"It's not fair on your kids if you get pregnant in your 40s"

[ElspethFlashman]

Can I just say this annoys me a lot?

I hear it in every conversation about older parents. There are actually 2 sides to this argument - that having older parents mean you are free of certain responsibilities at a younger age.

I had older parents. They just met late. They were in their 50s before I went to secondary school. Back then that was highly unusual.

I spent most of my 20s and 30s taking care of them and in and out of hospital. They died in my mid & late thirties. It wasn't easy - god no. It was a terrible burden. One I'm glad is behind me. I started a family and my parents will never know their grandchildren. It's sad of course.

But would that burden have been any less when I was 55? Or even 65? No.

I would just have been older and more shattered. And perhaps more resentful. My neighbour was taking care of "Mummy" up to her 60s. Filling in the gaps of the home helps and Meals on Wheels. All the hospital/GP appointments. All the maintenance on the mums home. She was exhausted. And Mummy was as demanding as old people are.

AIBU to think that if you are going to be saddled with the burden of care for older parents, then maybe there is something to be said for being free of that burden at a younger age?

Yes there are plenty who put their parents in a nursing home - but that's not easy either. The visits and the worry and the emotional pressure. It's never enough.

So AIBU to please stop using this as a stick to beat those who get pregnant later in life? "Your kids won't thank you for it". It's far too simplistic.

I'm grateful that the only people I have to worry about for the rest of my life are my kids. Sometimes I look at friends my age (40s) whose parents are showing the very first signs of not actually being immortal, and I wouldn't swap places with them for anything.

Im sorry but if a woman or man have a baby between 40 or 50 then that could perhaps leave that child being a carer to an oap and not only that not having much time spent with that parent because theres not long till that person dies.

Which could also happen if a man and woman have a child between 20 and 30 or 30 and 40.

It could also happen but it is MUCH less likely.

There are parents who get old before their time, unwell from conception (or before) parents who are perfectly healthy in their 90s.

No one needs me to explain the numerous variables that occur with the weird gamble that is life.

Aside from anything else, I lost both parents young - they were both 35 when they had me. I miss them but I've never thought i shouldn't be born because they died!

We have small kids in our mid 30s and am so glad my parents are not elderly yet - early/mid 60s and plenty of energy to be involved with the grandkids. DH's parents are older, his mum in particular as she's 75 - had DH not far off 40. His parents now have several health issues and their kids now have to consider their care, having demanding small kids means we have very limited time and energy to help them.

There is no planning or right time, there are pros and cons either way. My parents in ten years may need more support while I have teenagers, or they may be healthy until their 80s and the kids are in their 20s. Nor is a gradual decline guaranteed - all my grand parents died without needing long term care (cancer, lung disease and sudden short illness).

It would be lovely if people could just quit judging, I wouldn't want kids in my 40s but that's for myself not a judgement on anyone else. Nor do I think people having kids early in life means they are less able parents - I would've been just as good as a mother in my teens, albeit less financially less stable and missing out on things. In fact mothers having kids in late 30s/early 40s is much more normal and judged less than young mums where I live - social engineering through house prices.

My parents had me in their forties. I was a surprise but not so long after my siblings that I stood out. My mum had a tough time as people often mistook her for my grandmother and I was sad not to know my grandparents for longer before they died but my parents are now in their 80s and I wouldn't have them any other way. Of course I would like them around, and fit and well forever but they are who they are and I'm only here because they happened to have a baby in their 40s.

I like to think I kept them young or at least with a youthful outlook and I reckon they'd agree. My dad, who is heading for 90, says he wishes he could be around to see what sort of people my children turn out to be but noone is guaranteed that even when they have kids young. I've told him he'll just have to live to 100.

Caring for elderly parents and caring for your children (disabled or not) is not the same though, is it?

I have mixed feelings on this. I certainly wouldn't judge anyone getting pregnant in their 40s, but my experience of being born to a 40-something father has definitely influenced my desicion to not have anymore children after DD, who was born when I was 34 and DH was 36.

No it's not the same, if you care for your parents it is often for a much shorter time. Also although upsetting if they need care and can't live independently you expect to care for elderly parents, you don't expect to need to care for adult children.

Just because people feel carer burden, doesn't mean they don't care. I care a lot about my father in law, I love him like my own dad! That isn't what I was saying, I wasn't wishing him away. But I see sadness from him and my own daughter when she wants to play and he cant.

When I met him 10 years ago, he was in his early 60s, went on hiking holidays, laid decking in his own garden. He was really quite healthy. It's shocking the difference 10 years can make

I'm glad I had my dd in my late 20s rather than my late 30s.

