Is 45 too old to have a baby

[Catontoof]

is this fair on a child?
I am seriously considering this as I feel like
therr has been a huge hole in my life.

People criticise younger women for having children with the wrong man, or when they are not financially stable, and older women because they are old. According to mumsnet only a tiny fraction of women aged 35 or less with good finances and reliable partners and crystal balls to indicate said partners will stay reliable should procreate...

It’s just biological reality. The vast vast majority of women will be too old to conceive and give birth to a healthy baby at 45 (yes there will be some exceptions but most 45yo mothers have had fertility treatment including frozen or donor eggs- 45yo eggs are shit). The same is just not true of men.

While I totally agree with you regarding biological reality, in fact further up the thread I actually said something along the lines of op's biggest problem will be getting pregnant in the first place and having a healthy baby at 45. That is all acknowledged - what I object to is the disgusting outright sexism coming from mainly other women - telling women they are too old to have a 15 year old teenager at 60... but not men!

What about people who adopt at 45, what about people who have to look after grandchildren because there children aren't capable. There are lots of circumstances where someone might be a parent of a teenager in their 50s or 60s.

Fact is women who can get pregnant at 45 and yes I recognised this will be a small minority are NOT to old, women who decide to adopt at 45 are not too old, women who take on the caring responsibilities for grandchildren or other relatives for whatever reason are not too old. People can shove their sexist and ageist opinions where the sun don't shine. OP do what's right for you and ignore the haters

Personally I think men are too old at 45 also.

But everyone knows that (a) sadly most of the parenting load falls on women and (b) a 45 yo man who becomes a father is almost always doing so with a younger partner. Less likely to be the case with a 45 yo woman. The women I know who have kids in their mid 40s have either been doing it alone (so the kids don’t even have a dad at all) or with an older partner who is on to his second family.

I don’t think anyone thinks that being adopted or having to be cared for by your grandmother is an ideal scenario for anyone so not sure that these should be held up as comparators.

I would like to see what your "ideal scenario" is for raising a child is.

I would bet that whatever it is, most people wouldn't fit that ideal.

I can tell you that being raised by someone other than a biological parent was comparable and better for me than being abandoned.

If your bar is anything beyond “being abandoned” then that’s a pretty low bar don’t you think?

You need to draw a distinction between children that are born but then tragedies befall them that can’t be avoided (eg parent tragically dies young), and deliberately bringing a child into the world when you know with certainty that they will be (at best) coping with an older parent at a young age, often where they also won’t have wider family (because grandparents all dead, no father and no siblings, in the case of the older women I know who have gone it alone).

That's not my bar.

I'm still waiting for you to tell me what your 'ideal scenario" is?

Exactly. Many of the financially comfortable young couples in stable relationships will be both working stressful jobs and not very present for their children. Literally nothing is ideal.

Not sure if you think you’re going to have some kind of gotcha moment here.

An ideal scenario for a child is being born to parents who are young, healthy, financially stable and stable in their relationship, with a support network.

The fact that not every child is born in those conditions/circumstances does not mean that children should be brought into the world with the knowledge that their parents aren’t going to see them grow up or know their grandchildren. It’s pure selfishness from the parent’s perspective.

Yep got my gotcha moment - full of prejudice and stereotypical ideas about parenting, unfortunately like so many threads on Mumsnet. No point in any further discussion.

OP I hope it works out for you good luck whatever you decided.

Huh? 45 is not grandparent age. And I say that as someone who had their first at 25, making my mum a grandmother at 49.
But 45 is not typical grandparent age.

I've always thought 'with child' sounded really quite romantic, wish it was still in use!

Nothing that I said is “full of prejudice or stereotypical ideas”.

Of course you’ve had to flounce off saying “no further discussion” because you can’t justify yourself.

I totally accept that we do not live in an ideal world and people are great parents in all kinds of set ups. But that does not mean that those set ups are ideal, or the best for kids, or that they should be actively chosen when people do have a choice.

Many people much younger than 45 die of cancer. Sadly, even children get it. Young people also have heart attacks - I met a young man in his 20's who told me he had a heart attack while on a treadmill at the gym.

Yes true but you're far, far more likely to get cancer or heart disease over aged 50. I say this as someone who got cancer in my 30s, so I'm fully aware young people get cancer. However, you only have to look at the stats to see that the vast majority are over 50.

I have 17 year olds at 59 and it doesn't feel too old

I'm not sure you're getting my point here.
I don't "feel old" either at 59, but my body does a bit.
However, I'm at much higher risk of illness than I was 10 years ago.
The annual mortality rate starts going up a lot after 50
www.statista.com/statistics/1125118/death-rate-united-kingdom-uk-by-age/

AFAIK my MIL didn't feel old when she was 55 and my spouse was 21.
She's not posting here because she died at 55, causing years of problems with grief for my spouse.
No one who didn't feel old but who died under 60 will be posting here, do you get my point? It doesn't matter if you feel fine, you are living on an actuary's life expectancy curve, same as everyone else.

When you're past 50, you can be fine and not ill, and then become ill very quickly, it's not under our control, we just need to accept it.