For Getting Really Tired of being asked if I am my DD's Grandmother/caregiver

[adventuremom]

I am an older mom, 52 with a 7 year old. I have other kids the oldest being 18 and yes, my youngest was born when I was 44. In her 1st month I was stopped by a stranger and asked " who was I holding the baby for?" I have been asked am I the grandmother, the care giver and finally, this stranger looked at me and said" so you are???" Her mother damn it! It's not vanity but really, I get it, I am the older mom with some grey hairs and wrinkles but to my DD, I am Mom. I would never just go up to someone and who is overweight and ask " so who are you holding that cake for?" Ok I am done, but it happens very very often. I get it, you think I am too old for this but I view my DD as a gift and to her, I am just Mom.

That is such a useful expression absolutely. I will try and remember that.

I think that's passive and defeatist, actually, absolutely. We create the world our children live in to an extent, in part by modelling tolerance, open-mindedness and lack of prejudice. Every time you model judging another woman according to something other than her looks or youthfulness, you change things for the better. Children don't pick up ageist or looking prejudices from the air.

"I think that's passive and defeatist"

I don't. I think it is realistic. We should remember that and still try to change things though.

absolutely and bunbaker

You're right, but:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw)

I aim to be unreasonable (and female)

fishwives I certainly do not regard myself as passive or defeatist! Far from it! I'm hardly old at 55, but hoping to reinvent myself in a new career, and having to compete with people much younger than myself. My mother was retired at my age! So much MORE is expected of women these days; we are working longer (and expected to be fitter), we are having children later, and we are expected to care for both grandkids and elderly parents too. I'm happy to do whatever it takes to make myself more competitive, but realise that I don't really have a choice anyway. That's just life.

And yes, perhaps I would like to be more like my granny who, at 60, was expected to bake a few cakes but otherwise be waited on hand and foot. And no-one judged her.....

DGD is 8 my youngest Ds is 5.

That really confuses people when we are out,mind you I've had plenty who have assumed that I'm mum to both but not the other way round.

I'm not particularly young looking 47 year old,but I do try to make an effort with my appearance and I def never,ever have my grey roots showing,so I probably don't look or act the way of the stereotypical grandmother.
On the other hand I see plenty of mums in their 30's who dress and act more like a grandma.

Personally I think it can be really hard to judge a persons age now adays. My mothers generation would never have dreamed of shopping alongside their teenage daughters in top shop nor would they have been seen dead in a pair of jeans or a short skirt and therefore fitted the stereotypical image of what a GM should look like.

I expect all those who have assumed that the person with a child is the GM have done so because their is something else reinforcing the image of an 'older lady' and not due to the fact they have actually counted the number of wrinkles.

To All those who have said that they were embarrassed by having an older mother,was it because they had greying hair,sensible shoes,and no style,therefore fitting the GM stereotype (still possible @ 28) or was it genuinely because of their age in years ?

I was asked if I was DD's grandmother the other day. I am 43 but people usually guess my age at mid thirties not so stealth boast , so I don't think it was because I looked haggard (although it may have been a bad day). I was surprised rather than offended

A friend recently became a grandmother at 34, another friend's mum just became a grandmother at 84. A brief ancestry search shows several of my victorian ancestors having children in their mid forties, some only had their first child in their thirties (late marriage and no children befor marriage). Modern contraception methods have allowed women to choose when they have children, rather than continuing to have them throughout their fertile years, and so people seem to have got this idea that the 'normal' age to have children lasts about 5 years (and then argue about whether it 'should' be 20-25, 25-30, 30-35 or 35-40 ) when actually a woman's fertility naturally spans about 30 years.

Any woman in her thirties could conceivably (pardon the pun ) be a grandmother, but it would still be rude to assume it.

"To All those who have said that they were embarrassed by having an older mother,was it because they had greying hair,sensible shoes,and no style,therefore fitting the GM stereotype (still possible @ 28) or was it genuinely because of their age in years ?"

My mother looked very old and old fashioned. She was a very heavy smoker and always had a Woodbine hanging off her lip. She looked and behaved old.

DD isn't ashamed of how old I am, probably because I don't look anything as old as my mother did at the same age.

In the grand scheme of things does it really matter? I used to know someone who was 30 odd years older that his gf and he actually used to kick up a fuss if people thought he was her dad. There are probably more grandmothers aged 50 than mums with young children so that's what people are going to assume

I think the whole point is that people make assumptions. Why do they feel they need to?
I know it doesn't matter whether you ARE or ARE NOT the child's mother, grandmother, caregiver etc. in the grand scheme of things, but it does matter that people make assumptions.

I don't know why the woman in the charity shop thought I was DD's grandmother. I was 44 at the time. Wearing a tie-dye skirt (knee length), over leggings with a vest top and open-knit cardigan. My hair was bright red.

