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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think 41 is v v young for a granny??

641 replies

TinfoilHattie · 19/03/2017 18:24

I'm 44. Recently I have been back in touch with some people I was at school with on Facebook - haven't seen these people for over 20 years, nearer 25 probably. I'm quite surprised at the number who are already grandparents - I saw a picture of a toddler on one of their FB pages, assumed it was their child but no, a grandchild having their third birthday. Granny is the same age as me. Confused

My mum was 27 when she had me and became a grandparent at 58. My inlaws were the same age. My eldest is 14 and I am not expecting to be a granny much before I'm 60, so that's my "normal". Cannot imagine being a granny by 41 and may be a bit unreasonable thinking it's nothing to aspire to?

OP posts:
coconuttella · 20/03/2017 21:35

Actually she was 52 when she became a great-gran.... I expect she was too busy in her juggling her roles as high court judge and a partner at KPMG.

coconuttella · 20/03/2017 21:36

To realise she'd been a great-gran until the oldest was 3.

flapjackfairy · 20/03/2017 21:38

Somebody help me out!
What is the pm of which littlefrog speaks??
And to think i have a degree and had my children at a sensible age but am still too thick to work it out ...ha,ha.

CoolCarrie · 20/03/2017 21:46

No people don't have to go to uni etc to have a interesting, great life, it isn't the be all and end all. Choices are what makes life easier, and having children very young narrows down those choices in so many ways.

MsAwesomeDragon · 20/03/2017 21:46

If dd follows in my footsteps then I'll be 40 when i become a grandma. She's 17 now and not showing any signs of doing anything so silly, she has plans of uni next year. I'm sincerely hoping that she waits till she's late 20s/early 30s before she has babies.

emelsie · 20/03/2017 21:47

My nan and mum became 'Granny' at the age of 40 and my nan went on to become a great -grandma at 58, I love that my daughter has such a close relationship with both of them.

Chinchinwag · 20/03/2017 22:20

Hmm, for some it does and for some it doesn't. To me having children when you're younger can make life easier in so many ways such as career for instance. When you're in your mid/late 30s and beyond you don't have the worry of picking young children up from school or have childcare worries/issues because your kids are in their mid/late teens. You don't have to worry about taking time out from your job to have kids/stay at home with them. You can work a 40 hour week and earn a full time wage if that's what you want to do.

When my dd is 18 I will be 40. I'm thinking (and only thinking of course as you don't know what life throws at you) that I can enjoy childfree holidays in my 40s or have holidays with my dd who will be in her 20s. I won't be worrying about childcare, nurseries, school and the logistics of juggling work with younger children at school.

In lots of ways I think having kids later on can be much harder in lots of ways too.

Some have the money to go to Uni and are book smart enough to establish a career such as a doctor or a lawyer. For the average Jo though, having kids younger or older no easier, you just have different struggles at each end. For me, i'd rather do the hard graft of having kids when i'm younger and enjoy the freer time when i'm older rather than enjoy the free time younger and have the hard graft of young kids when i.m older. But then everyone is different and that is my choice.

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 20/03/2017 22:23

Let's be honest here, young mums, under 20s I mean, who do well in their jobs, education, lifestyle, etc, only do so because of family support, including partner

Let's be honest here, you have no idea what anyone's circumstances were.

I was 19 so I sneak in under your 'under 20s' threshold. Family were all two hours away at a minimum and couldn't provide practical or financial support. DH (then BF) was also a full-time student so in exactly the same boat as me.

CoolCarrie · 20/03/2017 22:26

So how did you manage then?

Chinchinwag · 20/03/2017 22:38

I'm getting on really well, in fact I've surprised myself at how much i'm achieving! I bought my house 2 years ago and have been doing it up by myself. My kids are getting to a more independent phase where they do their own thing around the house without me needing to constantly watch them like when they were little. I'm not rich by any means. I started a job 3 years ago which fits around the kids at the moment and has enough room within the company for me to progress further/higher as the kids get older and start going off into their teenage worlds and beyond.

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 20/03/2017 22:53

So how did you manage then?

Gave birth on the last day of my second year (DH's first year), stayed in classes right up until I went into hospital in the last week. Had the summer at home with DD while DH worked part-time as a pizza delivery driver. She went into on-campus nursery in the September at 4 months so we could both go back to uni when the term started again. Worked our arses off.

A mix of luck (I got pregnant at the perfect time Grin ), stubbornness, hard work and student finance really Grin

notgivingin789 · 20/03/2017 22:59

" Let's be honest here, young mums, under 20s I mean, who do well in their jobs, education, lifestyle, etc, only do so because of family support, including partner ".

I don't get in when people say this like receiving support is bad. I know several mothers who are much older than me that receive a lot of help from their parents if they are working or whatever.

