To discuss the societal impacts of older parents?

[Kindersurprising]

I feel like this is a really under-discussed area, particularly as it’s now really extremely common (particularly in middle class circles) to have a first baby after 30 and in many cases 35+.

I feel like in 20 years we are going to see quite a big impact, in adults having fewer (if any) siblings due to parental age, caring for elderly parents while having small children themselves, a lack of grandparent support and I guess a smaller family circle much earlier on. I only realised today that it will be vanishingly rare for kids to have great grandparents soon - my DC have only one, through me.

The positives are often cited as more money, and more life experience.

I was 30 when DC2 was born, so somewhere in the middle and not a young parent as such. I often wonder what it would be like to have had them earlier.

How do you think this will play out in the next 20-50 years?

This thread is batshit 🤣🤣

We are just about at 100 years of suffragettes

Not far out of being 100 years of the two world wars

Society changes all the time

Humans adapt, it’s why we are successful.

We can look at reasons for older parents, we can try and offer incentives to alter or change things but there are thousands of individual factors leading to birth age and rate.

There will be some winners, some losers, but most will be the everything in between.

Having a child has always been a risk, still is in many places.

You can throw caution to the wind and say “it’ll be fine” or plan meticulously to try and get all conditions perfect. It rarely turns out how you imagine, life is too unpredictable. A vibrant society with all types of parents and children is good for everyone. Accept people’s choices, help where you can.

We made a welcome suggestion to a mum of a baby in a buggy who wouldn’t go to sleep yesterday, asleep 5 minutes later. She could then have a peaceful conversation with her friend (who saw us and said “he’s asleep” we both cheered softly)

We should be trying to pull each other up not trample others down.

Are you OP?! 🤔

Yes, and it is dressed up as “concern” in a very patronising, preachy tone.

I had my first baby at 19, which was far too young for me personally looking back. Gone on to have more, but have never judged another mother for her choice.

Women cannot win - you wait and you are demonised for being an older mothers (some have tried for years), you have them young and you are demonised all the same.

And on top of that, you need to build a career, hold it down and do the lions share of childcare.

Why is it always on the women when we are expected to do it all, have it all, and be it all?

It's not ideal being in your 60s and still having parents alive. Just saying.

We have a couple of mum friends who had their babies earlier in age than us

We put more emphasis on homework/revision so have introduced these ideas to their teens, where we can hear the ideas formulated round our table (from our teens) come out in class articulately (we are just as pleased for them).

They love going to arcades and fast food and take teens out and are like a kid themselves

We play to our strengths and give freely.
As people say it takes a village.

Just a very small example

But no judgement here, a blending of styles, abilities, resources, has made all the teens grow, feel part of something bigger than just their family. See there are many paths to follow, or change in life.

We would miss all this colour if we sat there scowling mentally working out if they were a tax drain or not. FFS.

There have always been older parents - but agree the number of older parents as a percentage and the demogrpahic consquence of bigger gaps between generations is discussed but still often missed.

I get the impression of Instutions and governments are assume people will just work longer and have same number of kids but later or we can use immigration despite birth rates falling in most of world now.

There will be consquences. There used to be time between retirement and kids leaving home to build savings and that's also going and more dealing with elderly parents and young kids at same time and the strain that can cause.

It's apparently due to change in attitude - that kids used to be something you did alongside life milestones - they are now seen as cap stone events - something to do when everything else is done.

It's why having kids late 20 early 30 before we bought house (we were married) was so frowned upon by people who had kids in their late teens early 20s in our families. At same time many life events are getting harder to acheive and happen at later and later ages.

The Birth gap guy cites people waiting to long before trying for kids - but UK data suggests a lot is smaller families - some of that age but also costs and lack of support play a role.

Also there a taboo that older parents - men as well - often have higher problems conceiving and within kids born. I think there's also a lack of transparency about freezing eggs and number who use donor eggs and sperm.

Though I think it's odd women get a lot of messaging about time limits and increasing risks men in our society don't - and while some may not want kids some do seem to be deluded about how much time they have left to make decision in.

I think the boundaries between generations were less clear in the past. Children born to women in their 40s often had multiple older siblings who took care of them. My grandma’s divorced much-younger brother came round for a weekly meal until she died in 1990, while my oldest aunt was close in age to grandad’s youngest brother.

But presumably you offer respite care to more than 8 children.

They can still finish their education. Most colleges have nurseries attached to them now. Plus not everyone goes to uni anyway

It always gets trotted out on here that all teen mum's are doomed to fail and be a waste of everyone else's tax money. Then there was the claim of a "cycle of doom" where the children of teen mum's are guaranteed to also become teen mum's and It ends with great granny being 60. 😂

Not true in my experience and I know load of teen mum's and was one my self.

Maybe because you came into it this with a biased view ? Yes parents are having children late but you choose to see only the negative . Children from older parent do better education wise they have better jobs so they will be in position to help more as example and they will pay more into the welfare state too . They are less likely to go without things so things like their health will be better so less use of nhs .
Im saying this as a mum who because. Mum at 19 , 34 and 39 . Yes physically you are more apt to have children young but being a mum at 19 was hard , I had to stop uni to work , I had no time or money for relationships . With my second I was much more stable so no money worries no having to rush back to work , my 3 rd came at a time when I as actually the most settled too and making decisions regarding having her , work , finances , nursery etc was even easier . I do not think I was a better mum to any , I was wiser with each child and I think different now in my 40s than I did in my 20s or 30s . In my 20s my priority was getting a career and traveling so my oldest traveled the world with me , in my 30s my focus was promoting my career so my first a second child benefited from better wages , more expensive holidays lots of activities , in my late 30s and 40s I realised career is not as important and I already progressed a lot so we moved out of the city to a rural setting where schools are better and kids have much more access to nature , so the kids will all benefit from a different lifestyle that has benefited them so much ,more time from me to them , they have a ton of pet they love having as dogs , chickens , goose , we are comfortable financially so no added stress .
There is no magic number or magic correct time . Society changes and we somewhat adapt .