More recently I was out with DD and DH at a country show thing. A woman and man pulled up in a classic car and DD was quite taken with it. As the women got out, she smiled at us all and said 'Oh, this car would have been old when your grandma was a girl'. I turned to DH and said, "What year was your mum born?" then told the woman that grandma was born in the 40s so the car was quite new then.

This thread is so reassuring! I am almost 51 with an 8yr and 7 yrs old DC and whilst no one has ever made any comments to me as described by pp it does concern me sometimes. My mum was 36 when she had me which in those days was very old for a working class woman to have her first child. My mum lied to me and my younger brother for years about her age and I heard many comments from others about her being my grand mother which I know upset her.

The world is different now and I try very hard not to make any issue of it, even when the DC announced to the whole afters chool club when it was my 50th birthday

I know other parents in their late 40s with children the same age as my DC but don't know anyone else who has hit the big 50 with young DC. Good to know that there are many others out there.

I haven't read the whole thread but I think it's incredibly rude that people do this to you
also, I wonder about their motives. Are they trying to criticise mothers over a certain age? What planet are the living on if they don't realise that some people parent - even for the first time - in their 40s?

I find it really, really rude. Sorry you are having this experience.

PS there's a thread in Style & Beauty with women stopping dyeing their hair. I think one reason people make stupid assumptions is that so many women dye their hair till they are 80, many have forgotten that it's perfectly normal to have grey hair at many ages, see grey hair and assume the person is of a certain age. Ridiculous.

In terms of the effect on DC, people making comments to them does hurt them. My MIL was 40 when she had DH and FIL was 53.

DH has told me that people often thought he was on holiday with his DGPs rather than DPs and this embarrassed him. I think it was having to correct people that upset him, not his parents.

They are now still reasonably fit at 70 and 85 and do help out with childcare for their DGC. As a PP said, if they were in their 50s they would still be working and wouldn't be able to help out, so for us the larger gap works well.

People enjoy making other people feel just a little bit shitty about themselves, don't they?

I think the assumption you aren't the parent is the worse thing. On DC1's first day at school she was told by the teacher to say goodbye to, short hesitation as the teacher looked up at me, "her adult". I've been asked by the GP whether I'm the mother on the last two time I've taken them. A shop assistant queried what the relationship was with my then four year old, no idea why, I didn't think she was rude as such but it was annoying. At my age it's highly unlikely I'd be anything but a parent or their parent's generation. People have strange perceptions of age and it's probably an inbuilt snap judgement we all make but isn't to be relied on. As is the judgement that a 50 something with primary age kids is a grandparent, although that hugely depends on the demographics of an individual's social circles.

I agree with PPs that you should come to London, there are several parents in this age bracket who could go either way and I'd alway err on the side that they are the parents. And the older parents aren't always middle class, nor the younger parents less educated. However it costs about £500-1m for a decent sized family house so it's understandable that people wait until their careers take off or perhaps they've gained an inheritance like we did, and that does create a post code divide.

My mum was 40 when she got pg with me (only child). I was never embarrassed, although she did worry about that. I know she was mistaken for my nan at the school gates a few times, but I don't think it bothered her. She was younger in her outlook than loads of friends mums and they all loved her.

Op ignore the assumptions - who cares? Being a good mum is the important thing, I wouldn't have changed my mum for anything.

"People enjoy making other people feel just a little bit shitty about themselves, don't they?"

Do you really think that's true? I tend to assume that most people mean well and just have a foot-in-mouth moment once in every while. I know I have - not in this specific instance but I am sure I've said crass things in the past, as have we all.

Sadly, I do think it's true. Some of the posters on this thread prove it.

I think this thread shows that some people are mean, some people have off-days, but I don't think it proves anything at all about people in general. But perhaps I am just hopelessly naive.

Twice, people have assumed that I'm DH's mother (I'm 5 years older than him). I just laugh as it's actually a combination of him looking like he's still in school (he's 32) and me looking tired and worn out from running after our two young DCs all day. So far I've not actually been asked if I'm the DCs gran!

wow, I can't imagine a 37 year old looking like a 32 year old's mother. They must be thick.

Well it probably is lazy or shallow etc etc but visually people associate certain things with age/being a GM and one of them is grey hair . Each to their own, but I will be like my NDN when I was growing up, she was very young in outlook, perfectly made up, hair dyed a flattering colour/styled , and a nice non granny outfit showing a looked after figure right to the end.

Fishwives of 723,165 births in 2010 only 1758 were to mothers aged 44 or older.

so it is a comparative biological rarity to bear children in your mid to late forties, statistically speaking.

Therefore I refer to my former question; surely it's pretty much par for the course to be mistaken for a grandmother when you bear children at the age that many of your peers are becoming grandmothers?

There is no judgement inherent in my question, I don't care at what age other women start their families. However, I hardly think it's offensive to be mistaken for a grandmother in the circumstances detailed within the OP.