on the other side
by rantywoman
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/singletons/200810/forty-or-close-is-the-new-20-having-babies
In her book, “Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood,” Elizabeth Gregory, director of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Houston discovered that older mothers are usually more emotionally ready to cope with parenting. Gregory says that “many older mothers have met their career and personal goals so they can and want to focus on family.” Life experience is a boon in terms of translating work experience into running a household. She also notes that marriages among older women, almost 85 percent are married when they become mothers, tend to be more stable. Older, single first-time moms have built a stable support network by the time they have a child.
Although older mothers may face infertility issues, may have more difficult pregnancies, and are more likely to have Cesareans (National Institute of Health), on an overall, the positives outweigh the possible problems for the women over 35 who are fueling the trend to motherhood later-among them, a group called Motherhood Later rather than Sooner, a resource for midlife mothers. Women over 38 using assisted reproductive methods adjusted in almost the same ways to pregnancy as those who were younger, and older mothers scored higher on things like ability to handle challenges and flexibility according to a study conducted in Sidney, Australia further underscoring Gregory’s results.
John Mirowsky, sociology professor at the Population Center at University of Texas who also works with the National Institute of Health says the ideal age to give birth is between 34 and 40. On the plus side he reports that those mothers experience better health, have healthier babies, and are less likely to turn to risky behavior. Much of this excellent news relates to the fact that older mothers tend to have more education and to be more financially as well as emotionally secure.
The same people have been selling you one lie after another for all of your life. This is just the latest con job.
Parenting infants and young children is physically demanding. They’re not dogs they’re little people and they run you ragged. It’s a challenge getting through several years of sleep deprivation even when you’re young. It’s not a job for a middle-aged person. I wish I’d had my children younger than I did to be honest.
Ideally both parents should be younger but sometimes finances dictate otherwise. Incidentally, I know several people in their 50s, 60s and 70s who care for grandchildren while their own children are at work. Again finances dictate this.
Nothing to do with “finances.” Life is easier now than in all of human history. It’s a question of choices and priorities. Too many distractions, too many consumer goods. Plus, “men are bastards (TM).”
My mother couldn’t wait to have children. She worked after we were in school but not because she had something to prove.
see you thought you were talking about ‘parents’, but Mike was actually talking about ‘mothers’ i.e. women. And their failings
I wish I had all the answers, too. With Mike’s degree of certainty on all things gender, surely he’s figured out the key to creating a mutually satisfying relationship!!
Mike – your mother was one of the lucky ones. She probably married at a time when a mortgage could be paid from one salary and the same salary would also cover household expenses. If your mother’s job gave her the freedom to leave in time to pick you up from school she was also lucky. Who took care of you during school holidays?
Most women don’t work because “they have something to prove” but because they have to earn a living.
Most women would like to have children young. Some are lucky enough to find a committed partner early in life who can support this and they have children. Other women don’t find a committed partner early in life. Some of these become single mothers (sometimes by choice but more times not) and others work on improving their career and finances and hope to meet a committed partner in the meantime.
If you directed your rage at multinational corporations and government policies which covertly dictate that both partners work to live, indeed some people have to take two or three jobs to survive.
In Ireland and the UK some people choose to live on benefits if they want children because if they took a low to medium paid job they could not afford a family.
Elle
In Ireland and the UK some people choose to live on benefits if they want children because if they took a low to medium paid job they could not afford a family.
Believe it or not there was a time when there was no welfare state. No benefits. You worked or you starved. Women had children then, more than they do now.
The welfare state itself, far from being some pinnacle of human morality, is more a symptom of a nation in decline. Humanity has played out this scenario many times before and the welfare state, multiculturalism and feminism are all precursors to a nation’s decline and collapse.
For example the Abbasid Caliphate had free public universities and hospitals in all major cities and the same kind of female emancipation we see today in the West.
The feminist narrative of female oppression throughout history is a myth.
