Are we having children too late in society?

[mids2019]

We had children at around 35 and now in our 50s we are feeling a little bit physically tired. We have stressful jobs and accompanied with child care this leads to a full on life. Now added to the mix it looks like our parents are starting the slow cognitive and physical decline of old age (both in their 70s).

This brings the question is it better to have children earlier in life (if possible. Biologically I would have thought late teens/early twenties would be an optimum as out bodies are at a maximum fitness and we are physically prepared?

Modern society seems to make this model extremely difficult with university and early career expectations really not taking into account what would be considered in the middle class western world as 'an early age' for birth. Housing and general finance don't help either.

I work with a few women in graduate careers in their early twenties (often in training) and it is an assumption that they do not have children when we talk. It seems that child birth at this age for this demographic is so infrequent we just zone out of the possibility that there may be chikdren.

Is society going in the right direction. Will women in general have children earlier if society, careers etc. were more geared to early childbirth? Obviously we have to take into account a suitable partner and that is whole other discussion!

@coffeetoffeechocolate

apologies the thread was not meant to be judgmental at all. I think it is an interesting question whether there are too many barriers preventing 'young' women having children? The average age of birth is increasing and I think this is probably more the case amongst educated middle class mothers. Do we wish the trend necessarily to continue or be the status quo?

I speak from a place where I can see the advantages of being a parent when young (of course not everyone wants to or can).

I am 51 and increasingly having to help my parents who are in their 70s. I have a lot of friends my age in similar positions.

surely this is location specific though. Outside my childhood friend group as a Londoner I’m an outlier amongst colleagues & school mum friends in having my parents close. Their parents are all outside of London, often a fair distance away & many are abroad.

The average age of birth is increasing and I think this is probably more the case amongst educated middle class mothers. Do we wish the trend necessarily to continue or be the status quo?

the bigger issue is people not having dc at all. Obviously individually it’s completely their right but we need to plan for the demographic shift.

I would have loved to have the choice to have children in my twenties in a stable relationship.

This is seldom talked about because the focus is always on women ‘leaving it too late’, but so many men miss out on the chance to have children too.

I know one man who decided he wanted to have children when has was in his late 40s, then Covid hit, severely impacted his business/earnings and he’s only just picking himself back up again at 52. He sets his dating preferences up to age 35 and has ridiculously high standards for who he wants as the mother of his children. He is getting nowhere with finding a wife because he has nothing to offer a woman in her early 30s who will have the pick of men 10-20 years younger than him who had more focus in life and exude the maturity and stability many women look for in a husband.

While there are many cultural ideas that late teens and early twenties would be 'biologically best', data does not bear this out. 16-19 year old mothers are in the second highest group for risks including lifelong disability and death from pregnancy and childbirth related causes. Our physical adolescent development takes much longer than cultures like to acknowledge. Different risk factors vary and there are other factors that age for an individual, but mid twenties to early thirties has far better outcomes, particular in health, for mother and child.

Surely the more urgent problem with the set-up is parenting your children through GCSEs whilst simultaneously physically and emotionally supporting your parents with dementia/home carers to co-ordinate, not that the grandparents can't babysit?

Potentially more urgent; however, for maternal wellbeing, there is a significant impact in not having a family support network. This has not only grown due to the rising age of having children, but also has culture moved to more nuclear families over multigenerational living and times as there have been recently where many are pushed to move away from their families to find work and afford living.

My family are not safe to have around my kids. I ended up very isolated and definitely felt the lack when I've seen those I know who can just pick up the phone and have their mum's ear, even if just to listen. Help is more than babysitting, it's having that wider support. Human pregnancies are one the most physically demanding, our infants as much, there is a strong argument that menopause was partially for the benefit of the 'grandmother effect'.

Should we be encouraging young women in their early to mid twenties to have children when they may not be financially secure or with the right partner to have children just because biologically they are at the best age for pregnancy and childbirth?

I agree that there far more risks and benefits to consider than age, but I also think there may be benefits as a culture to push for relationships and community including how to be and find good partners to be a higher priority than careers and to possibly put that focus first. It actually really frustrates me when talking with school senior leaders who go on about preparing their kids for the future and life, that they only mean careers. I get a deer in headlights look when I ask how they're being prepared beyond that.

I literally have had one when discussing their PSHE curriculum tell me that teaching kids all the bad things about relationships - signs of abuse to gangs - was enough so kids would know how to find a good relationship. They dedicate a half term every year to career, but healthy relationships get one week in one year group at a time of year where PSHE is often pushed aside for mocks, and was still more focused on unhealthy ones. It's ridiculous, we're a social species, we've had reports for years on how more and more people feel lonely and the impacts of isolation, and yet culturally it's pushing more towards dismissing and fearing relationships more than anything.

