John Simpson in The Observer on having a child at 61

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As Janh said of him a while ago, now that's a proper father.

sorry, didn't paste the address, duh

yawn. what's such an epiphany? he already has two grown children, ffs.

don't understand this need to have kids w/every partner you get with [rolls eyes] no matter how old you are, how many other kids you have, etc. etc.

expat - what about if you love that person and the woman has no kids herself. Should she just leave him?

i've said this before and i'll say it again: i think it's selfish and cruel for people over a certain age - 60 - to have kids.

that is my opinion and i stick by it.

you can't chose whom you fall in love with - well, some say you can't - but you CAN chose what you do about it, long before you embark on having a kid w/them.

i went to see a consultant about getting sterilised and got the old, 'what if you meet someone else and he doesn't have kids?' 'what if your husband dies?' 'what if your kids die?'

all questions that presumed the solution was to have more kids.

if i met someone else and he didn't have kids and wanted them, he'd need to find someone else.

it's actually happened to a good friend of mine. she took the high road and moved on. hard, but can be done.

She's not 61 though, his wife. I don't care enough to argue about it though.

i don't either, www. it'd be nice, however, to see someone who showed some thought for the consequences of their actions instead of doing things just b/c they wanted.

i'm going to parp myself now, though.

I don't, myself, see how it can be so cut and dried why is 59 years 364 days OK, while 60 years 1 day isn't (mental image of "I'm sorry, Mrx X, we'll have to induce now before your husband turns sixty"). And I also don't see that there's a particular problem if the other partner is young and healthy otherwise it's much the same as arguing that anyone with a potentially life-threatening condition shouldn't have children.

I think consultant's questions were more to make sure that you wouldn't think the solution was to have more kids, rather than that he was presuming anything. There are, after all, plenty of people who do get sterilised, get into one of those situations and do want more children, and I can't imagine there's a huge desire to add to their number.

Well Ok if that's your view but beg to differ as I am precisely in that situation, .... well almost as we do fall into the OK 'category' as dh was one month before he turned 60 when I had our 3rd child last year.

Am a bit surprised at how strong your views are - "selfish and cruel" - what!?

How is it selfish for a start. And cruel? Doesn't make sense. The thing is nature intended for men to be fertile for a long time, basically as long as they are 'able' to have sex. Is nature wrong then?

Seems that it is OK for older women to have fertilty treatment and go agaist nature but not for men to have children when they are older.

Sorry but none of this makes sense. I could understand it if there were tons of men out there who were older and acted irresponsibly with their kids but its usually the young ones who do this.

Don't want to get into a huge arguement about this. Just to point out that it can work and our reasons for having children are just as valid as anyone's. Older people tend to be more secure in themselves, be more settled in their life, job etc and have more money.

My uncle had 2 wives (first one died) and he died 2 years ago in his 80s - he was very happily married the 2nd time for 25 years to his much younger wife - they had 4 children.

I think to say that being older and bearing children is wrong is simplistic and ageist. 'Old' people are no different from anyone else.

Another factor is that I think she had about three miscarriages before this baby, so I expect they had been trying for a while. Infact, I get the impression that he has more time to be with this baby (now that he is older and established) than he did when he was younger but was probably less able to choose assignments.

why shouldn't people have kids at that age if they can? Yes, he probably won't be around by the time his son turns 30, but otoh a lot of other people lose younger parents by that age .

I thought it was a lovely article. Brought a tear to my eye .

Haven't actually read the article yet - looks too long.

Bit busy at the moment with birthdays but maystart a thread although most people don't seem terribly interested probably because it doesn't directly affect them.

the thing is this sort of thing was much more commonplace, particularly among the upper classes and no-one batted an eyelid. Am genuinely surprised at how strong some views can be on this - have noticed this on mumsnet before - perhaps due to the average age of the poster perhaps!

Wonder what people will have to say when they reach 60 themselves - won't seem so ancient and crumbly then!

Well maybe John Simpson and his wife did give "some thought for the consequences of their actions " - in fact he says very early on in the article that they stopped using a car because of the environmental impact of an extra human! What exactly are the terrible cponsequences that the child or the rest of us will have to bear, following the birth of a loved and wanted child to financially independent people of childbearing age, where given good luck in Nature's Lottery it isn't even unusual to think that the older of the two parents will live until the child is at least 25?
They rank very very low down my list of people I wish had put a bit of thought into their actions!

I don't mind people having strong opinions just that they all too often don't back them up with reasons for having them. Am just dismissing EIS's statement as a notion rather than a valid point.

Maybe discuss it some time when I am not so busy and actually get round to reading the article!

I'm very happy for them, and think John Simpson will make a lovely dad. They have been trying for years, with several miscarriages, and I'm glad they've got a happy ending.

With the life expectancy age increasing, perhaps becoming a dad at 61 today is similar to being a dad at 40 fifty years ago.

Am agreeing with Eulalia, Blu etc here.

A 19 year old girl in my workplace was amazed to find that I have a 9 yr old dd (conceived when I was 39). Not because of me being an old mum per se, but because she finds the thought of old people having people having sex "disgusting" as she charmingly put it.