For the love of God I’m not talking about the feelings of older parents, or whether they’re cleverer, or whether their children will have better jobs, or whether your granny had her 8th child at 62. I’m talking about the effect on society, the economy, etc.

I’m going to step away now as this thread is defensive, dull and doesn’t at all answer what I actually wrote (so much for the ‘higher education’ of all the defensive posters on here - critical thinking skills seem to be amiss!).

Why?

My dad had his mum and dad till he was 63. My granny was an older mother was well into her 90's when she died. I hope I hsve my dad till I'm 63. But my dad will be 94 with dementia so I don't too think he will.

Well I have yo examples on the befits of society , children to to older parents have better choice , better education , better outcome in jobs , they pay more to the state , more money for schools , health and welfare , their parent will befit too if caring for them is what you are questioning .

I agree, I think it had the potential to be an interesting discussion, I didn’t get the impression that it was trying to bash older mothers at all, but some people have clearly read that into what was written and have spent their time defending that choice and attacking the OP rather than actually trying to discuss the possible effects. OTOH some people have made interesting and well considered points of potential effects and I still think that the shift towards smaller families and older first time parenthood will have a number of repercussions.

The reasons behind it are also interesting to me, from housing crisis to women’s emancipation, and I also think more attention should be paid to the role of men in the birthrate- as we well know, women don’t have all the control over fertility, far from it.

It doesn’t make any difference. We can’t have 80% of the population in prestigious or high paying jobs - no economic model works that way.

@MidnightPatrol
"I think a bigger issue is the general breakdown of communities helping out with raising children - parenting so often seems to be such a solo activity for modern parents"

I keep seeing this sort of comment posted on Mumsnet and it always baffles me. I'd love to know where this mysterious community was that "raised" other people's kids. I was born in 1957 and my parents were both born during the First World War and none of us experienced it. We lived in a fairly small rural village too and it certainly wasn't in evidence. Everyone's kids was their own responsibility, same as it is these days. If anything, younger people have waaay more help now with grandparents offering free childcare (often all week) and doing school runs, taking kids on holiday, babysitting etc. Back then grandparents were people you visited for Sunday tea when you sat in their front room and behaved yourself. You'd be incredibly lucky to persuade a relative or neighbour to babysit once in a blue moon and if you did, you'd probably be condemned as an inadequate mother behind your back.

Yes it’s been disappointing, the ‘boomer’ thread was really good and a number of really interesting points were raised, outside of the usual ones.

I feel like posters were ALWAYS going to say ‘oh it’s not the question, it’s the tone..’ but my tone has only been that of somebody wanting a genuine discussion, really they just don’t want ANYONE mentioning it because for some reason it makes them angry and defensive (before the teen mum bashing starts - proving they’re every bit as ‘judgy’ as they accuse me of being!).

A shame!

I work with children with severe and complex needs at it is very noticeable that most of the parents are older ie over 35 at birth and a significant number over 40. There is plenty of evidence supporting this but it isnt talked about.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8020515/ is just one article.

Oh come on there are plenty of stats that indicate older parents are more likely to produce disabled offspring. It's known that egg quality reduces with age and age is directly linked with things like Downs Syndrome.

OP is not picking a fight with older parents, and i dont think anyone has an issue with any given person choosing to have children a little later, OP is talking about the wider impact of the full societal shift to having children later.
What might seem very minor impacts at a familial level are magnified when it's a pattern that's taking place across the whole society and OP is correct that there will undoubtedly be some negative impacts.

I don't see what difference it makes. I had my child at 35. In my 50's now with ailing parents. Doesn't matter that I don't have young children, I could have no children and I still wouldn't be able to do any caring due to working full time and then some due to the cost of living! It's the cost of living that actually impacts the most. Most women, and let's face it they do most of the caring, now have to work full time until retirement and their parents are living longer leaving no-one to care for them.

Exactly it always gets implied on here by some older parents that they are better than younger parents because they waited while becoming lawyers and travelling the world.

Firstly not everyone can be a lawyer that's not how the economy works.
Secondly how did they travel the world whilst simultaneously studying really hard to become a lawyer??

It's mostly just bullshit at this point I think.

While they're busy insisting all teen mum's are on benefits and wasting tax payer money even when they have a job and are still with the child's father you see posters say "ah but you must have SOME benefits" they forget that most older parents are not lawyers and actually have normal jobs and probably receive benefits to pay their rent or childcare

Yes, like I said the general use of benefits is absolutely massive and teenage pregnancy is at a very low level (lowest?). So actually, very low teen/early 20s pregnancy rates have not resulted in a decline in benefit claimants. I know there are more factors to consider and correlation isn’t causation, but so many families now claim benefits compared to 20 years ago and they are less likely to be teen parents than ever.

What kind of complex needs?

My mum had me in her mid thrirties and I had mine in my mid thirties. My husband’s parents also had him relatively late and he in his late thirties. We now have primary age children and no help at all as our parents are too elderly or have died. It’s isn’t easy and I am now in the position that I am starting to have to do more the parents. I make them dinner once a week. Have to drive one of them places etc and it’s only going to get harder. I work part time partly because of this.
I have friends that have young active and involved grandparents and they are able to work longer hours and do more things like have date nights and yes I do get a touch jealous.
I do think I will look back though and be glad I did everything myself and had the one on one time with my kids, did the school runs all the sports clubs etc.
I am in the financial position do that though. Although guess that’s partly because we started late.
It’s better for the environment as well. So that’s a bonus. More spaced apart generations means less people overall.