Older Parents

[bms2000]

As a multi racial adoptive family, I sympathize with nosy comments. Sometimes people mean well, and are just curious, other times people are being ignorant and rude. Find a good matter of fact answer and leave it at that. Mine is "Yes they're mine. They were born in Guatemala." end of sentence.

My dad isn't even particularly old, and once when I was 12 (I am female - this is important) we were out together and someone asked him "Is this your grandSON?" My dad and I just burst out laughing. What else could you do? He then replied "No, this is my eldest DAUGHTER" and the speaker turned red, mumbled and left.

Tell them none of the visible signs of aging showed up until the baby did. I swear I had no gray hairs until my eldest's bout with pneumonia at age 15 months. Now I'm considering a visit to the hairdresser...

[guihong]

My mother was 45 and my father 46 when I was born.  She got a lot of "what a cute granddaughter" comments, but just laughed them off.  She always said the funniest part was having a baby shower (my brother was 13) because she'd long before thrown all that stuff out.  "From bridge club to binkies", she remembered.

I once went the other way at work.  A young woman came through my line, and I complimented her on her daughter (all in pink, so safe there).  She laughed and said she was her granddaughter.  I replied, "Well, I just made your year, then"  .

gui

[SquishyMooMoo]

My mom (who was 37 when she had me) has a phrase she likes to say that I think works for this situation...

"The difference between a good dinner and a great dinner is about two hours."

So what if it took you longer to have children? It just means they're an extra blessing after all that anticipation!

[bopper]

Don't let them make you feel uncomfortable, just say:
"This is my daughter, MahDoumiJr."
Let them squirm.

[Shortcake]

Don't let them make you feel uncomfortable, just say:
"This is my daughter, MahDoumiJr."
Let them squirm.

I agree with this. They made the faux pas;not you!

[Ant V]

I think we just have to realize that there are some really stupid, insensitive people that think they know it all.  It's not even worth the bother to fret about it.  Use the good response here if they persist in their own stupidity.  My husband is an only child, father 58, mother 38. He turned out great. 
I have a sister 13 years younger than I am. If she and I and her daughter are all out together, I'm taken to be the grandma.  If the niece and I are out together I'm taken to be her mother.  I've had dinner with my son and it was assumed we were a couple on a date.    It's just people thinking they know the answers and then they are wrong. 

[kaybee]

I had youngest ds when i was 44 and dh was 47. we have 4 other kids---18 yo dd,15 yo dd,14 yo ds and 10 yo dd.I get asked if dh is my second husband........ummm no---and why would that be your business anyway??

[Minmom3]

I had youngest ds when i was 44 and dh was 47. we have 4 other kids---18 yo dd,15 yo dd,14 yo ds and 10 yo dd.I get asked if dh is my second husband........ummm no---and why would that be your business anyway??

THAT particular question has nothing to do with age.  It wonderfully indicates the crassness of some folks.  I got asked if DDs #2 and #3 had a different father than DD#1, as they look nothing like her.  I had 3 kids under the age of 5, no big age gap between anybody.  I was 34 when those questions started, and DD#3 was about 6 months old when she had enough hair for people to notice it was a red as #2's hair.    

It is purely and simply that an awful lot of people are really d@mmed rude.  It's nothing about you, and ALL about them and their failure of couth!   

[hollasa]

I may have posted upthread about my wondering whether what was up with my neighbors down the roads, who have 4 kids - two in late teens, two in early elementary school. I wondered a little bit - but I wouldn't ever ask. We were chatting the other night at a party, and the dad mentioned his days of being a single dad before he met his now wife - and I was just thinking aha! Thought so, and I didn't need to ask at all.

You know, some people are just plain curious - but hopefully, we curious people can be polite about our curiosity! 

[TamJamB]

My DH and I finally have been blessed with a live, healthy baby girl.  I am 45; my DH is 51.  What would be appropriate responses to, "Oh!  HaHaHa!  A change-of-life baby," and, "Is that your grandchild?"

I also can't believe that I bristle whenever total strangers ask me her name.  Am I weird?  How do I respond?  One time, I gave a different name but felt awkward.

Well, we've got three different things going on here.  The first ("HaHaHa! A change-of-life baby!") is rude.  "What an interesting assumption," is a prefectly valid response.  Or you could try Miss Manners' cold smile -- stretch your lips into a frozen smile, but be sure the expression does not reach your eyes.  Hold it a moment, then abruptly change the subject.

The second is a faux pas -- almost certainly not meant to be a slight.  The fact is, at 45, you could easily have a grandchild -- so it's not that much of a stretch.  Best way to handle this one is to cheerfully (not defensively) say, "No -- she's my daughter." Believe me, the offender will be plenty embarrassed and will probably be cured of making that particular assumption in the future.

The third really is an inoffensive and 'normal' question.  My guess is you are extropolating your distaste for the other responses above onto the request for her name.  Asking a baby's name & age are very common 'stranger admiring a baby' questions, and you're probably just going to have to get used to that.

