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.

I personally think it’s selfish to have kids knowing you are on benefits.

Clutching my pearls in total awe at your superior moral outlook @Silverswirl. Thank you for helping me see the light.

I think we should start with the 2.5 million families who have the temerity to claim Working Tax Credits. Obviously, they need to be sterilised immediately but I imagine the DWP can pull that off pretty neatly if we learn from the operational success of the Covid vaccination programme.

But what about their existing children? It will be quite an expensive job to rehome them all. Maybe you'd take 1 or 2, & women like Peyton-Jones might be persuaded ... but it's a quandary, isn't it?
As you've obviously put such a lot of thought into the ethics of the issue, maybe you can advise on the best way of dealing with these selfish, wilfully reproducing parents?

Also, when will your mission get round to parents on Disability Allowance? I mean, it's all for the greater good, teaching These People that their selfish desire to be parents is out of order, but I think there was a little trouble with this concept even back in the good old 1930's. We should probably get Peyton-Jones' PR team onto how the messaging is handled on that one.

@ddl1

I'd be against a person in their sixties adopting a baby, yes.

Even if it were their own grandchild? (Not that uncommon.)

Even if it were a child who would otherwise be brought up in a substandard orphanage?

People do bring up their grandchildren yes but only in unusual even tragic circumstances. Really not comparable with a woman deliberately having a child in their 60s.

It’s happened many more times that a man of this age has a child. I suppose if I just do a quick search I’ll find all the threads you’ve started on their selfishness……

I had an older dad (in his 50s when I was born). So I have experienced this. It makes me feel physically sick to see people slating their own parents for this choice. My dad was an amazing father and I was absolutely blessed to have him for as long as I did. I feel nothing but love for and loyalty to him.

The alternative, I suppose, was for me not to be born at all. Strangely that doesn’t appeal to me.

Healthy life expectancy for the average sixty five year old woman in the UK is eleven years. Whether it's more or less for this individual depends on when she quit the fags - if it was when she was thirty then she's probably got away with it - if it wasn't until she was in her fifties then she'd still be at increased risk.

I would have agreed with you until I heard her interviewed recently on Women's Hour. I was struck by how much thought and dedication she had put into her decision.

It was clearly a lot more thought out than a lot of people do when they have kids.

Of course, you are YANBU.

There's another good insight into this woman's approach to life later on when she gets rid of her pet dog cos it was jealous. Some people can barely see past the end of their nose can they?

@Emilyontmoor

She is an extremely talented and accomplished woman who has stepped away from her career to give everything to her child, including making sure she had a support network in place. She thought long and hard about the decision. There are plenty of people who bring children into the world who give little thought to nurturing them to realise their potential. Good luck to her. I am sure the child will benefit hugely from her care and experience.

To be fair, stepping away from your career in your 60s is not an exceptional decision. It's called retirement.

@shallIswim

It's never going to be a mass movement is it? Women past 60 having children? And it will only ever be considered by those exceedingly well off, with a network of support. And besides men do it al the time. 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. So I say don't worry about it.

I heard someone on the radio recently explaining that's a bit of a misconception. Vast numbers of infants and children died and that brings the average age right down. He was saying that if you survived childhood you could reasonably expect to get to your seventies. I know it's not exactly on topic but I thought it was interesting and I'd never heard that before.

To the OP , a woman having a child at that age is a narcissist.

She "looks young and fit and modern" according to PP. Of course she does - it's a soft focus photoshoot for vogue magazine!!

Still doesnt necessarily mean shes exempt from the range of health issues that are typical in older age. (Vogue cant airbrush those away)

Perhaps this is what will happen in future. Young women will routinely freeze their eggs, have a 50 year long career unencumbered by children then “retire” to have their family. Sounds ideal doesn’t it……

As a 61 year old who is still working full-time and running a large house with a husband and grown up children, I simply can't imagine having the energy or physical resilience to carry, birth and care for another human through the toddler, child, tween, teen and uni years. I say that too from a position of privilege with the means to employ significant help.

@ThisIsNotAMill

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

Yes, this.

You may look great at 65. But your organs, muscles, bones are 65 years old and degenerating - the best dye job out there may take 20 years off your appearance but it doesn't take 20 years off your body.

It's far too old and selfish and irresponsible as hell.

You left out the dementia! Which in MN-land afflicts women over 50.

From what you have written, I think you know very little about the aging process.

Also it's possible to think all sorts of parents are selfish (maybe all parents?) you can have selfish parents of any age, one doesnt cancel out the other.
You can think its selfish to have children if you know you cant provide materially for them, or emotionally and you can think its selfish to parent a child (out of deliberate choice) when you are very much above child bearing age.

