to get really wound up by the term 'delayed motherhood'

[hairyfairylights]

and other such older-woman-who-has-not-yet-had-children bashing?

It was one of the things the BBC said was responsible for the rise in Breast Cancer.

More to beat women up with, and more to beat older women up with?

Propoganda because the nation will need more children to pay our pensions in the future?

For the record, I have not tried to have children until the last year, and I am in my early forties.

It doesn't mean I have delayed them or put my career first on purpose.

I just feel really got at when I see all those headlines about 'women who put their career before children are compromising their fertility' shite.

Not every woman who is trying for children at a later stage has deliberately 'delayed'.

(and boy do I wish I'd met the right man earlier and had had children earlier, but my life didn't work out like that. So I don't want to feel got at about it, as well as shit that I'm having trouble holding on to pregnancies).

How is it different OP? You chose not have any children when you were younger, you decided later on that you did want some, and you chose then to try and have some. Of course that is delaying motherhood. The reasons are immaterial, the terminology is correct, you are inferring value judgements that aren't implied. And you seem to think that medical discoveries shouldn't be reported because they might make you feel bad about your choices.

Buzz, the OP has no problem with the medical advice and that advice being publicised. She's said that on a couple of occasions. She just does not like the term used to characterise late motherhood. In fact, she further specified that the Radio 4 presenter said "those who have chosen to delay pregnancy" and that it was that spurred her to post.

Ican see both sides here. I think it is a stark warning (as if there are not enough already, with plummeting fertility rates, massively higher prevalance of Down's etc) that actively delaying motherhood beyond mid to late thirties for career or lifestyle reasons is a big gamble. However, I do think the use of the word 'delayed' in this instance is perhaps insensitive, and makes certain assumptions. There are many women (as has been pointed out on here) who have not purposely delayed motherhood - life just worked out that way for them.

Yeah, I think the shift in society is fathers. They have no time limit and they are the ones not in any rush ime.

Most women are only too well aware of what age they are and weigh it all up, but they still need a father, one they want to be wi

Ps I don't think people are 'looking to be offended'. I had my dc1 at 32, so 'plenty of time' I guess. But I too get annoyed reading endless reports slagging off women for prioritising their careers (ha! more likely their partner is saying 'next year, next year', or, alternatively, single parents are feckless and mothers who chose to go downt he route alone are selfish.

Women just CANT win! unless they meet mr right at 28.4, get married at 30, have first child at 31.10

I agree with NN. I wanted children more than anything in the world. My husband and I talked in depth about having children within the first couple of months of meeting. (We got married and waited until we were 23 but I knew within the first couple of months how many children we wanted, how much he wanted them etc).

If he hadnt of wanted children then we wouldnt have been compatible. I have always put marriage and children above anything else as its what I wanted more than anything.

Yes, the implication that it must be a choice ticks me off, too.

Since when [apart from cases of horrible abuse] is pregnancy NOT a choice? My pregnancy is a lifestyle choice that I made. Nobody forced me, and I'd still be alive and happy if it had never occurred to me to try.

I can see it's upsetting but 'delayed motherhood' seems to me to be an accurate term, especially in the context of comparing the age that women have their babies at with previous decades.

As others have said for many people life hasn't panned out as they might have hoped. But many have probably made little choices along the way, choices that might not have been an option in the past, that together have combined to there being a delay in the age at which they become PG. Using contraceptives seems and obvious example, presumably in the past many, many pgs weren't exactly 'planned'. And people got engaged and married much sooner and younger and faster than now - like in the war, meet a man at a dance, few dates, get engaged and married a few months later.

I disagree, what better term is there?

Women who have children later/older/geriatic

have no more implication of a choice to have children later.

I wonder what the breast cancer stats say about childless women, both now and in the past? Because undoubtedly, many women who conceive in their last thirties and forties would not have been able to have children at all, given similar circumstances thirty years ago or more. Women who don't find a decent bloke can opt to go it alone these days, without stigma, and women who have struggled to conceive (whether because of age or otherwise) are now conceiving with the help help of fertility treatment. So to a some extent the 'delayed' motherhood of today is the childless woman of yesteryear.

I agree with you valium

We're wrong if we're young mums, single mums, unmarried mums, oldermums, working mums, stay at home mums, unemployed mums, not mums at all.

Oh that we all wanted the same thing ... Marriage and children in our twenties, and that we wer all lucky enough for it to happen, there would be no sticks to beat us with.