And congratulations!

[MrsO]

The second is a faux pas -- almost certainly not meant to be a slight.  The fact is, at 45, you could easily have a grandchild -- so it's not that much of a stretch.  Best way to handle this one is to cheerfully (not defensively) say, "No -- she's my daughter." Believe me, the offender will be plenty embarrassed and will probably be cured of making that particular assumption in the future.

POD. My mother is 44, and a grandmother of 2. People sometimes assume she is their mother (although alot of the time i think people are being polite, just incase she IS their mother, and they don't want to offend her) , so it does work both ways.

[TamJamB]

I thought of this thread today.  I was at the and I saw a gentleman who appeared to be about 50 - 55, holding a beautiful little girl, 2 1/2 months old.  Of course I went over to coo about her, and the first thing that popped out of my mouth was, "Hello sweetie -- are you having fun with grandpa?"

Ooops!  Fortunately for me, he really was the grandpa!

[kareng57]

My parents were 39 an 34 when they adopted me, and I thought they were so old at the time.    My views have changed dramatically with time, especially with more and more parents being in their mid to late 30's when their first (or only) children are born.  My DF will be in his 40's when we're trying for kids - and I don't think that's old at all! 

My birth-father has two more daughters with his wife, and they're 15 and 17 years younger than I am.  A few times that I've been out with my B-Dad and my sisters, we've been asked how old OUR daughters are.  My B-Dad likes to respond, "Well, that daughter's 10, that daughter's 12, and that daughter's 27."     He gets such a kick out of the reaction that gets!

My birth-mom has a picture of me on her desk at work, and sometime a new employee or trucker asks about it.
NE/T:   Who's that?
Bmom:  That's my daughter.
NE/T:  You don't look old enough to have a grown daughter!
Bmom:  Thank you.  I'm not.   

(for the record - my birth parents were in high school when I was conceived)

I remember a social-worker once saying that it can be tough for "older" couples who are seeking to adopt a healthy infant.  Many social-service agencies give the birth-mom profiles of about six different couples to choose from - and if she's a teenager and is reading about a couple in their late 30s, her reaction can easily be "but that's as old as my parents!"  They'd usually try to play-down the age aspect, stressing how healthy and active the couple were but there's really no getting away from it.

For the OP (congratulations by the way) I'll agree that any references as to whether the baby was unplanned etc. are completely rude.  But the assumption that perhaps you are Grandma is, I think, an honest mistake and the other party will be embarassed enough when she finds that you are indeed Mom, no need to make her feel worse.  I guess we were slightly "older" parents  - Dh was 35 when we had DS #2 - but he's one of those people who ages prematurely - went gray and bald when the kids were still pretty young.  When he was out alone with the kids he did get mistaken as Grandpa a couple of times but I don't think that it bothered him too much.

Re asking about the name - I personally had no issues with this and really can't see why anyone would.  Many people simply love to "meet" babies, I don't think it's a matter of nosiness at all.

[kareng57]

You could always do that, just smile at people's ignorance. In 100 years, who's going to care anyway? 

Very true.  Thank you for putting it all into perspective.

Regarding the 100 years - that's a very good point actually.  Up till about 50 or 60 years ago it really wasn't unusual to have a 40+ woman in the maternity ward at all - though she was generally giving birth to her 7th or 8th child, rather than her first.  And in many of these cases, the first birth was likely during the late teens or early 20s.

So you could see a very young-appearing woman (say around 19 or 20) wheeling a baby carriage - and it might have been her own child, or it could have been  the latest baby-brother or sister.  The same for a middle-aged woman - could be her own baby or her own grandchild (and it's quite possible that it could have been her own baby while she had a grandchild several years old). I'd wager that no one got terribly offended when friendly questions were asked. My own grandfather's youngest brother was more than 21 years younger than him (a family of 9 kids, 1 deceased).   I do remember when I was in the hospital having DS #2 (he's 19 now) one of the nurses said that there'd been a 50 year old woman on the ward the previous year - and she already had grandchildren.  Apparently she was still pretty shook up  - can hardly blame her - but her husband loved the idea.  He'd been so busy working when the original-flock were still young and he thought it was great to have the opportunity to spend more dad-time with the latest addition.

[ChristiKayAnn]

You could always do that, just smile at people's ignorance. In 100 years, who's going to care anyway? 

Very true.  Thank you for putting it all into perspective.

Regarding the 100 years - that's a very good point actually.  Up till about 50 or 60 years ago it really wasn't unusual to have a 40+ woman in the maternity ward at all - though she was generally giving birth to her 7th or 8th child, rather than her first.  And in many of these cases, the first birth was likely during the late teens or early 20s.

This is a very good point my Great Grandmother had 10 childrenher first at 15 and her last at 45. She was baby sitting one of her infant grandaughters when her 7th child was being weaned from the bottle and the family story is that aunt Myrna used to take her baby aunts bottle and say "it's okay auntie mary will share her bottle with me"