People are having babies older all over the place. But the top end of the older mom spectrum is growing especially fast. The number of women over 45 who had babies in the past 10 years has more than doubled. Over 50, the increase is even steeper: 375%. And nearly 25% of babies are adopted by parents who are 45 years older than they are.  Technology is an obvious factor. Not long ago, motherhood just wasn’t an option past a certain point. But there are other things going on. Women have always been pressured to look younger than they are. But advances in cosmetic surgery and dermatology have made it more possible for them to impersonate younger women. The aesthetic of beauty has blurred to include a kind of ageless artificiality, embodied by Courtney Stodden, the 16-year-old who looks like a 35-year-old Real Housewife.  And as Lisa Miller, author of the New York Magazine article “Parents of a Certain Age“, says, “Nothing—not a sports car, not a genius dye job—says ‘I’m young’ like a baby on your hip.”

Most women who are drawn to parenthood in their late 40s or 50s are not consciously chasing the fountain of youth. They are answering a deep longing, the way most of us were when we conceived our children. They may have always wanted children but never found themselves in circumstances to have them. Or they may have discovered a longing for a child late in life. Whatever the motives, parenthood at this age is often met with quite the same reaction from the culture at large.  Continue reading »

Tweet

17

Pin It

Zsa Zsa, Back in the day

Zsa Zsa Gabor has never been one to shy away from the limelight. But she’s been pretty quiet in recent years. Probably because she’s in her nineties and experiencing major health problems, including a hip replacement and a leg amputation in the last year. She has been unable to walk since 2002. Now her husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, has told the media he intends to make Zsa Zsa a mother again at the spry age of 94.

His plan, he says, is to use “an egg donor, artificial insemination and a surrogate mother”. I’m not sure that combination of things is even scientifically possible, but then, von Anhalt does not seem to be a man governed by logic. The Prince was asked whether he was concerned that Zsa Zsa might be too old to take care of a new baby.  But the Prince is unconcerned:

“I’m a retired guy, I can take care of it.”  (Pronoun choice noted.) So how old is this guy? Continue reading »

Tweet

2

Pin It

On the one hand, it makes sense to have kids while you’re still relatively young — in your 20s or 30s — so that you have the energy to keep up with them and take care of their needs better.  On the other hand, it’s good to wait so that you’re financially and emotionally stable and so that you can enjoy life without kids for a bit first; it’s difficult to go to grown-up concerts and parties when you have little ones to take care of.  Or you could just wait until you retire before having kids.

Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

I’ll admit to a good bit of resistance to thinking of myself as an “older mom.” Yes, I had my kids at 34 and 37, but in the crowd I hang with that’s not especially old. Just about everyone waited until their 30s to have kids, and the vast majority of people I know had one of more of their kids after 35, and a few were 40 or older.

So this article about waiting to become a parent tickled me a little bit. Its tone was pretty awestruck that someone quite so elderly as 35 or even older could even think about attempting parenthood and that it must be so remarkably different for those of us that do than it is for people that are in their 20s. Continue reading »

Tweet

2

Pin It

One good reason not to give birth to kids at an advanced age?  You may die. Yes, you could be hit by a car, lightening or a speeding train at any time. But when you bring children into the world at the age of 66, the odds of not attending your kid’s high school graduation rise dramatically.   A woman in Spain – who is on record as being the oldest woman to give birth – has died at the age of 69 leaving behind Continue reading »

Tweet

17

Pin It