Ps I think you have a good attitude, ElspethFlashman. There are lots of people in your position who would feel extremely resentful to have spent most of their 20s and 30s caring for elderly parents and then to have had children who never got to meet their grandparents at all. You can resent your life experiences, or look on the positive side. Better to be happy with what you have in life than to think resentfully about how it could have been better another way.

I was actually going to say the opposite AndNowItsSeven. On a very basic level, you choose to have children but you don't choose to be someone's child. And if you do choose to have children, you consider the possibility that they made need lifelong care, even if you don't expect it (well I did, anyway).

But I don't really want to get into a debate about this. Obviously everyone's perception of the burden (or not-burden) of caring is coloured by their experience and circumstances. OP's will be different to your's.

No you don't choose to be someone's child , however unless they abused them caring for them when they need it shouldn't be seen as burdensome. And it's an expected stage of life, having a disabled child isn't.

I also think that when your parents live their fill life span, they haven't been cheated of any time. So you are happy for them, even if their lifespan didn't overlap with their grandchildrens lifespan.

If someone dies at 90, you can't really feel all that bitter that they never met their grandkids - that's just the way the cards fell! They still had 90 years and presumably a really full life.

OP, I get it. I looked after my dad and did it with love, but it was hard work. I can't imagine juggling his needs with DD and the job I have now. I don't have the spare capacity I had then, so something else would have to suffer.

Hippypottymouth we don't have the time but we just do it somehow!

I don't think a person has a right to tell another carer how they should define their experience. There are some things you really don't want to have to do. When you're a parent you've been changing your kids nappies all their lives. Having to get up close and personal with your parents genetalia for years on end and all the constipation/diarrhoea that old people constantly cycle through is psychologically horrendous for a son or daughter.

I don't think a person has a right to tell another carer how they should define their experience.

^^ This. I was going to post a load of stats about life expectancy and rocketing rates of dementia, and how the "expected stage of life" of caring for elderly parents is getting longer and more difficult for many people, and unfortunately coinciding with raising their own families and trying to develop careers. But the above quote is all that is necessary.

IME as an older mother, my main sadness is that my parents were older and did not have as much energy. My dd did not always see the best of them or know them as I had known them because of their ill health. But that was our circumstances. Also, if your child is a teenager and starts growing away from you/going through the usual teenager traumas it is extremely stressful if your parents are ill as well. But we can't choose our circumstances always - if you meet your dh late as I did, you have no choice about that.

I love my dd so much and am so proud that I have brought her up to be a useful member of society and a caring person. I wouldn't have missed that experience, no matter how difficult things were at times. I agree with everyone who says you just have to get on an be the best that you can be and do the best job you can for your family.

I totally agree and think anyone dictating that someone is too old to have a baby unless they're actually biologically too old, is wrong.

In the same vein though, why are there some posters saying "46 is too young to be a grandparent". Why can we not have threads about older parents without it descending into thinly veiled digs at young parents and grandparents?

We are all put on this earth to make choices. You chose to look after you're parents when they became old and frail. My family chose to have carers look after my grandparents. I chose to have children in my early 20's and more in my 30's. Don't resent the choices you make because there is always a solution. You were young and none the wiser to the choices you could have made. More importantly think about all the nice things you and you're parents did together. We all make choices and other people may not agree with them but you have to make do with what you've got.

My aunt was 40 when she finally after so many disappointment's she conceived her child. Its choices and circumstances and no ones business to what we decide to do.

Mrsfumble in my family there is dementia and parkinson's but my grandmother didn't get that until she was old.

... Sigh ...

I wasn't going to get drawn into this.

in my family there is dementia and Parkinson's but my grandmother didn't get that until she was old

That's your family's experience. In another family's experience, an elderly parent can suffer from dementia for 5-10 years, and this can coincide with a stage in their child's life when they are raising their own small children, have significant career demands, heavy mortgage burden and the like. And if the child feels burdened by the demands of caring for this elderly parent on top of everything else, they should be able to admit it without being made to feel ashamed and unreasonable. In my opinion.

It's bollocks and a stupid thing to say I had my dc at 43. My dad had me at 25 and died when I was 32. My dsds mum had her at 22 and now has motor neurone at 45. No which way is right or wrong. Ignore the haters.

That's exactly it limon.

We should not kid ourselves we have any control over our health or mortality.

We all make a choice at the end of the day be it looking after our parents or having children. There is no book out there on how to cope you have to get on with it. Vent if you have to but it won't change you're circumstances.