Women signed up for the current war against men and now you’re here reading essays about how it’s “normal” to have children in your forties.
I’m here only to provide an authentic male perspective.
“Authentic’ male response? I don’t think so. Weirdo creepy male response. There are loads of men not like you that don’t think like you. Are they inauthentic? Or do you just assume you talk for all men even when we know you don’t as we do meet normal men all the time, and some of them are our fathers, brothers, friends, colleagues and sons.
And none of them are your husbands apparently.
Husbands? Is Mike advocating polyandry?
Ha. That would work. 🙂
Feminist Fallout: A Roll Call of Regrets
There is no right time to have children, but at least at an older age you are aware of this fact. If I’d become a Mom at 22 I would have always wondered if I should have started a career first or waited to find a perfect mate. Now I know those things never happen perfectly… because I tried. I live frugally as a SAHM with no twinge of regret other than for the painful years of trying to make things work and wondering if the story would have a happy ending or not. I also regret the lack of support at every step of the journey and the “kick the victim when they’re down” experiences I endured. I worry about finances, but have enough experience to know it is out of my hands.
Ah. You’re a mad American. That explains it.
Born in England and lived there 25 years. Live in the USA. Traveled widely in Europe and elsewhere.
The British government is not different. The British government has no money, only money that it takes from taxpayers under threat of violence.
You’re busy tearing down something that took centuries for men to build.
You should learn from Margaret Thatcher……“‘The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
I just can’t even work out where to begin with this one. It’s like trying to argue evolution to a creationist. Men built ‘somehig that took centuries to build’? Whatever the something is, men didn’t do it unaided. And whatever it was maybe it’s time for it to come down? And no you are American – only they think calling someone a communist is an insult. Nobody else cares
One more string of thought. It is clear that people like Mike believe women are useless after a certain age, and that the qualities they should be judged on are superficial (appearance, virginity). If men fundamentally do not desire commitment with a real, adult woman, we should shift the support for families away from dependence on men and towards socialized support: universal daycare, pay for women’s domestic labor and support for women to re-enter the workforce when the finite role of full-time parenting ends. We can’t rely on a gender that is so blinded by their desire for youth and docility in a mate. It seems all parties would be happier with such an arrangement.
Spot on.
why oh why do you even rise to the bait??? He’s just a fool
‘We’ rise to the bait not ‘you’ 🙂
If men fundamentally do not desire commitment with a real, adult woman, we should shift the support for families away from dependence on men and towards socialized support: universal daycare, pay for women’s domestic labor and support for women to re-enter the workforce when the finite role of full-time parenting ends.
One of the many depressing revelations about the nature of women thanks to feminism is that you’re (virtually) all communists.
What you’re advocating is that men with guns take the money of other men to give to you.
Of course you undoubtedly think the government has money so you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
Ah. You’re a mad American. That explains it.
Isn’t it time for you to start singing your star spangled thingy, quote the bible then tell us we should be grateful you came in at the end if ww2 and saved us? Stereotyping i know but ‘communists’???? You are a stereotype and that stereotype is fat, judgemental, naive and narrow minded. You probably also believe in ‘reds under the beds’. If you want to be taken seriously by women then I suggest you educate yourself and take a broader perspective of the world. Read more, particularly about current affairs. maybe travel outside America.
Hi, Fi! How are you doing? I see you have moved to this blog, as have I. Unfortunately our dear Mrs P seems to have given up on The Plankton for good. This one is interesting, though.
Hi 🙂
hope you are well?
I’m fine, thanks. And you? Glad to hear about your new bloke, I hope he’s a great guy and appreciates the wonderful girl he’s got.
I’ve just moved. Unfortunately I won’t be meeting my hunky neighbour any time soon. I now live a bit far from his house. Not that it would matter if I didn’t, but still, he was very pleasant to the eye.
I see our “friend” Rosie is back and she’s at her charming self, as usual.