Your stage of parenting at 40

[Isthistherealworldisthisjustfantasy]

Where are you at?
How do you feel about it?

I'm 40 and have a young family. I had my last baby last year. Still breastfeeding.

In my mind, I feel like I'm late 20s/early 30s and my stage of parenting kind of fits in with this delusion.

A few days ago, a father and son were on Instagram. The dad was 41 and the son was a big strapping 22 year old man, and at first, my husband (who is 41) was a bit discombobulated. I reminded him that we are old enough to not just have adult children, but grandchildren too. We sat there with our minds blowing. We do understand the maths, obviously, but we feel in such a different stage of life to our biological ages.

We started talking about how a woman has quite a long season where she can potentially get pregnant. I just saw on the news that Natasha Hamilton, who is 41, is pregnant, and I had a moment of feeling a pang of envy before I reminded myself that while I'd love another child, we are stopping at the 3 we have. I know that lots of 40 year old women would be horrified at the thought of pregnancy as their children are teens or adults.

Anyway, I think around 40 is a unique period of time in a woman's life where she can technically be a grandmother and still get pregnant and I was wondering where you all are by 40!

How old are your kids? Have you any grandchildren? Did you have all of your kids when you were young, spread over time or not until later? How would you feel if you got pregnant now? How would you feel if you became a grandmother now? Has anyone experienced both at the same time?

40 with DCs 18 17 15 and 13 … 😅

39 with a 5 year old. I think I’m unlikely to have another but I wouldn’t say never.

I’m 50 now, and The youngest of our 6 is 21.

sadly, we don’t get to enjoy it though as we have custody of a 2 and 4 year old.

I’ll have an 18, 17, 15 & 13 year old and might well be tearing my hair out but I’d still have more had I not have had c sections!

When I’m 40 I’ll have a 22 year old.

I have lots of friends who are around 40 and their kids are all secondary school aged or younger, so I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like having a 22 year old.

Had 6 with some large age gaps so at 40 I had a toddler and a strapping 23 Yr old ds! Plus 4 others in between.

Ten years later in "grandmother " territory but thankfully none of the adult ones have had their own because as the youngest is 12 I don't feel mentally that I am old enough for that!

I firmly behind the saying that young kids keep you young too.

Two under 4 years old, and hoping to add another (we did, I'm so happy we did).

I had a two year old and a six month old and knew there'd be no more.

Very lucky to have had them.

40 year old now with a 3 year old. I always planned for one and done and to be an older Mum (been with my husband since I was 20) but now my fertility window is potentially closing I'm having a wobble although still 99% sure we're done. If I got accidentally pregnant it wouldn't be the end of the world and I'd just call it kismet (not that I really believe in fate)

I don't know if I feel particularly youthful though OP, I'm fairly fit and healthy and before I had DC I felt like I was in my 20s however I'm definitely feeling my age a bit now and not sure if its the responsibility of being a parent, the tiredness and the fact that if I've got a miserable cold I just have to get on with it rather than make a nest of duvets, takeaway and box sets and recover at my leisure 😅 or you just feel that bit older when you hit middle age regardless.

I am 40 and my eldest is 23 and youngest is 7 (plus 3 dc in between) I've been doing school/nursery runs for nearly 20 yrs. I feel tired.

I'm 39 (40 in sept 😱) my kids are 7, 5 and 2. Someone I went to school with became a grandma this year, I find it quite mad really, then one of my close friends (same age as me) is only just contemplating having kids (same sex relationship so not as straight forward as just going for it). People do things in different orders. I sometimes think we should have got on with it sooner, we were very lucky to alway get pregnant immediately so it's not like our delay was because we couldn't have kids. We did lots in our 20s and just weren't ready to settle down despite meeting at uni when we were 20.

I'm loving life. Mine are all young teens or pre teens. They are great company, a bit self sufficient, can do lots fun activities.

I'm 41 with dc aged 17, 15, 12, 10 and 9. They have SN though so sometimes I feel like I still have toddlers. A lot of my friends are grandparents now and I can't imagine being at that stage. Although I can't imagine having a newborn at my age either. I am one of the older mums in my youngest dc's class. There are 3 of us the same age who have teenagers too, then 1 slightly younger. The rest are mostly late 20's, early to mid 30's.

I was childless at 40. Had my son at 46.

I had a preschooler, dc2 didn’t arrive until several years later.

At 40 (in 5 years), I'll have a 19 and 21 year old.
I doubt I'll have any more children, both mine and DPs neurodiversity would stack against them, and I'd have trouble keeping up with a hypothetical toddler due to other disabilities.

At 40 I had a 2 year old and a 4 year old.

I'm 39 and a 17,14 and almost 4 year old

Child free at 40, now 46 with 2 toddlers 🤷‍♀️🤣

When I was 40, child was 7. This is pretty standard across my friends.

but seems like respondents to this post had kids earlier.

When I was 40 I had a 9, 8, and 3 year old.

At 40 had two aged 2 and 6

I'm 33 and pregnant, so I will have a 7 year old all being well. Most of my friends are just starting their families now so we feel relatively normal in that.
But I also went on a training day with someone 5 years older than me (37 at the time) who had a 20yr old 😅 which absolutely blew my mind as we hadn't even started TTC at that point! especially when he pointed out he could be a grandparent if his child had a child at the age he did

I'm 39 with a 3yr old and a 1yr old.
No way I could deal with another pregnancy (partner has had a vasectomy to ensure we don't have any more).

Honestly, I'd be gutted if I was a grandparent at my age. I work with someone who had her DD at 17 and then her DD also had a baby at 17. She's so disappointed and I don't blame her.

It's really screwed with my career having my kids at this point (both unplanned). Work want an unrealistic/unfeasible work-life balance from full time staff and my job can't be done part time.

The only point it wouldn't have had as much impact on my job would have been to have had them in my early 20s when I worked in a backwater office with no progression and less responsibility.

The city I live in it's definitely more common for people to have babies in their 40's than 20's, mostly b/c it's got a higher cost of living and a high rate of post graduate studies. I would say most first time Mum's are 34-38, so by 40 most have young children and possibly not yet had their 2nd (or 3rd) with several only just having their first. I have several friends whose first babies arrived when they were 39-43. I have one friend who had her 5th baby at age 47. She had her 6th pregnancy & baby a year later - baby 5/6 were born about 14 years after her previous youngest (child 4).

For me the youngest (still a baby) and I are 41 years apart, but I have a larger family so basically have various ages & stages from infant to teens. I felt very young as a parent to my first couple kids. I only had one friend who had become a parent, no one else was anywhere near parenthood. My peer group were definitely people 5+ years older than me through work, dc's school, neighbours etc. I think I felt most 'average' for my dc born when I was in my early/mid 30's. I will say I am very much enjoying the baby stage as an 'older' Mum. More financial stability, in a better position at work etc.