Interesting idea. I had to add though that women are biologically most fertile in their early to mid 20s, not as late teens.

In fact historically teens were much more likely to die in childbirth, than women in their mid 20s

*Also, to add to women being most fertile in their 20s, not as teens, men's fertility drops off a cliff after 40. You're three times more likely to miscarry if your DP is 40 or above. Ideal age for men is about 20 fertility wise I think. Men need to be more aware of their own declining fertility

@RamblingEclectic

really interesting post. I wonder to what extent relatively poor outcomes for 16-19 year old mothers may be down to factors other than biology e.g. socioeconomic factors and associated health inequality?

Do you think that another pressure increasing child bearing age is women are quite rightly more choosy? I guess women are possibly more wary of getting a good decent partner than in harder and more constrained previous generations. The common pattern of having possibly more than one medium/long term relationship prior to children could be a factor with the question having to be answered 'is this the right one?'.

one interesting statistic is if there is a correlation between age of first child and the chances of being in a toxic or abusive relationship?

@MsCactus

doesn't early 20s feel like extended teenage years in modern society? Early 20s may be the biological sweat spot for fertilty/birth but I hardly know any women giving birth during this period. Late 20s maybe but often a lot later.

I personally think the ideal age is in your early 30s.

My mum had us in her early 20s. She always felt she'd missed out on a career (and actually when to university/retrained in her 40s - but probably never reached her full career potential). She was pregnant at 21, so no real time to get into a senior role/do extensive training etc before taking maternity leaves and fitting work around us. She also said she "didn't know how to function as an adult" when we left home as she said she felt like she went from being a child to a mother. So really struggled with empty nest.

I also think women who have babies late 30s+ are not going to have their parents around v long, and will struggle with energy/regret it etc when theyre older.

I had my first DC at 30. Both me and DP are settled, earn well, and it feels like a good middle time to me. We'll still be (relatively) young as our DC grow up.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html

This is USA and thus probably more pronounced - but social divide is very much there with age of first time mother's - education, marriage and social norms in their communities being big influences.

This is world map show average age first mother hood - it's bit out of date with ages - UKs is now older.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/03/09/pregnancy-around-the-world-age-of-new-mums_n_9416064.html

I think it’s swings and roundabouts if I’m honest.

I had my two mid-late twenties and that was the perfect age for me. We had lots of help from dgp’s and still went out and travelled lots both with and without the kids. We were financially ok when we had dc1 but fatherhood really inspired dh to focus more at work and he progressed rapidly. I was able to give up work and be a sahm which was lovely. I was the youngest mum by far at dc’s school and always first up the climbing frame to rescue the kids that got stuck!! I wouldn’t change a thing.

That being said I appreciate that I was very lucky to meet dh young. I have friends who didn’t meet their significant others until much later in life. I know quite a few people who struggled to conceive but all managed it with IVF so they were able to have the families they wanted. I think they are quite possibly even more devoted parents. I only have one friend who has commented on tiredness as a parent due to her age but she is in her forties and a single mum which I think has an impact. However some older parents have little to no help from grandparents due to their age. I also know a couple of women who have settled for a less than perfect relationship because they were so keen to be a mother.

It’s really all down to personal circumstances and I don’t think it’s fair to judge. However I would advise any young woman who don’t want/are unable to have dc in their late twenties/early thirties to consider freezing their eggs. It may well give them choices later in life.

I was 34, friends were 29(first)+32, 31+34, 34, 35+37 and 36 of those who have had children so far. So 30s is the norm in my group, and we were all married and owned homes before children, again just the norm for my group.

Personally I think 30s was right for us (we started TTC at 29 and any time from then would have been fine). I don’t think I’d have been as good a parent at 24 as I was at 34 and I was certainly not in as good a position financially. Our parents are 60s and either not working or working less so more in a position to help. I did have fertility issues though so I’m glad I didn’t start TTC any later.

@mids2019 No need to apologise. I realise I only looked at it from the standpoint of me and women of my demographic. I would love to see women have more of a choice in when to have children rather than having their choice dictated by external factors such as the job market, job stability, the cost of renting or buying.

As it is, I know lots of women who are having only one child or delaying having subsequent children because in Northern Ireland the only free childcare we get is 12.5 hours of free nursery school in the academic year when a child turns 4. I know many families would love to have more children or children closer together but simply cannot afford for more than one child to be in childcare full time. Often those who have a second child with a smaller age gap are high earners or one of the parents has to give up working to be a SAHP (mostly mothers).