For me it's the "women delaying children for their career" thing that is so misinformed. It's been assumed
about me many times ... By people who have absolutely no idea about my life. I happen to have a career and no children, the two are not causal.

Incidentally my gran was forty three when my mum was born.

Why are you so bothered about what you think people in bbc-land think of you? What difference does it make to your life at all?

Yanbu, I must have not received the memo telling me when I was 'meant' to have children. [Hmm]

I'm sorry but:

"For me I made a decision not to have children, due to various things."

is delaying motherhood

I could biologically have had a baby at about 13/14 but chose to delay it til my early 20s

Both you and I may have been sensible to delay becoming mothers but we both did

The author of the report was interviewed yesterday on the news and she said that breast feeding as long as possible mitigated the age issue.

Women have been having babies late in life forever as birth control is a relatively new thing.

Yes but there's a HUGE difference in your chances of having your third child at forty or your first child at forty.

The latter is much less likely.

hfl- you are right that women get beaten up regradless of whether they're young mums/old mums, whatever- it's always our fault

BUT

Assuming you didn't remain a virgin until your 40s and you used contraceptives when you had sex you did 'delay' motherhood.

The 'women put careers before children' line is bandied about by anti-feminists/mysogynists and used as a blanket term for all 35yrs+ mums, regardless of their particular circs. I can see why you are annoyed at this.

But the long term health implications (inc bc) for both mother and child are a reason why some women (inc me) chose to have children young. That was more important to me than being in the perfect relationship first. You chose differently. We both had the right to make those choices but you are not the only one to get criticised for your choice. (The DM scorn for 'older' Mums is nothing compared to what they reserve for younger single Mums.)

Yes, I think that the only decision I made and it was a subconscious decision at that, was for which motherhood crime to be berated for.

I think I knew that if I waited for mr right he would never, ever come. I wanted children. And I had them with a man who wasn't right for me. But he did want children. In my defence, I didn't have a queue of suitors, eligible OR otherwise.

People will no doubt consider me selfish and (yes, I'm raising them alone, so they don't really have a father to speak of) but I feel the only decision I made was WHAT to be berated for.

As a woman and a mother it was never going to be the fairytale so I was going to get it in the neck for something.

buzz I'm not at all bothered what anyone thinks of me. I am bothered about misogynistic media shite that
gets trotted out as another stuck to beat women with about their choices.

@darlene, and 'trapping a man' is seen as one of the most shocking ways to behave. Even if the mother knows that she wants a baby not the father, even if she knows she's financially independent, even if she tells him he's free to leave & yet, free to see the child, or not see the child, as he wishes - it's still completely socially unacceptable. So, it's fathers they need to be lecturing! Why will they not lecture men!? frighten them for once with stories about older fathers being more likely to have children with autism, depression, older fathers not being able to play football with their children, older fathers being mistaken for grandfathers to the embarrassment of their children.

somebody somewhere go and write an article that makes men think about why they are fobbing off their partners with 'next year next year next year'

And on the BF thing - if the biggest growth in BC is among women in their 50's and 60's then they would have been most likely to have had their babies throughout the 60s and 70s, early 80's, when statistically, women married young and were far more likely to formula feed. So on the one hand there is a link to a lack of BF among that demographic, but on the other hand they were, generally speaking, not older mothers, by today's standards.

If there is a link to deliberately delayed motherhood (which is a relatively recent phenomenon, maybe only the last 20 years at most?) then presumably they are saying that there are more instances of younger women (i.e. under 50) having breast cancer by having delayed motherhood. I would imagine among women over 60, those who 'delayed' either didn't manage to have children at all, or were too small a sample group to get accurate data from.

I think the term 'delayed motherhood' - while a bit annoying if you're in that group, is less misleading than saying 'later motherhood' - because it's not having a DC in your late 30's/early 40's that makes you high risk, it's having your first DC at that time. To just say 'later motherhood' could give the impression that a woman who had her first DC at 20 and her second at 39 was at equal risk to someone who had their first at 39, that's just not true.

So, it would have been far far more accurate if they'd said the risk factor was formula feeding?

Thank fuck women do "delay" motherhood. Where would we all be if all the girls in the country were simultaneously trying to juggle GCSEs and babies.

The term "delayed" does to me imply wilful and wanton putting off her own ends. Manifestly a pile of tosh- who in their right mind would deliberately have a child when they're not ready- "Well, it's now or never even with this utter twat, after all I am 25 and not getting any younger." Yep, that's what we ought to be encouraging. More unplanned and ill-timed parenthood.