Is it really that common to be a grandparent in your late 40s?

[AntiHop]

A few times recently, people have made the incorrect assumption that my 3 year old dd is my grandchild. I'm 47.

This really surprises me, as in my social group, and my family, no one has become a grandparent at that age. Not a single one of my friends had their kids in their 20s. (I have met people who've had kids in their 20s since becoming a parent myself.)

I definitely don't look older than I am. I'm lucky that my skin is doing well. If you lined me up with the friends of my age, you'd guess we are all 47ish. Perhaps people perceive me we older as so many people have cosmetic procedures now, changing the perception of what someone looks like at my age?

I do appreciate that I'm an older mum. Of the friends I grew up with, several of them had babies after my three year old was born.

This is nor meant to be a debate about the rights and wrongs of being an older mum. I'm just curious to know - if you saw a 47 year old with a 3 year old, would you assume that's the grandmother without it crossing your mind that she could be the mother?

Many years ago there was a woman on the Jeremy Kyle show, she had just become a Grandmother at the age of 27. She had her child at 13 and that child had just had a baby aged 14.

Well you must know that it’s not common for women to have a baby at 44?

Someone I went to school with is about to become a great grandmother at the grand old age of 47 She had her son at 15, he made her a grandma when he was 16, and now her 16yo granddaughter is a few months off giving birth!

Several of my friends in their 40's have young grandkids, but then a few also have toddlers. When I had my son at 27, 19 years ago, I was the youngest in my NCT group.

What an incredibly odd comment. On what planet is having grandchildren 'grim?'

100% this. I'm sick of this 'social circle' nonsense, spouting thinly veiled snobbery implying that 'middle and upper classes' and 'educated professionals' pretty much always have their first child past 40, and no-one in this social group would EVER have a baby at less than 40 years old! (Implying that women who have children at a younger age are badly educated and 'lower class!)

I know LOADS of women who had their first baby by the age of 37 - (25 to 37 actually,) who have the following jobs/careers ... Vicar, GP, Nurse, Solicitor, Police Officer, Detective, Dentist, Hospital Consultant, Hairdresser, Optometrist, Physiotherapist, Psychiatrist, the list goes on. Nearly ALL professionals, and many are degree educated.

It is NOT common to have your first baby over 41-42. Some people might, but it's far more common for educated professionals to have their first baby in their 30s. (Even late 20s.)

I'm sick to death of this implication that only badly educated 'lower class' people have their first baby young. And I say this as someone who had my first baby in my early 30s, and who has 2 DC in their early 30s who don't have children yet! (So I am not 'projecting!')

Exactly.

If anything perhaps it's a marker of slightly lower class* if you lack the finances and the scientific knowledge to have your child at a biologically optimal age .

• (not that in reality I give a fuck about class, but given it's being bandied around as an insult towards younger mums just indulge me here)

Yep.

It's not being "loaded" but simply matter of fact. You don't look as young as you think if several people have automatically defaulted you to be Grandma.

Whilst it's no longer really rare for a 47yr old to have just a 3yr old, you don't seem to acknowledge it's also not that common. If you had a 10yr old, a 7yr old and a 3yr old in tow as your youngest, people wouldn't make the error. It's that you look the age you do, with just a 3yr old. Then it's statistically more likely that this isn't a first child and that you are indeed Grandma.

Whilst you say it's the norm for your circle, it's obviously not for your area in general as you wouldn't repeatedly get mistaken.

I'm 42. DTwins are 5. I'm on the older side of having them. But I also have DS 16. And new mums find that a shock when they see him bowl up to the school gates to pick DTwins up with me sometimes. But when I had him at 26, I was pretty average for a first time mum. Definitely first time parents at the school gates are older now. Not 47, granted, but I would say with eldest DS, everyone else was about 31-32 on the first day of primary school, and now, ten or so years on, the mums I'm talking to are more like 35-36.

I'm obviously not great at getting my point across, which was essentially, I support but also have no particular interest in what age women or men have children.

We all have completely different lives, resources and drivers so (in my opinion) there is no universal 'best age'.

