Older mother

PostingAre older dads better fathers?

Entertaining piece here from a man who has just become a dad again - aged 54. One in ten babies is now born to a dad over 40 in the UK - and one in a hundred to a father over 50. So it's not just us 'older' mums whose numbers are on the increase. The writer, John Preston, is less apologetic about his status than many 'older' new mums, perhaps because society views older dads with more tolerance than it does mums.

Preston even suggests that older dads might make better parents than younger men. He cites research suggesting that older guys are less likely to do a runner on their family, more likely to 'help' with the housework (as if it's a woman's natural responsibility to work, look after the house and care for the children; and the man is doing her a favour by loading the dishwasher). He also suggests the wrinkly dads are more confident, affectionate, mature and responsible. Older dads are also apparently less driven by something called 'provider fever' - perhaps because they've made their moolah and so can relax.

But he is also honest enough to wonder whether younger men would suffer from what he calls "the exhaustion factor; the way in which my fuse has shrunk to the size of a gnat's tail, prompting me to froth up in helpless hysteria if anyone so much as dares to hoot their horn at me."  I was glad he mentioned that. It struck quite a chord with how I've been feeling for a while now.

Posted 15 June 2008 17:17 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Dads Older mother

PostingDaddy dearest

Good to see it's not just older mums getting stick. The poor old dads come in for some flak too in this article, which reveals why starting out life with a dad older than 45 can - allegedly - be bad news for babies' health. Dr Jin Liang Zhu, from the Danish Epidemiology Science Centre, said: "The risks of older fatherhood can be very profound, and it is not something that people are always aware of." Well, no, I guess not. Scientists have been too busy disparaging older mums to have time for the dads. Still, I don't expect the research will put ageing pop stars and business magnates like Mike Oldfield, Rod Stewart and Rupert Murdoch off fathering more youngsters. And I bet they don't get half as much criticism as mums over 40 do.

Posted 02 June 2008 18:28 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Older mother

PostingParallel universe

I broke down in the doctor's office at my first ante-natal appointment. It was a few days after the positive pregnancy test result. A young female doctor asked me, without looking at me or my notes, "Are you planning on continuing with this pregnancy?" Her jumper failed to cover her stomach and she had a can of Diet Coke on her desk. She might have been hung-over, I can't be sure. Ten years younger than me? Fifteen? I knew without being told that she was childless herself. "Have you even bothered to read my notes?" I accused her. "If you had, you'd know how much I want this baby. Of course I want to continue with the pregnancy. It's a question of whether I'll be able to." I burst into tears and waved my hands around my head. Turned to my husband. "See! She doesn't even care enough to read the notes to find out I've had a miscarriage." My husband held my hands, reasoned with me and produced a hanky to mop up my tears. "It's no good," I told him. "They can't help anyway. All they do is tell you the baby's dead, then act like they're morally superior and have a right to tell us what to do. What's the point of this?" The doctor's skin turned a blotchy red colour and I could smell her sweat. "They have to ask questions like this," said my husband. The doctor nodded earnestly. "Whose side are you on here?" I asked my husband.

Since this debacle a senior midwife, a woman whom I like and trust, a bit older than myself, with several children of her own, has handled all my ante-natal care. I'm now seven months pregnant and, with luck, she'll look after me during the birth. She's arranged her annual leave to be here for me around my due date. But, sometimes, when I go to the surgery to see Lorna, the midwife, I spot the doctor chatting with receptionists, tugging at the same bobbly, ill-fitting jumper, smoothing back her hair, laughing too loudly, hanging on what the older doctors are saying, trying to copy their behaviour. Knowing she hasn't got it quite right. And I remember being the same at her age. Yes, even down to bad taste in jumpers. I've apologised to her for my behaviour - and she was alright about it. Said she realised I needed 'more support'. That she'd spent more time reading through my notes. She was sorry too.

I was reminded last week about the difficulty of  younger people's well-meant but sometimes insensitive attempts to offer care, when I met a twenty-something woman who was training to be a 'childbirth educator'. As with the doctor, I knew, the way you do, that she was childless. "You don't have any children of your own, do you?" I asked. No, she didn't. "Do you, errr, not see that as a problem in helping women through childbirth and becoming parents?" No, she didn't. Could she feel my bump, please? No, she could not.

Posted 24 May 2008 11:33 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Older mother Miscarriage Health workers Angst

PostingGoing it alone

Just read this and am at a loss what to think. Finding herself single at 40, the author used donor insemination to become pregnant. Superficially, at least, the procedure worked: she found herself the single mother of a healthy young son.

