What age is too late to have a child for a women? Also if both probable parents have a learning disability is it ok too to have children?

[Benny91]

Me and my partner are both 32 and are thinking it’s getting too late and also for us having a learning disability we feel we shouldn’t have any children as normal people do.

I feel we shouldn’t have any children, as they’ll get bullied at school seeing as we’re both disabled and they probably have learning disabilities too. As well as we don’t have many friends as we both feel we don’t fit in with normal adults! What do you all think?

How can you possibly assess that from some mumsnet posts? How irresponsible.

That's obviously why I suggested to the OP that he and his wife should get their doctor's advice.

I think the nature and severity of your learning disabilities is relevant. There was a couple at my children’s school who both had significant learning/developmental issues and they had two children, they needed 24 support/supervision and the children both had significant issues too. I felt that they probably shouldn’t have been encouraged/enabled to have children as I’m not convinced they were able to provide quality of life.

But, I’ve also supported parents with mild difficulties, who made wonderful parents and were able to not only provide for their families financially, but raised happy healthy children with minimal needs. If you are able to drive a bus as your job and your partner is similar, I think you can probably give a child a loving, nurturing healthy life.

You also said that if they want a baby they should go for it, and referenced your medical qualifications. Do you not see how irresponsible that is? You know nothing about OP apart from that she has a learning disability and so does her partner, and that they have a minimal support network, but you position yourself as someone with special knowledge and advise them to have a baby. For goodness sake.

1. I'd say after 40 is a bit late in my opinion
2. Depends on the learning disability and how it affects the parents and their ability to care for a child. For example my husband is dyslexic and this is considered a learning disability. This doesn't affect his ability to parent.

It depends on how able you are to look after a child and what support systems you have in place.

I met up with a friend earlier today who has worked in social care and he said that there are some people who should never have children because they are utterly incapable of looking after them. There was one case where the woman had severe learning disabilities that she had several babies that were all taken into care.

You have had some good advice on here.

Dyslexia isn't a learning disability. It's a learning difficulty
A learning disability means significant impairment in cognitive functioning including IQ under 70. I assume everyone merrily suggesting that the fact that OP can string sentences together means she's ready to raise a child shares your misunderstanding of what a learning disability actually is.

It's fine to not want children for whatever reasons are personal to you. Though 32 is average rather than too old.

Your kids won't necessarily get bullied just because their parents are disabled, so that shouldn't really be your main reason not to. But if you've thought it through and it doesn't feel right then there's no shame in choosing to be child free.

If you are capable of being a bus driver and all it entails you are capable on paper of being a parent, you also obviously are aware that you may have some issues and therefore being aware means you can seek help - not everyone is super clever or great at book learning!

But you need to think about your support network (raising children is hard) this support network could be family and friends, it can be bought in help eg childcare place or a combination (remember to allow for the cost of relying on paid help). You also need to consider how being a parent affects your relationship, your ability to work etc. Do you have suitable housing? 32 is not old at all, i would say it’s an excellent age if you can line up everything else.

your other point about your child being likely to have learning difficulties (whatever that entails, it’s not clear) too is unfortunately the case but without knowing you or your medical history nobody here can tell you, it’s just that many conditions are genetic

Interesting to know. When I went for my booking appointment at the midwife a few weeks ago we was asked about learning disabilities (and I'm certain I didn't misread), dyslexia was one of them. This is why I've said what I've said. I do in fact know what a learning disability is, I have a daughter with PMLD thanks.

32 isn't too old, I'd say 40ish is when you need to stop and consider age becoming a factor.

The LD would be more of a concern. If it's something like mild dyslexia or dyspraxia that's one thing but given it seems you describe something so obvious the kid might be bullied for it, I think having a child would be pretty irresponsible.

You're not wrong - I've just googled and a few sites do categorise dyslexia and dyscalculia as learning disabilities but that isn't correct as per the definition of a learning disability as applied by social care, the NHS and the government. See links below -
https://www.mencap.org.uk/learning-disability-explained/what-learning-disability
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/learning-disability-applying-all-our-health/learning-disabilities-applying-all-our-health#what-a-learning-disability-is
It seems to be mostly American sites that classify dyslexia as a learning disability.

If I was to list some of the most important skills for parenting I would not choose academic intelligence. I would choose common sense and emotional intelligence/resilience. Things like:

Ability to risk assess continuously
Ability to detect your child's emotions and empathise with them
Patience (endless)
Self-sacrifice
Ability to work cooperatively with the co-parent, whether or not you are partners
Ability to remain a decent person when sleep-deprived!

Ideally you'd have a strong support network, which may be able to help lighten the load slightly, but the bulk would still fall to you. I think the type and degree of the learning disabilities really matter, so I advise speaking to a professional who knows you both if you feel unable to assess this yourself.

@Benny91 are you the man or woman in this partnership?

The reality is the mother does the pregnancy, labour and after the birth the majority of the child care especially in the early years.

We know you have a driving licence and have held down a job as a bus driver for a number of years. I have to say I know very few people with a learning disability that can drive. So are you on the milder end of the scale? And are you the would be father?

So what is the future mother like?

I have an intellectually impaired young adult daughter who is in a serious relationship with a young man also with learning disability. Potentially they will be considering parenthood themselves in a few years time so you ask a very interesting question. I believe with support my daughter would be an excellent mother. However the thought of her going through birth horrifies me.

I made this error too as I wasn’t sure on the true meaning of learning disability - I did google if dyslexia was and the first answer was yes, but having done the research now I can see it’s not!

I know a lot of people with learning disabilities (I have a different type of disability)and I would say if you have had to work at learning to be independent and you struggle with this at all, you would probably struggle very badly trying to be a parent. It is very, very hard. If one person was disabled it would be a different situation than both parents.
I don’t know anybody with that type of disability who is a parent and has full custody of their child.
I know two people who have learning disabilities who got married a few years ago and unfortunately they struggle to keep their marriage going, there’s no chance they would be capable of being parents.
It sounds really harsh but honestly in my opinion it is not a good idea and not fair on the child.

Personally I don't think it is a good idea when both parents have learning disabilities and lack outside support.

Even if you had a developmentally typical child it would be very hard.

Throw into the mix the possibility of a child with a similar or more severe disability and it could be an untenable situation with poor outcomes all round.

I know this may sound harsh but I became physically disabled (sudden unforeseeable accident) when my daughter was 14 months and my son was 5.

Had I known that I was going to face challenges raising them that most people do not, I would have decided against having children.

Obviously not the exact same situation but parenthood is extremely challenging even for the most privileged and well supported, and if you know the deck is stacked against you, it makes it really worth thinking about if you want to put yourselves through that.

Based on this post, no.