To think becoming a first time mother in your 60s is the height of selfishness?

[CounsellorTroi]

www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/julia-peyton-jones

Had a baby alone at 64. She’ll be 80 years old when her daughter is 16. There’s a good chance she’ll be dead by the time the child is 30. She could well die before the child reaches 25. So very selfish.

[LemonSwan]

I was going to say yes very selfish, but shes 69 now, looks incredible and likely has the best healthcare going. If you get to 70 without cancer your looking quite good, and if you get past your 70s without a pulmonary cardiac diseases then your on a roll.

So in a way this story made me think about things a bit differently. Her chances of predicting 25+ years of healthy life were probably higher at 65 than at 50/55 when your still in the potential cancer arena.

[MagnoliaXYZ]

It's very selfish to be having a child at that age. It doesn't matter how wealthy the woman is, that child is most likely going to have to deal with the loss of their mother far younger than any of their peers.

[Shehasadiamondinthesky]

I think it's the most selfish act ever, she's done it for her not the child.
Given she was a 40 a day smoker I think it's unlikely she'll live to 80. That kind of damage is long lasting.

[MagnoliaXYZ]

And as for a PP comment about where do we draw the line in regards to obesity, addiction etc, there are already rules about who can and cannot have fertility treatment or adopt in the UK and many other countries.

[Magicalwoodlands]

I don’t think losing your parents young is the worst thing that can happen, to be honest.

It isn’t ideal but it isn’t something that is going to necessarily ruin a life.

I do think this is too old though.

[Limejuiceandrum]

Well I know friends of friends, and she’s one of the fittest women I know. Also the father is much younger, and involved.
She’s well off, and a loving brilliant mother, who if she dies prematurely will leave a daughter with a massive extended close loving family and a young father.

Ive met many 45 year olds that can’t walk to the bus stop, and I imagine if she was not fit or healthy or didn’t have a good network and a young father then she probably wouldn’t have done it.

How is that any different from the thousands of men who have children at 64.

[Goatinthegarden]

I think having a child is ultimately a selfish act. People have children to fulfil their own needs and desires.

No one has any real idea of what the future holds, and not matter how comfortable a life you try to provide, some sort of suffering will invariably befall your offspring at some point in their lives. Who is to say her child will suffer more than anyone else’s?

[Rosebel]

It's incredibly selfish. There is such a high chance of dying when your child is young, why would you do that?
Obviously people can die at any age (my FIL was 52) but why increase the risk?

[E11en]

I just wouldn't want to do it. It's sad that she got to 64 and still hankered after motherhood tbh. I know people my own age who hankered after motherhood badly between abotu 39 and 43 but then processed it, grieved it and moved on and they are enjoying really good lives now better than mine with two teenagers so from that angle, I find it a bit sad for the mother too.

[Limejuiceandrum]

I’ve also met and come across on here endless women saying they have no family, single mothers, no networks. What happens when they did when their child is say, mid twenties? Do people think about that.
Do women say, oh I’m not going to have a child because the father won’t be around and I don’t have any family. Nope

She’s got all of the above

[Limejuiceandrum]

When they die even

[DameCelia]

@ddl1
If you read the article it's pretty clear she paid a surrogate in the US.
Which is problematic for reasons other than her age.

[TableFlowerss]

Ridiculous in every aspect. Selfish and a bit fucked up really imo

[TrojaninTroy]

You are not entirely BU.

But this mother is highly to have given far more thought & planning as to what would happen to her child were she to die than most parents. She is likely to have reinforced her connections with younger family members. And any family can end up as a single parent family with few family connections.

[MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously]

I think that people who do this are in denial about how old they really are - looking young isn't actually the same as being young. Sperm degenerates in quality as men age, increasing likelihood of birth defects, and it's as distressing for a child to lose their dad as it is their mum, so I do consider it equally irresponsible when men do this too.

I very much doubt that this woman underwent pregnancy herself or used her own eggs and like a pp, I have concerns around the ethics of surrogacy.

Money cushions a lot, but it doesn't remove grief and this woman is statistically likely to die or become incapacitated while her child is still young and someone else will have to assume the responsibility of raising her - someone who probably didn't choose to have a baby themselves at 65!

[ddl1]

Going back a couple of hundred years you'd say any woman having a child in her late twenties or thirties would be selfish because her life expectancy would he so low.

Quite. Indeed, there was a significant risk that she might die in childbirth itself. And also the prospects for the child living a long and healthy life weren't that great. One in three children born in Britain in 1800 never saw their fifth birthday; and even among those who did, not all lived to grow up.

