To think it's not right that DD(19) has a 61 year old mum

[LornaDuh]

Don't know why it's just hit me at 10.45 on a Saturday night in June.

Just feels weird that a girl not yet out of her teens has a mum over 60!

I agree too. I didn't have really old parents, however I am an only child who has failed to have a family of her own. My future looks very bleak. I do have a partner, however should anything happen to him, I will be entirely on my own. It's terrifying and in a lot of ways I wish I had never been born or could just return to not existing all ready. I don't enjoy my life and don't want to live it any more. One of my parents is now ill and I am having to support her on my own, all whilst knowing that one day I will be alone with nobody to care about me. I am not a mother, will never be a grandmother, am not a sister, will never be an aunty and so on. My life feels pointless and less worthy than everyone around me. And to make maters worse, I am surrounded by families every day. I can't go anywhere without seeing families and wishing I was part of one. My heart is broken.

I became a grandmother for the first time at 37, then again x2 at 43.

If you had a child at 38 they’d be 29 by the time you were an ‘oap’.

Find your tribe. Join clubs, get a dog and go walking (I have lovely friends I met on my local dog walk entirely by accident), take up hobbies etc.

Make your life one you enjoy.

And as I posted earlier up, siblings are not a guarantee of support. Mine, much as I love her, is a responsibility I will inherit.

The first of my grandparents we lost was the youngest. We lost her when she was 60, very unexpectedly. Her youngest child was early 20s. My aunts children never knew her because of this.

My DHs paternal grandparents were not old parents. But they died when he was tiny and he has no memories of them.

My paternal grandparents were almost 100 when we lost them (and they were older when they had my dad). They saw many of their grandchildren into adulthood and knew some great, great grandchildren.

Youth doesn't guarantee time.

This is always such a divisive subject, and people will come out with stories of young mums who die young anyway, and conversely older parents/grandparents who are full of life and vitality right into their much older years. Both of which happen, but are not the typical way that life goes.
As a young mum myself, I get the looks of surprise and then disdain when people realise I have a young adult child. I always explain to my children that things in life swing in a similar way to the pendulum - first hard one way, then hard the other way, and generally, and hopefully, they settle into the balanced middle area. I hope this will be true for the age people become parents also.

No but it’s far more likely.

Thank you. I am trying my best to make friends and widen my circle. Sometimes I feel a little more positive about things. 😊

I know a few people who are child free (some by choice, some not so much) who have amazing, fulfilling lives. You are not less worthy because you haven't reproduced, so don't let anyone make you feel like that.

It's a perfectly acceptable way to live, whether it's what you planned or not. And the only person you have to live upto, is yourself.

You'll find your people. Just don't be afraid to do things you might enjoy because they aren't "typical" (I, for example, love a jigsaw. My friends call me an old lady (37), but I love it).

I had my DC at 35 and 38. That was my choice, I wouldn't have done it differently (and if I had, I'd be raising them in a very different set of circumstances, probably as a single parent). Does it bother me? Yeah, sometimes. Like always being the oldest parent at school gatherings. Or struggling with energy levels now they're a bit older (6 and 9). Think in the first couple of years, parenting is exhausting whether you're 23 or 53. But after a while you start to really notice the effects of being an older parent - and we've not even hit the menopause/teenage/elderly and needy parents years yet!

However. DH's mum had him in her early twenties. She died when he was 16. There are absolutely no guarantees about what will happen. I refuse to regret anything and tbh, I feel that I'm in a much better place to be a parent than I would have been in my twenties or early 30s (and I made the most of those years and being young!).

So yeah I get it OP. But you sound an amazing mum and young in spirit.

Aww thank you for your lovely message. And ohh you have just reminded me that I bought a lovely jigsaw a few months ago which I am yet to do! 😁

Those poor kids. My mum died when I was 49 & that was too soon. They’ll be lucky to still have a mum when they’re 30. (And I’d say exactly the same about a father the same age)

I'll be 63 when DS is 19. Its not a big deal.

Women having kids in their 40s is hardly a new thing... and there are parents of all ages who have unhealthy lifestyles.

Women having babies in their 40s isn't new, but only or first children being born then wasn't typical of previous generations.

I had my children relatively 'late', aged 37 and 39. I remember thinking when my youngest was born that I wish I'd been in a position to have children when I was younger, precisely because the risk of health problems increases as you get older.

When my youngest is 19, I'll be just shy of 60. There's nothing wrong with that, but I am aware should my kids follow the trend of having children in their 30s, I'll be well into my 70s and probably not as much help as I'd like to be.

You're clearly an exception in multiple notable ways though... It's rare for a young couple to be doubly orphaned, and a 40 year old needs to put in more time and effort into fitness than a 20 or 30 year old.

I know people like to say age is in the mind and all that, but that's just denying basic biology and usually used to soothe egos. I am also not under the impression that I'm immune to the onset of age so there's no judgment intended.

My mum had me at 33. I'm 31 now and she's 65.
I only ever had 1 papa and 1 gran, on opposite sides.
My papa died when I was 4. My gran when I was 22.
Not necessarily an "old parents" issue. My gran on my dad's side died before I was born, in her 40s.

If he'd lived my dad would have been 85 when I was 19.

I'm pregnant with my son and I'll be 41 when he's born.
I don't feel old, I'm fit and healthy and financially stable with a heart filled with love to give.

Mine range from 16 - 28 and I don't do much 'parenting'. I can work any hours I want and never need childcare.

What are you doing for 18 and 25 year olds?

@anotherglassofsomething 41 is not old, I was at my peak in many ways then. Its later on age catches up with you.

When you say she " had" twins she presumably didn't concieve them naturally or indeed in the UK- this is really outside biological norms. Or did she adopt ?

Does it make a difference if you're 41. 400 or 401?

I am an only child so that's part of the reason I have this viewpoint. It's not an assumption as such, but how I and many of the other adult only children I know feel.

Having siblings is not a guarantee of a support network. But if you don't have the siblings in the first place then they definitely won't be!

But so what, though? My parents were dirt-poor and had far more children than they could afford, financially or emotionally. It was a miserable, overcrowded, emotionally neglectful childhood. I would have preferred to be an only child than be the eldest of a big sibling set where there was never enough of anything, from food to love, to go round. But we don’t get to decide for our parents what would have been best. I will say, though, that I have a pretty good idea of what would have been better with no siblings — enough to eat, more parental attention, less grinding poverty. But lonely adult only children frequently have the most idealistic ideas about having siblings.