But, unsurprisingly, the author remains unhappy. Her single status still rankles, and she advises thirty-something women to 'settle' for any old man they can get their hands on and have children with him. It seems the poor woman herself can't find any man at all now, not even the ones she claimed she turned down a few years back. Turned down for minor deficiencies like 'abysmal sense of aesthetics'. Someone, please, explain to her that 'abysmal sense of aesthetics' in a man should be welcomed. It's proof of heterosexuality! Who wants to marry Oscar Wilde?

Believe me, I want to be supportive of women who deliberately go it alone in having children. I do! I really do. Many of these women are slightly older, like myself, and desperate for someone to love. I suspect they have donor children because they think a baby will bring them that love. But in my heart of hearts, I have to confess I'm uneasy. Sorry. Can't help it.

Jetting off to Spain (that way women can bypass UK fertility laws that would deny them 'treatment' in this country), where a doctor inserts a stranger's sperm into your vagina, seems to put having a child onto the same footing as buying a pet.

I know, I know, I'm old-fashioned. Please feel free to disagree with me (though, please, don't make it personal). But having a child myself has made me more conservative. And there are good reasons why this course of action is banned in the UK. I've tried to argue myself into feeling more sympathetic, but the truth is... I don't.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking here about single mums who find themselves bringing up a child on their own when the father walks out on them. That's very different indeed. It's the mums who 'buy babies' abroad who make me feel nervous.

My problem with women like the author of this article is that they think the act of having a child will give them the entire package of love/family/social approval/connectedness they want. They just don't understand that, ideally at least, a baby is the result of love between a man and woman. I know things don't always work out like that, but what's wrong with aiming high?

So they come back from Spain, considerably poorer after shelling out for the sperm, struggling with pregnancy sickness, then the shock of caring for a newborn. All on their own. Then wonder why they're more miserable than when childless.

The author of this article is advising single women in their thirties to settle for "Mr Good Enough" and abandon hope of finding true or lasting love. Most of the other mums in her baby groups (who must be so thrilled to have her around, eyeing up their husbands) have rubbish relationships, she argues. Why set yourself up for disappointment by having high expectations? Just marry anyone who'll have you.

I'm afraid I don't agree with the author about the wisdom of 'settling'. I believe lasting love does exist. Yes, it really does. That's what's kept me going through sleepless nights, sickness and pain. Even when we're irritated with each other. The connection is still there, the reason for making a family. It makes the bad times bearable, and the good times even better. There's no point in compromising on that. Otherwise why are you having a family? For show? To impress your parents and siblings? Prove you're not a loser? I'd rather have the real thing. Or nothing at all.

Posted 15 May 2008 17:07 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Older mother

PostingWhy there's no place like home

hrowan300_Small.jpg Telegraph writer Rowan Pelling has written this excellent article about having her second son at home last month. The decision to go for a home birth followed a traumatic delivery first time round in which Pelling got to 9cm dilated - and still ended up under the surgeons' knives with an emergency C-Section. Personally, I just managed to escape a section when giving birth to my daughter. But I did have a tough time delivering a baby who weighed well over 10lbs - so I can  sympathise with Pelling (pictured).

As Pelling jokingly points out, home birth in the UK has an unfair reputation  as the preserve of 'masochistic, tree-hugging yoga freaks'. Just 1.8% of new mothers in the UK give birth at home. But research suggests home births are as safe as hospital deliveries - indeed, possibly even safer, since there's less risk of contracting MRSA. And birth is less stressful in a familiar environment, studies suggest. There's also less risk of intervention; birth is allowed to take its natural course. There are no doctors rushing in to speed up labour artificially, which can lead to all sorts of problems. There's no pressure to agree to using forceps or ventouse if mothers overshoot hospital guidelines for permitted length of the second stage of labour.

Since I decided on a home birth for my second child, due in July, I've had to put up with acquaintance who have a) sneered at my decision  b) suggested I might die in the experience. Friends, especially those who had easier deliveries with their second children, have been more positive. But my mother still looks terrified at the mention of home birth and refuses to acknowledge I'm serious in my plans for one. My husband's hands shake slightly when I discuss it with him and he starts discussing the engineering behind our hot water system - always, I suspect, the first defence of a man troubled by what he's hearing. So it was good to read a positive account of home birth from another woman (also, at 40, a slightly older mum like myself) who felt empowered by the experience.

Pelling attributes some of the success of her home birth to hiring an independent midwife (for around £3,000). I have a fantastic community midwife - but unfortunately there's no guarantee of it being her who comes out to me when I'm in labour - and I'm trying to decide whether it would be worth the expense of hiring an independent midwife. That way, at least, I wouldn't have the stress of wondering about what the midwife will be like.

