a thing that they were older. I wanted to be a young parent.

That's great, however your family will miss out on relationships with adult grandchildren and great grand children. I was 35 when I lost my last grandparent, we had 2 grandparents at our wedding and my children have memories of their great grandmothers. Now my with three generations of women becoming mothers in their 20's not doubt missed out on many other wonderful experiences, but my maternal grandmother held both my babies and that memory is very precious.

My parents were 30 and 41 when I was born, I had no paternal gps and my maternal gps had both died by the time I was 3. So I don't really have any gp memories. DH had all 4 gps well into adulthood. My own children (born when I was 28-31) have lost 3 of 4 gps, and the last one is elderly. It makes me sad that DS has no memories of my mum, and that neither will experience an adult grandchild/grandparent relationship like their older cousins have, but they have good memories of 3 gps which is luckier than a lot of families

No - I didn't choose anything. I didn't meet my husband til I was 39. My mother had me in her mid 30s.
I didn't know my grandparents - one was divorced and lost contact with his son (my father), my maternal grandfather died when I was small and they all lived in a different country anyway.
My parents passed away when my children were young, they do have memories a bit, though again in her later years my mother lived in another country. Their paternal grandparents didn't/don't show much interest.
While it can be a lovely relationship it's not always possible to time it that way, and not all grandparents are that involved or want to be.

Yes in a way. I had my dc very late, but that wasn’t my choice, and one of things I stressed about most when I was getting older, was that my parents were also getting very frail. I would have had a baby much earlier if it had been possible.

My parents were over 70 when our DC was born. He’s now 18. Both of them made it to their 90s and were only frail for a year or less at the end of their lives. The DHs Dad passed away in his 60s, but his Mum is still around and over 90.

My Mum was blind for most of the time she was a grandmother but had been partially sighted all her life. It didn’t really hold her back.

I didn’t ask my parents to be childcare except for a few days in school hols or as an occasional thing apart from evening baby sitting. They might well have been willing to do this but it’s never been my approach to childcare. Our DC had a great relationship with them both and spoke at my father’s funeral last year about this.

Some would say 70+ is old to be a grandparent. I can’t see it myself