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.

Each to their own

Maybe it’s time people stop being so judgemental. What works well for one, may not for others but who are we to judge?

@Chloemol

Each to their own

Maybe it’s time people stop being so judgemental. What works well for one, may not for others but who are we to judge?

That only really applies when people are making decisions which only affect them. And that's not the case here.

@CoastalWave

I might add I generally think people having kids through IVF is selfish. Something (nature) is causing your egg and your partner's sperm to reject each other, and probably on good grounds - but because we women feel it's our right to have our own babies, it's forced anyway. Resulting in babies that shouldn't even have been born if nature had been left to it. Unpopular viewpoint but it's true nevertheless.

Hmm there's a lot of things that would happen if we let nature run it's course. Lots of people would die prematurely if we didn't interfere medically.

@futureghost

I can't see a problem. She appears to have planned for middle aged lack of energy and her impending mortality by hiring a nanny and ensuring that the child has a strong and stable network

69 is NOT middle aged, You can't change reality with words.

Wait till you get there. The boundaries of "middle age" and "old" have changed for a generation of post-war boomers who have had the best healthcare and health education and every other opportunity and were lucky enough to make the best of it.

I know countless people well into their 70's who are mentally and physically fitter, healthier and stronger than people decades younger.

YANBU it's beyond weird

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

That would be very rare, but I do know a very physically fit 69 year old dementia sufferer.

@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?

My thoughts exactly.

Wait till you get there. The boundaries of "middle age" and "old" have changed for a generation of post-war boomers who have had the best healthcare and health education and every other opportunity and were lucky enough to make the best of it. I know countless people well into their 70's who are mentally and physically fitter, healthier and stronger than people decades younger

Oh for goodness sake! Middle aged, means in the middle of your life.
This woman has between 14 and 20 years to go until the average age of death for women in the UK (depending on which average you use). That's not the middle age - that's the end age!

And keeping fit doesn't change the fact she is in the end age of her life and her daughter will be well aware of this. That cohort of extremely fit 70 year olds you know will NOT outlive that cohort of less fit 40 year olds you know. Her daughter will be aware of this very soon and throughout her childhood.

@Proudboomer Men use younger women’s bodies and eggs to have babies when in their 60s all the time.
It’s good to see lots of opinions on this thread.
There is evidence that women can occasionally ovulate years after menopause and researchers are still learning new things about the menopause. Women are living longer all the time and there is also evidence that women who have their first child in late thirties are much more likely to live to their nineties. In Japan it was proven that elderly women who live close to an elementary school or kindergarten live longer and in better health.

We are the only animal that has a menopause and medical advances mean that we are living longer than ever.
It’s not my business what the woman does in her personal life but she gave the article to Vogue in order to spark this kind of discussion.
It’s really interesting, and even supposing she used a surrogate really not so different to rich people in earlier times adopting an heir or a “ward” to come and live with them and bequeath their belongings to.

@AtlasPine

Plenty of men do parenthood at that age.

Oh ffs. Can you actually say anything round here without false equivalence with men getting dragged in? It only took three posts too. So fucking depressing.

Plenty of men do parenthood at that age
Yes it is possible for a man to create biological children at the same age not for a woman.

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?

But she went into motherhood knowing exactly what the future holds.
That's the point. Best outcome she dies in her child's early adulthood. Worst outcome, she dies way before that.
Absolute certainty her child knows her mum will die in the foreseeable future.

She was interviewed on Woman's Hour last week.

Looking at it one way, I suppose she could be compared to a grandmother or elderly aunt who had to step in if the birth parent died.

As a fit 64 year old, her life expectancy is around 90.

Generally, I am fairly liberal about mother's ages because there are so many children being brought up in other circumstances that are far from ideal, often with very single young mothers.

But knowing that you are pretty likely to die before your child reaches 35 is quite selfish, yes.

However. The other side of the coin is what about the mother in her 30’s that tried for many years through IVF. What if she gets to 40. And 50? Is that a problem then?

If you get to 50 and you haven’t come to some degree of acceptance that it probably isn’t going to happen, you perhaps need therapy.

I struggle with understanding why anyone would wait until their 60s to become a parent. It just seems a bit of an afterthought.

This. The person in question has essentially waited til near retirement age to have a child. To me, that indicates that in 40 years working, they were never, at any stage, willing to pause their career to fit in having a child. To me that sort of means having children was a very low priority, so not a great thing imho.

An interesting point would be:

is longevity of a parent the main point?

Is it better to have great parenting with a mature and financially settled parent for 25 or 30 years, compared to a feckless (extreme case) parent who lived until you were 70?

One is not always better than the other.

Plenty of threads on the Relationship forum here from women who are no-contact with their still-very-much-alive-parents.

@DeepaBeesKit

I struggle with understanding why anyone would wait until their 60s to become a parent. It just seems a bit of an afterthought.

This. The person in question has essentially waited til near retirement age to have a child. To me, that indicates that in 40 years working, they were never, at any stage, willing to pause their career to fit in having a child. To me that sort of means having children was a very low priority, so not a great thing imho.

Quite. Its hard to avoid the conclusion that she is squashing in at the end the stuff she never got around to before.

Is it better to have great parenting with a mature and financially settled parent for 25 or 30 years, compared to a feckless (extreme case) parent who lived until you were 70?

That wasn't the choice here.

Its an irrelevant point.

@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.

My mother died before I made it to primary school so if that’s your only reasoning then YABU.

I do however agree with you, although as I think about it I’m not sure I could pinpoint why ..

But is it a case of quality over quantity?

I guess because we all (mostly) love our mothers and want them around for ever, we find it hard to accept that in some cases, a good number of years in a great mum-daughter relationship may be better than 70 years of a bad mum-daughter set up.

You've got to have your kids pretty young these days to be sure ( and you can't be) that you will not be a burden to your children as you age.

@futureghost

Is it better to have great parenting with a mature and financially settled parent for 25 or 30 years, compared to a feckless (extreme case) parent who lived until you were 70?

That wasn't the choice here.

Its an irrelevant point.

Hardly irrelevant.

Go to the Relationships forum here and read about all the women who hate their mothers who are alive and well.

I make the point again- is the number of years your mum is around the be all and end all?

That's what people are saying. That no one should be a mother unless they can be sure they will not be a burden to you in their old age, or die before you are ready!

You could argue that ALL parenting is selfish as it usually brings grief at some point.

Sorry op but I absolutely don’t agree with you. If it were me, if I were that child, I would rather get the chance to exist - even if that meant I lost my mother young. I’d be happy to be alive.

I read the article. The child has a lot of people to live her in her life. And her mother clearly has money.

My advice to you is: stop caring about other people’s lives in such a toxic way.

Maybe she tried unsuccessfully to have a child in various ways and on multiple occasions before, gave up for a while and then decided to go for it.
Maybe her own frozen eggs or embryos were used and it took several attempts.
We don’t know the details, nor should we when it’s also the daughter’s information being involved.

@SweetBabyCheeses99

Having read the article, I think it’s wonderful. This woman has an abundance of love, energy and let’s face it - resources! to put into parenting. I think it’s a very slippery slope to say that some women shouldn’t be mothers because of a certain factor. Would we do the same for obesity? Poor health? Addicts? Teens? Poverty? Criminals?

Do you see anyone advocating for addicts to be having babies? They’d likely be removed at birth.

Ridiculous comparison

@RufustheBadgeringReindeer

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

Of course you wouldn’t, go back that time and the woman would have very little choice about getting pregnant and even less aboutnot being pregnant any more

They did both very effectively Ask google re avoiding etc