Among my friends and professional acquaintances, I don't know any in their 40s who are grandparents, and lots in their 40s who have babies and toddlers. My parents were several years in advance of their own friends when they became grandparents in their early to mid 50s (I was in my 20s and a lot earlier than my own friends, too).
At the primary school our sons both attended, we were by far the youngest when DS1 went there, in his year, and not the youngest but towards the lower end of the range when DS2 started there nine years later. DS2 has a close friend whose father is six months older than his grandfather (my Dad was 63 when DS2 was born), although that's unusually senior in the group

It is statistically true @LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway that age at first childbirth / pregnancy and maternal education level are strongly correlated. An ONS analysis of age of mother at first birth by education level from 1996 to 2016 showed that a woman with a degree gave birth to her (mean) first child aged 32.86 and a woman with GCSEs as her highest educational level was aged 27.03. There might well be a greater difference among women with post-graduate degrees, too.
I am in that group analysed (first baby in 2005), and do have post-graduate degrees, but also was aged 27 at first childbirth. These are statistical averages, not individual rules.

Not goady, but do you look older than 47?

@madamweb Yes, nowadays I would assume that a 25-year-old parent, for example, who had their own home and the income to provide for a family, must be from a well-off background, because how the heck could they do it without those resources?!

So many 20-something’s are living at home saving for deposits because they can’t afford to move out - or living in house shares, etc. Few can buy or rent an entire house.

@yesoldermum

It sounds like things worked out well for you, that's great. I do think there's an issue in our society today where we consider people in their early 20s to still be children.

I personally love being a mum, I agree with you it's very physical and I would rather tackle that when younger, and then live out some more freedom when I'm in my late 40s/early 50s and enjoy that with my older kids and grandkids. Each to their own.

Haven't RTFT but another consideration might be where you live / your socio-economic group. I live in a major global city and virtually everyone moved here (as opposed to being born / grew up here) so they live nowhere near their parents. Grandparents aren't relied on for childcare therefore you wouldn't expect to see a toddler with their grandparent out and about, in the supermarket, etc. If a toddler is with a middle-aged guardian (rather than a nanny), the guardian is almost certainly their parent.

Just as some people think parenting is easier in your 20s, so is being adventurous and travelling the world. A gap year at 25 when you have bags of energy and no responsibilities is much, much easier to do than a gap year at 45. Part of the problem is that children don't stop costing you once they turn 18, which is why you get very few people who had children young being able to retire early in their 40s and 50s.

If you're able to have super independent and ambitious children who all leave home at 18 and become financially and emotionally independent, and you've been financially successful and savvy while raising children so that you have a healthy pension in your 40s, then you can certainly enjoy early retirement and travel the world without worrying about looking after children. But I would say that is a very unusual (and lucky!) position to be in.

I'm 47, I think I would generally think they're DD not GDD. I only personally know two people my age who are grandmothers, both had their first child at about 17/18

@Crushed23 not sure about that. I'm early 40's with two adult children. Bought my house in my mid 20's and have 24 years of pension contributions and can do whatever I like. Can't imagine starting a family now.

Congratulations, it's a great achievement to be able to retire in your 40s especially after having raised multiple children (heard they were expensive! 😅). But as I say in my post, yours is an unusual and very lucky position to be in. Although it's not luck really, is it, you've obviously worked very hard. I'm child-free and would be nowhere near being able to retire in my early 40s.

@Louise121806 I know I'm being nosy, but how did you afford a house in your mid-20's? DH and I (early 50's) couldn't until our early 30's despite good salaries. Mind you, we were coping with student debt as well.

It's far worse now, of course.

....can't quite retire yet 😅 but I certainly would have been worse off if I'd have gone straight to uni from college and had a gap year. It's not rare in my circle of friends, most had children in 20's or early 30's and still have established careers. Although I accept times have changed a lot in the last 20 years and the cost of property and childcare fees are a lot more expensive.

@BruFord you didn't need a big deposit back then. We both worked full time and I was fortunate enough to get full maternity pay.

@Louise121806 I guess it depends on your circumstances; we did need a fairly hefty deposit, so it took us a while! It worked out long-term, our kids are just a bit younger than yours :-).

Where I live most mums of young children are about 30-45, and grandparents nearly always 60+. If you see young kids out with a woman in her 20s, she almost certainly will be the nanny as opposed to the mum.

Yup that's the plan, have them ready to leave at or around 18. I think it's normal for people that age to desire independence and that's certainly what we intend to foster.