I'm not sure that having IVF babies past 50 when it's never dawned on you too have a baby while your naturally able because you was"living your best life ever " and didnt want kids to cramp your style is weird. Not saying that the case here. Maybe she struggled for decades. I dont know.

I dont think this kid will have any chance of a normal and full pare t and child experience but I'm not going to judge or get worked up about it. I agree with pp which have said that it's never going to be a mass movement or culture shift. Also totally agree as a mum you only ever have children for selfish reasons. The mere biological urge to pass your DNA on is selfish.

She can and did so it's done. Luckily no one gets to stop women giving birth as where do you stop? Age? IQ? Disability? Appearance? I cant buy into that. I was a rhesus baby. I'm sure decades ago people would have judged my mum selfish for using science to have me. Without the aid of science my mum would lost every baby after her first as nature dictates they die. So judge I can not.

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

A major difference is that she is the child’s principal career. The younger father, though involved, doesn’t even live in the household so, although he sees her regularly, he does not seem to see her daily. Men who become dads at 64 tend to have a younger wife who is taking the child’s principal cater.

@RosesAndHellebores

As a 61 year old who is still working full-time and running a large house with a husband and grown up children, I simply can't imagine having the energy or physical resilience to carry, birth and care for another human through the toddler, child, tween, teen and uni years. I say that too from a position of privilege with the means to employ significant help.

But she doesn't have a career, a husband, other children, or a large house to manage.

She also didn't birth the baby and has a very experienced nanny so I'm guessing didn't have too many sleepless nights.

Still doesn't feel right, but it's not like an average 60 year old woman fitting a newborn into their family.

As someone of that age, I couldn’t imagine it. My body has been through menopause-natures way of saying no. It’s losing hormones, bone density, it’s preparing to go (not for ages btw, but my useful reproductive days are gone.) And I don’t care if men can father children until their dying day, sperm quality declines, they do it with young women who take the parenting burden.
You’re old, get over it.

I'm not sure that having IVF babies past 50 when it's never dawned on you too have a baby while your naturally able because you was"living your best life ever " and didnt want kids to cramp your style is weird. Not saying that the case here. Maybe she struggled for decades. I dont know.

In the article she says

“ In the summer of 2014, I booked myself in for a week at the Original Mayr clinic in Austria, a wellbeing centre, to give myself a deadline for making the once-and-for-all decision about whether I would pursue motherhood or let it go. ”

In 2014, if she is now 69, she would have been 62. It really does not sound as though having a child was much of a priority during her actual childbearing years. I could be wrong though.

@flowerycurtain

I would have agreed with you until I heard her interviewed recently on Women's Hour. I was struck by how much thought and dedication she had put into her decision.

It was clearly a lot more thought out than a lot of people do when they have kids.

Amidst my discomfort at the PR aspect, the privileged entitlement to surrogacy, the monetising of a child's life & the distasteful pretentiousness ... yeah.

She's no more selfish that any other person, for wanting to be a parent, & I imagine Pia will have a fulfilling & lovely life. But hiring another (& probably much poorer) woman's body, then being feted on Womans' Hour & taken up by a publisher reeks of the exploitative nature of this woman's world view.

That doesn't make her a worse mother, or worse human being than everyone else. She's probably going to be a great mother. Just not a person I'd want in my life.

Surrogacy is something we'll look back on with shame in this lifetime.
Not the same as the mother and baby home scandals but has many similarities using young women for profits under the guises of love.
The horror stories will come out, the DC born in this situation will question where the birth mother is, why her life was poor, was she emotionally damaged by the experience.

Men might well do it - with a younger mum who had the energy and patience to look after a baby (or they are spectacularly wealthy and pay for nannies).

The thought of the sleepless years and constant ‘on’... oh no.

Young women will routinely freeze their eggs, have a 50 year long career unencumbered by children then “retire” to have their family. Sounds ideal doesn’t it……

Nah they won't be able to retire & many won't even have dc regardless of their age.

Having children generally is selfish.

The people like you who worry about stuff like this should save their angst for the number of babies/children living in horrific abusive environments. All born to women in a 'normal' giving birth age group!

And to add.. She looks very good for her age, but her child will grow up very aware of her mum's age and with constant worry if she'll be around for her.
I'm 40, and because my mom and her mother died young, I wouldn't dare even dream of having babies now.
I want to see my kids grow up into adults and not make them my carers in their teens/20s (if you're lucky enough to live til your late 80 90s)