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!

Shaming? With all due respect, I think you'd have to be particularly thin-skinned, or on the other hand egotistic – unless you happen to be on the Cabinet right now, or an oligarch businessperson – to think I think you have any say in deciding how modern capitalism and societal structures are shaped 😂

I'm also not sure how it's one sided unless you've got your head buried in the sand about the situation worldwide. The primary factor in pushing back parental ages (of both parents, male and female) is economic, whether that be career, housing or overall financial stability. Thankfully, the UK has more cushioning factors like parental leave or even minimum non-parental leave in general, as well as things like the NHS. However, that still leaves a lot of financial pressures, especially in housing markets in many dense cities.

I'm not of some kind of eugenics mindset that younger is better, but never ever getting to meet your grandkids (this is v likely to happen after 2 generations of having kids in your 40s!), and whole generations of grandparent-less children, doesn't sound like the natural/ideal order of things surely.

61 years old is really old when you are a teenager. But 41 is also really old when you are a teenager. You are her mother, you are supposed to be "old" from a teen perspective (much better than being the kind of mum who always talks about being mistaken for sisters). Outside of a teen perspective, 61 isn't old old at all.

You're right. I had my youngest at 41. If she had her 1st at 39 I would have been 80. Luckily she had her 1st at 24.

I don't think @bfgf sounds superior, just goady.

I can't understand some of what they're trying to say and disagree with other parts. But I can't be bothered to debate it. I suspect it would be futile anyway.

It is NOT 35. It's 29-30.

You can't just make up statistics to try to prove your point! 😆

@bfgf I agree with all of your points. Though I know the 'every woman I know in my 'social circle' had her first baby at 44' brigade don't like to hear honest and frank views like yours. I think it's hitting a few raw nerves with several posters.

!

When my eldest is 19, I will be 43. When my youngest is 19, I will be 53.

It's 32 in 2024 according to ONS, so somewhere in between.🙂

To be clear, I'm not blaming the women. Only the v privileged (like many I went to uni with tbf) or the financially feckless lower-income have kids at an age that means they're mostly guaranteed to actively be around for their children.

Unless you're very rich or very poor, everyone else is subject to financial and career pressures which don't play nicely with our biological reality (even allowing for advancements in medicine).

Not sure where it's goady – the fact that the topic gets an emotional rise out of you (for understandable personal reasons) doesn't mean I want to, or can be at all bothered to for that matter, get an emotional rise out of you!

I also wouldn't bother debating with you. To me, all the denial on this thread seems pretty emotionally rooted

@RedYellowPinkGreenPurpleOrangeBlue

”Most women now have their first child from the age of 32, new Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show..” article from Feb 24 at the telegraph.

looks like it was a little higher than you thought and a little lower than I thought : )

I don't think having older parents is necessarily a bad thing if there are siblings and extended family. It's only children of older parents who may face difficult times down the line. I see quite a lot of these types of families and I do wonder how the children will fare in years to come. And I do speak from experience as an only child myself (although not to particularly old parents, but on the older side).

I will never understand the need for this sort of snide denigration of other women. People make different choices for their own reasons in their own life circumstances and there are pluses and minuses to both sides. Intelligent adults should be able to state their own opinion without implying that others’ choices are inferior or that they are overly emotional for reacting to the implied criticism.

This type of thread always ends up devolving into this. It’s depressing.

Around half of children born in Elizabethan times had no grandparents alive by the time they were born. It’s actually very much in the order of things.

That’s because in the natural order of things, you’d keep having children until your fertility conked out, and people were less likely to live into their 80s and beyond.

the fact that the topic gets an emotional rise out of you (for understandable personal reasons) doesn't mean I want to, or can be at all bothered to for that matter, get an emotional rise out of you!

It doesn't get an "emotional rise" out of me. If you've read the thread you will know that it started with an out of character Saturday evening blip. And I was quickly back to my normal, secure self.

I will never understand the need for this sort of snide denigration of other women. People make different choices for their own reasons in their own life circumstances and there are pluses and minuses to both sides. Intelligent adults should be able to state their own opinion without implying that others’ choices are inferior or that they are overly emotional for reacting to the implied criticism.

Very well put. Though I think this thread has been uplifting in the main. Women supporting women. Mostly!

😓

Is that a sweating emoji?

Joanna Froggatt is expecting her first baby at 43. She looks great (I had my second at 43, little darling is off to Uni this year).

In a similar vein, was just watching First Dates and a woman on there was 54 and her kid was 3 years old!

She does look great but that doesn’t stop her being 43. I think sometimes we confuse looking young with being young.

True. We may be looking younger and be fitter at 43 than we did in the past but our ovaries are still ageing at the same rate.

I had my second child at 43 and I looked a darn sight better than some of the obviously much younger mums at the primary school (overweight and smoking). Younger doesn’t always mean being in better health and shape.

Just to add second child is off to University, I’m still here to see it.

Sure, but some women have always conceived at 43 and well beyond, while looking old and haggard or (less usually) young and vibrant, according to the standards of their day/culture. If you conceive and carry a pregnancy to term, then your body is doing its job, whatever you look like.

Those aren't her eggs ( not saying it isn't her child) natural conception is biologically all but impossible at 50 +

I know someone who had a child at 50 so not impossible

Do you know for sure it was natural/her own eggs?