[violetbunny]

But for any parents who decide to have a child, who else are they doing it for but themselves? It's hardly doing the planet a service.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

She's 69 now and her daughter is 4.5. I'm 60 and the idea of dealing with a baby/young child 24/7 gives me the vapours - even the idea of having that responsibility but employing others to do most of the work is daunting. I do think it's selfish to have a child that late in life. I would say the same for a man, but at least in that case he would usually have a younger partner so the child would not be left an orphan.

I find it very hard to believe this was an IVF baby. This paragraph suggests to me that she (and her partner, who is mentioned) looked for a woman to be a surrogate mother.

On my return to London, I began to research how to go about having a baby. I was struggling to see a way forward until I remembered a colleague who, with his male partner, is the parent of twin girls. We had a hilarious conversation in which I tried to pretend I was asking on behalf of “a friend”, until his incisive questions and my lack of prepared answers forced me to reveal that I was making the enquiries for myself. He gave me invaluable advice, which I followed to the letter, and which, together with the help of my sister, allowed me to move ever closer to my goal. Of course, I’ve been asked many times about exactly how Pia came to be, and I always balk at going into detail. Perhaps in time my view will change, but for the moment this is something too personal for me to share. Even I still find my decision astounding, but I couldn’t be happier that I found the courage to go through with it.

Ways for two men to become the parents of a child:
Adoption - presumably ruled out for this woman as she was well over the age where it would be possible, unless she adopted overseas
One of them was previously in a heterosexual relationship and the child is from that relationship - clearly not applicable to the woman in the article
Co-parenting arrangement with a single woman who gives birth
Surrogacy

There must surely be hardly any fertility clinics in the world prepared to countenance IVF for a woman of 64/65. I know there are a few. The risks to both her and the baby would be enormous. Far more likely, I feel, for a very affluent woman to outsource the gestation to a healthy and very much younger woman, who will almost certainly also be much poorer. In the UK there has to be some genetic link for a parent to get a parental order for a child born from surrogacy. She would have been post-menopausal so unless she froze her eggs earlier I don't see how she could have been the baby's biological mother. There is mention of a partner, so maybe he did the necessary. It's not far removed from buying a baby in my eyes.

[BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand]

There was a really key difference though.

Having children 100-200 years ago was not generally a choice.

There was no real contraception, and married women didn't get to choose whether or not to have sex. Most didn't get the choice to remain unmarried. So bearing children was just a fact of life for women of childbearing age - criticising a woman for having a child 150 yrs ago would be like criticising her for having periods.

[TableFlowerss]

@Limejuiceandrum

I’ve also met and come across on here endless women saying they have no family, single mothers, no networks. What happens when they did when their child is say, mid twenties? Do people think about that.
Do women say, oh I’m not going to have a child because the father won’t be around and I don’t have any family. Nope

She’s got all of the above

We know anyone can die at any age, we can’t predict the future so sadly some people lose their parents before their time.

The average age of death here is early 80’s and considering the amount of people that die young, you’re lucky if you get to 83 really.

Statistically she’ll be lucky to get to 85 so the kid would be 24ish, fair enough but she that’s the best scenario. If the child goes on to have their own kids the grandparents will likely be dead before the grandkids could remember them.

If you have a kid at 35, statistically you’ll be around until they’re 50 odd.

Also will be child be expected to care if the mother when she’s elderly?…. The child will be put in that position of a carer likely.

[BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand]

^That's in response to the posters saying that it's the equivalent of having a child in your 20s a hundred years ago.

[ddl1]

It is of course sad that someone would do this, when there are many orphans in the world who may die if no one adopts them. (And even if one accepts that some people only want a child who is genetically related to them - it's unlikely that this child will in fact be genetically related to the mother.) But almost all these children are in developing countries; and international adoption has been made extremely difficult due to trafficking scandals in the past. I entirely see this point; but sometimes wonder if the pendulum has swung too much the other way.

[Sparklfairy]

Tbf anyone can die at any age. The selfishness lies in the almost inevitable caring responsibilities and a child or young adult having to deal with everything that that brings (admin, finances etc).

[x2boys]

Typical mumsnet responses🙄
Of course it irresponsible have a child at 64, yes parents can die at any age and tragically my sil died at 41 leaving an 18 yr old and two much younger siblings, but it was a highly unusual and tragic case, my parents are both 79, my mum has been disabled for a number of years and my dad was fit and healthy until the last year or so and now has a number of health issues, sadly this is far more likely to happen then, a much younger parent passing away suddenly.

[theThreeofWeevils]

What a load of navel-gazing, self-justifying wankery.
And she got rid of her poor bloody dog.