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?

One of my cousins became a Nana at age 31, a year younger than I was when I became a mother. I was the oldest person ever in my family to have a child at age 32.

But you appreciate being able to travel more when you are older. I'm 53 my kids are grown and I'm currently travelling in Asia.

Also when I had my kids I didn't feel as though I was " missing out" on stuff as I had never had it. So now I do I appreciate it more

I dont think there's a right or wrong age to travel. I also find it strange people are acting like you can't travel with children. I've been all over Europe and beyond with mine.
I realise cost can be a constraint but equally there are ways to do it more cheaply. We often stay with family/friends for at least some of the time.

Seeing as my thread had turned into a bun fight, I shall share my story about why I waited until my 40s to have my second child.

Dh and I have been together since our late 20s. In my early 30s, we were definitely ready to start a family. But the 2008 economic crash had a huge impact on our personal circumstances, so we were suddenly no longer in a financial position to start a family. I was gutted, as I was so broody.

Based on what happened in 2008, I then decided to retrain, to give us a more secure future. After establishing myself in my new career, I got pregnant on the second month of trying aged 36.

The only way we could afford to have a second child was to relocate. So we did that and I had to move jobs. New job was a horrendous nightmare. So I moved jobs again. We started TTC. At this point I'm 42. Covid happened. We decided to keep trying. A few months down the line, I got pregnant, miscarried, then pregnant again straight away. I was 43 when she was born.

So in an ideal world, I would have had both kids sooner. We knew that we might not conceive a second one, but we took that risk of waiting whilst we relocated and I moved jobs.

For my own personal circumstances, I'm glad I didn't have a baby with any of the guys I met in my 20s. They were all problematic relationships for one reason or another. And I probably would have ended up in private rented forever due to my financial circumstances at the time.

I'm very glad I met my dh and have a family with him, even though we're older than I would have hoped.

A genuine thank you to the non snarky posters. Now I realise how common it is, I won't be offended or baffled next time.

@AntiHop Like many people, finances determined when you decided to have children, which is completely understandable.

Younger posters may not remember how devastating the 2008 crash was- I certainly do as DS was born that autumn and we were terrified that we might lose our jobs. If we’d been TTC then, we’d have waited too.

No one knows what life’s going to throw at them and ensuring that you can provide for your children is very important. I’m so glad that you had your family in the end. 💐

I was 40 when I had my first grandchild

My mum became a grandmother at 44, in 1991. My MIL became a grandmother aged 74, in 1997. I'm nearly 57 and not one yet, thank goodness.

Ha ha ha I didn't realise that being a teen parent could be a barrier to having a Mumsnet account! Guilty as charged!

I’ve sneakily managed to open a mumsnet account too!

OP thanks for sharing your story. The reality is for a lot of older mothers things in life delayed us and we seem to get judged for making a decision to party and be selfish then do it too late. I appreciate that some posters said some silly things about "deprivation" about younger mums but some posters really smuggly have laid into us olders on this threaf and then denied that they did.

I am not judging people who are older mothers, what ever the reason. But it is absolutely fair for us to push back when a thread is full of slurs on the character and parenting ability of younger mothers

I became a grandmother at 40 (shocked) - my daughter was 22. I then became a great grandmother at 60. I have been told I look in my 50s. Keep myself tidy. Work full time etc. Took my granddaughter to the hospital once, she was about 17 at the time, about 8 years ago, they thought I was her mum.