Letters to the Editor
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No hate here
“Plenty of children have been born without any assistance to parents over 40 and did just fine.”
Of course this is true. I know from personal experience it is. But it’s also true that not all women are the same. What’s good for you at 45 might be impossible for the 35 year old woman sitting right next to you (even with all the fertility treatment in the world). I know lots of 30-somethigns who are dealing with infertility and it’s not a pretty, easy process: its gut wrenching.
I sure don’t want to offend anyone – but I’d be careful about bragging about your health and ability to procreate so easily past 40. There are woman out there desperate you buy the kind of encouragement you’re selling and they’re making decisions now that might fuck them completely later (ie – my friend had all thee of her kids after 40 so I’ll just wait till I’m 40 too). We can’t set the bar so high that half of us can’t even hope to reach it.
Agi – I’m so glad to hear all is well with your daughter. My mom had lots of same problems you spoke about and it was really, really scary for a while there. My brother is the greatest too. He’s a very active teenager now and is running our mom ragged (she’ll be coming up on 60 soon). I’ve been taking him on weekends a lot lately to get him out of her hair. Of course I love it and I’m so glad to be active in raising him. We’re all damn lucky to have each other. This isn’t the kind of thing you want to go alone.
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Being Young Helps
While is completely wrong to tell other people when to have kids or not to, I'll ADVISE that being younger is helpful if it is possible in your life circumstances. Its not just being young enough to chase after a toddler in your 40's, is being old enough to say NO to a teenager thirteen trillian times when you are in your 60's. Teenagers need emotionally strong, connected and energetic parents.
As a mom of 3 teens in my mid-40's, I'm tired! I confess to counting down to when the youngest is in college. And that is with 3 straight A, brilliant, nice, caring trust worthy teens. They are great, I love them completely, but my husband and I are tired and looking forward to some still healthy but dual-income-no-kids time that might include grandkids at some point.
My parents are from huge families and the older kids most definitely helped raise the younger ones. My mother-in-law was pushing 40 when she had her two kids and our pre-school years were greatly saddened/complicated dealing with her Alzheimers. I don't think I ever really knew her, let alone the grand kids. My husband misses her and doesn't want our kids to wait so long for children that he'll never know the grandkids.
At my kids' private high school school, most of the parents seem to be pushing 60. Few have the stamina to supervise the teenagers, combined with extra money, it ain't pretty.
Hopefully the trend towards having kids later will reverse, perhaps after the grandparents are noticed missing. But people have to figure it out for themselves.
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Palming off the new kid
An old-school anecdote: In 1939, my then 40-year-old grandmother had her third son. That was the year my dad, the oldest, was 17. Just take a guess who wound up taking care of the new kid!
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That old double standard
I completely agree that we tend to be more forgiving of certain circumstances when the birth is "natural," and no fertility treatments or adoption enters the picture. I think there's a much softer opinion of lesbian mothers who raise children together, when one is the biological mother, than there is of two gay men who want to adopt.
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I don't know how "celebrated" Tony Randall, Clint Eastwood, et al. were
Everyone I know was just grossed out by the idea of these old geezers getting it on. And I agree, they get a pass because they're celebrities, not because they're men.
Cheryl Tiegs adopted two babies a while back when she was in her 50's. She was lauded on the cover of People magazine and not much was said about how old she was.
The rich/famous are not like us.
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To Ann
Hi. I didn't brag about being able to procreate. I went through IVF and years of infertility. My point was that even with all that, it was by far and away the best decision and infertility doesn't equal ill-health. My two cents.
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MYOB
"Parenthood after 40 has its drawbacks, its risks, and its rewards, like mostly everything else in life."
Amen to that.
Individuals vary greatly when it comes to physical condition (including genetics), financial condition, maturity and all the characteristics important to parenthood. For one person, 18 may be the right time to have a kid. For another, 45 may be the right time. For one person, parenthood at any age may be particularly difficult; for another, that's not the case.
Many Salon readers apparently love to lecture others and set down The Rules about The Absolutely Correct Way to live. But this is a MYOB subject if there ever were one.
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ummm...
...looked at differently, it's actually the most "natural" thing in the world to die when your kids are 15.
In 1930, the life expectancy for a black female was about 49. Today, it's 76 1/2.
So even taking into account that the advances between then and now far outpace those from the beginning of time until 1930...
It would seem like for a lot of human history you were bloody LUCKY to see your kid turn 15.
People live longer now...because of SCIENCE!
And MEDICINE!
And if those same forces allow women to have children later in life, what possible leg would someone have to stand on if he objects?
Perhaps the problem is sociological...kids not leaving the nest until their 30's, that kind of thing.
If we go back to assuming that adulthood begins at 18, then having a parent dead by then isn't exactly unfair child abandonment is it?
Hell, my Mom died when I was 19 - slowly, after a long illness - and I seem to be relatively functional.
People just aren't used to the idea...whenever some new permutation of humanity wants to reproduce (interracial couples, gay couples) the old permutations panic.
I say let 'em breed, man.
More power to them.