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 20/03/2017 23:02

Good point notgiving. In my MN antenatal group most of the mums in their late 20s and 30s have family living just down the road who babysit, help out financially etc. I'm not sure why any young parent should feel bad if they do have family support - surely the more support the better?

StrumpersPlunkett · 20/03/2017 23:17

In our class we have a 6 year old fabulous young girl who's mum has just turned 21.
They are a great family and quite feasibly mum will be a granny before she is 40.
Means nothing really.

littlefrog3 · 20/03/2017 23:34

In our class we have a 6 year old fabulous young girl who's mum has just turned 21. They are a great family and quite feasibly mum will be a granny before she is 40. Means nothing really.

Holy fucking bollocks. I'm done. What kind of warped and fucked-up society do we live in, when someone thinks it's just great that a girl had a baby at 15?!

I suppose SHE has a degree, and a six figure salary, and a £300K house, and an illustrious high flying career - even at 21 huh? (She must have a degree and a high flying career at LEAST! I mean, ever other fucker on this thread who had babies in their teens has a degree and a massively successful professional career!) PMSL!

Yeah I know I said I was done with the thread. But THIS POST by strumpers plunkett (above) could NOT go without a response.

Unless of course, it's a piss-take. I sincerely hope so! There have been some ridiculous, ludicrous, hilarious, totally full-of-shit posts on this thread, but that takes the bastard biscuit!

I don't know what's making me laugh more; the hilarious posts on this thread, or the histrionics from the hysterical harpies on here.

Now I really AM done on this thread. Toodle pipksi Grin

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 20/03/2017 23:54

I win the bet, I knew she'd be back Grin

PortiaCastis · 20/03/2017 23:55

Grin who's the hysterical harpie ?

notgivingin789 · 20/03/2017 23:56

Little frog no one is saying that having a baby at 15 or whatever is a good thing. It is not and I was one ! It was hard , it was shit, I had to grow up, I had to deal with the judgemental onlookers, I couldn't enjoy my DS (e.g. Take him to toddler groups) as I was so warped in caring what other people , who had no significance in my life, thought of me. I would not want my own children to have a child at a young age.

But... do I just think "fuck, my life is over ?", should I just jump out of the window and be done with it ? Should I forever punish myself or condemn myself forever because I had a child at such a young age. No, you get up and move on because I had a child to support. In life your going to go through unexpected shit, you have to ride it out, take the situation in your own hands and make the best out with it.

notgivingin789 · 21/03/2017 00:03

My username is "notgivingin789" for a reason. I wasn't going to "give in". So I did it, when DS was 6 weeks old I went back to my mainstream
School and did my GCSE's, straight after A levels then University. God knows it was hard, especially since half way through college that DS most likely has SEN and I had to attend all his appointments, speech and language groups. But I did it ! Am I proud that I was a teen mum ? Not really ? But I am proud that after all the shit I went through since having DS it didn't deter my determination.

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 21/03/2017 00:08

You've done amazingly notgivingin, don't let her get to you. Some people can't stand to see others succeed, especially if it proves them wrong.

GreyDey · 21/03/2017 00:27

I don't think so. My mum had me at 19, now in my 30s and very close to her. Decided against children (thus far) but she could have been a granny by 40 if I hadn't. Absolutely nothing wrong with older mums (obviously I may well be one myself!) but I always considered having a younger mother to be of massive benefit to me and younger siblings.

MrsPeelyWaly · 21/03/2017 01:26

Let's be honest here, young mums, under 20s I mean, who do well in their jobs, education, lifestyle, etc, only do so because of family support, including partner

I had my first at just turned 19. I was living 4000 miles away from my family in a very new and different culture. My husbands family were not in the same country as us because he was the first one in his family to go back to the country of his birth after the family moved away decades earlier due to so many of his siblings dying as babies.

We had no family support because there was no family near us. My husband was also in the military and quite often away from home. At one stage I had 3 children under 4 and a half and I went on to have 5 children in total including one who is severely disabled.

DaisyDrip · 21/03/2017 06:52

I became a nan at 40. I now have six DGC and it's great.

DaisyDrip · 21/03/2017 07:19

littlefrog3 I am a committed Christian and sex outside of marriage was never going to happen. My husband had a good job, neither of us came from sink estates and didn't take benefits (except child benefit which all mothers received). We bought our own house upon marriage and moved up the property ladder as children came along. I had my first child aged 18 and that child is a carbon copy of my late husband and I, except her first child came when she was 22. To lump all young parents together as sink estate benefit claimants is wrong and frankly really quite uncalled for. Just because a family has a history of having children young does not mean they are not brought up with a strong work ethic.

My late husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness and carried on working until a very short time before he died. I have always worked and all our children and our CIL work. We were blessed that we never needed the states "safety net".

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