Older Parents

[Kirasabu]

My dad was 45 when I was born, 48, when my sister arrived. And he was a miserable, spiteful old devil! I resented the age-gap, thinking that was the reason why he was so unpleasant. I now know that older dads are usually lovely, and my sister and I were just unlucky. If our dad had been nice, his age wouldn't have mattered!

[Kate]

My SIL was a grandmother at 33 and a great grandmother at 51.

[Buffy2424]

I'm (recently) 27, married 5 years, no children yet  -- and I admit it surprises me a great deal when people try to compliment me by saying how responsible I am to have children late in life, or how good a mother I'll be as a late-in-life mother.  The first time someone said it (when I was 23) I was very stunned.  I don't feel very late-in-life yet. 

With the most recent comment anyway, I know the person commenting really was just trying to be pleasant, but I didn't know that having a baby in one's late 20s/early 30s, as we hope/plan, is late in life. 

I find that it's usually older people who think having a baby past the teen years is being an 'older mom' but two of the people who said this to me are near my age -- one of them is a 31 year old mother of 3 and another a childless single woman in her 20s who told me that her sister had children late in life and she was a wiser mother for it.  I happen to know her sister had her first at age 28. 

Is this weird or is it just me?

[Mahdoumi]

My dad was 45 when I was born, 48, when my sister arrived. And he was a miserable, spiteful old devil! I resented the age-gap, thinking that was the reason why he was so unpleasant. I now know that older dads are usually lovely, and my sister and I were just unlucky. If our dad had been nice, his age wouldn't have mattered!

I'm so sorry to read this.  Thank goodness you have enough presence of mind to understand the individual and not generalize an entire age group!  My parents were older, and I am adopted.  It was my mother who continually blamed any disagreement that may have arose to an imaginary complex I had about being adopted.   

[Mahdoumi]

I'm (recently) 27, married 5 years, no children yet  -- and I admit it surprises me a great deal when people try to compliment me by saying how responsible I am to have children late in life, or how good a mother I'll be as a late-in-life mother.  The first time someone said it (when I was 23) I was very stunned.  I don't feel very late-in-life yet. 

Is this weird or is it just me?

No, that's weird.  To me, anyway.  I think, though, that being raised and then working in a large city exposed me to many different lifestyles, which fostered my belief that a happy life can be experienced in many different ways - including those who choose to be happily single or happily childless.  I can't imagine sacrificing being happy just because of pressure from those around me to perform as expected.