In my case, my fiancé gave up work when my maternity leave finished with our first born as his job was less stable than mine, so we are a one wage family. He would love to return to work and contribute financially to the household and I would love to go part-time to spend more time with our son (and new baby born in April) but unfortunately we can't afford it at the minute.

I agree with a lot of whats been said already, society has shifted and for all the freedoms we have we are also resticted but there are pros and cons to parenthood at different ages.

One things these discussions always seem to forget though is that women have always had babies into their 40s, especially when contraception was less reliable or the menopause was the only real backstop. What has shifted is the AVERAGE because women are starting later, and having fewer overall.

But historically there wasn't anything particularly unusual about child bearing for a decade+. Less likely than your fertile 20s, and unusual for a first birth, but not abnormal when people had larger familes. Plenty of cultural references of this (the Broons and Jane Austen are first to spring to mind!). Perhaps a baby in your 40s was easier though if you had older kids to pitch in and mum was less likely to need to juggle child rearing with a formal career.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/population/have-kids-settle-down/

https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/births-to-mothers/

Pros and cons to having kids at different ages tbh. I had my first at 25 and second at 29, I'm now pregnant with my 3rd at 39 and honestly, I'm much more relaxed about the whole thing! I'm in a much better position now than I was in my 20s and it will keep me young and active 😂

I think men feeling less pressure to marry/settle down doesn't help, there's a lot of peter pans out there.

On the flip side the lesser pressure allows women to pick better mates. When i was 24 the guy i was seeing wanted to have a baby, luckily my BFF talked me out of this as she saw all the red flags i had not (he was abusive/financially unstable/actually had a long term GF and i was unknowlingly the OW and a whole load of undesirable criteria) i am forever in her debt!

@Cluelessasacucumber I said that as it's always forgotten as you say

Ah sorry @bessytedsy so you did, missed that! So rarely gets spoken about.

I'm 42 and my child is 1, we are planning on having another within the next two years, if possible. I wish I had been able to have children when I was younger but I didn't meet my partner until my late 30s. It's not going to be easy but we're fairly fit and healthy, the hardest part of it is our parents are late 60s and early 70s already and won't be around forever.

@Cluelessasacucumber was just happy I wasn't a lone voice!

Are there many examples of successful graduate women who have had children early? I am sure there are many just not in my immediate sphere.

What do you define as 'early'? I was pregnant with dd when I was 27 and had her when I just turned 28. I was the first out of my group of 8 close school friends to have dc. 3 have decided not to have any dc.
By that stage I had 2 degrees (one a masters from oxbridge). I did have a successful career at that point, was married 2 years and we owned our own home. I did retrain when dd was in nursery and graduated with a doctorate when she was 6. I'm 40 now with an almost 13 year old. This was an ideal age for me. My dh is 7 years older though and I don't think I'd have achieved what I have without him having already owned a house when we met and he had a good career that could support us when I was only getting a bursary. Having 1 dc was also a big factor in being able to progress with my career.

My dsis had her first when she just turned 17. It was really tough but she had a big family around her. She continued with her education (took a bit longer) and was an accountant by age 25. At that stage she owned her own home and was married with one more dc. She's 34 now with a 17 year old and 10 year old. She's amazing and whilst I wouldn't have chosen to have dc at 17, it's worked out really well for her.

My parents have been retired for several years (great final salary pensions!) and are mid 60's. They have and still do provide childcare for dgc.

I have friends and siblings who had dc late 30's and early 40's and I wouldn't have wanted to do sleepless nights, tantrums and nappies it at this age. Probably because I'm through it though.

I'd think late teens and early twenties are early. Like the age when you just finished university. Of course you will find examples of people go on to successful career from being a teenage mum. But that's uncommon.

Yes its getting too old. Causing the asd rates to rise.
out of those i know only 4 had dc under 25. And only 1 of those was intentional.
So a mix of 40yo with 20+yo kids who are at college, to most others with kids at primary.
uni friends were all but 2 early to mid 30s with first dc.

my mum had a heart attack at 53 and survived to 70s. But i could have lost her at 26.
I would say mine are too old at 75+ to be active grandparents. And dp dad looks like getting dementia at 70.
Im not convinced my generation will live as long. Overweight and having to work till at least 68.
Generally i dont think 50% going to uni has benefitted. Only in terms of independence.
individually saving enough for houses etc great. Byt if we end up with 1 asd child per class of 30 who needs ehcp and 1-2-1. Thats going to be costly. But also in terms of that many perhaps not working.