By the way - here is a useful tip for any woman about to have a baby or looking after a newborn. I've learnt recently that every woman has the right to insist on a change in the medical staff looking after her, including midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists and health visitors. This would have been nice to know when I was giving birth to my daughter, and I suffered at the hands of a midwife who was like one of my old PE teachers at school. I will never be able to cleanse my brain of her instructions. "Push down through your bottom," she kept telling me, like I was a lazy army recruit who needed whipping into line.

If I'd known back then I had a legal right to tell her to push off and get a replacement, I'd have done so. So, if anyone reading this finds themselves suffering from authoritarian medics who act as if they have the god-given  power to tell them what to do, remember: you have the power to ditch them. There's a small but potent minority of medics who take advantage of their perceived power to bully women. And let's face it, who's more vulnerable than a pregnant or newly-delivered mother? 

Posted 28 April 2008 12:47 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Childbirth Home birth New baby Older mother

PostingOf pregheads and jealousy

Reading a nasty piece by Minette Marrin in The Times about pregnant newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky, I was tempted to write that women are so often their own worst enemies. But then it occurred to me that no bloke nowadays would dare say what Marrin does, which is that Kaplinsky is selfish and contemptible for getting pregnant before she started a £1m a year job as the 'Face of Five News'. A man might have thought it, but only a woman could (almost) get away with saying that.

"If I were running Five I would be beside myself with rage," fulminates Marrin, a woman who looks like a) her childbearing years are memories b) even in her full reproductive glory did not see much uterine action, though I could be wrong about that; despite laying into Kaplinsky, Marrin does not volunteer details of her own parity.

Of course, as you might expect, Marrin expands her grouse to include all women who expect to combine work and having children. "The proper word for all this is exploitation," she rages, admitting that back in her more fertile years she was grilled by her own employers about her plans for children. Maybe that's why she's so nasty to Kaplinsky, envy of the (slightly) greater career opportunities women have nowadays compared to her time. She glosses over the fact that Kaplinsky won't receive a penny in maternity pay from Five - being a freelancer.

She also, predictibly enough, has spiteful things to say about the very state of pregnancy:

"Meanwhile, instead of the ferociously sexy on-the-ball babe that Five hired, Kaplinsky will be becoming larger and mumsier, she may have a nauseous or difficult pregnancy requiring lots of time off, and at some point her brain will be affected by the amnesia of pregnancy. This is a phenomenon that is now widely admitted, even by feminists (although it is equally often denied when inconvenient); there is even a nasty new fashionable word for a woman  in this state - preghead."

Small point here - aren't all pregnancies nauseous and difficult? Just by their nature?

Underlying Marrin's attack, no doubt motivated by jealousy that Kaplinsky combines a career with good looks, happy relationship and, now, to Marrin's horror, a baby on the way, lurks this assumption that childbearing can and should be scheduled for a lull in our diaries. Life, nature, our bodies, relationships; none of them work like that. If we waited for the 'perfect' time to get pregnant, we'd be waiting forever. Until 'fashionably late' was too late.

There's always going to be something that might warrant delay in trying for a baby - new job, a book to write, promotion, holiday, family crisis, lack of money, fear we won't be 'good enough'. My feeling - and this is just my personal opinion - is that you have to block everything else out and go for it. If I hadn't I'd never have dared have a child. And who knows what Kaplinksy's real circumstances are? She might have suffered a series of miscarriages over the past few years. Or she might have feared (wrongly, as it turns out) that she was infertile. Lay off her, I say.

Posted 07 April 2008 14:05 | Number of comments: 20 | Comments

Fashionably Late - the book News Older mother

PostingNo fool like an old fool

A 57-year-old woman is due to give birth to her first child this week, after doctors misdiagnosed her pregnancy as ovarian cancer. The story made me wonder yet again about claims the NHS devotes too much money to older mums. Maybe it does overspend, but I have to say it's not money well spent. Doctors couldn't even get it together to clock this woman was in the family way; the best they could manage was that the baby was a 'hard abdominal mass', a statement of the bleeding obvious if ever I heard one and no doubt uttered in tones of patronising condescension. I was also mildly disgusted at the story. The pregnancy follows attempts by Susan Tollefsen, a special needs teacher who spent most of her adult life looking after her mother (beginning to see a theme here?), to have a baby via IVF in foreign clinics (most UK clinics draw the line at treating women over 45 and the NHS will not fund women over 40). "I just feel incredibly excited," Tollefsen is quoted telling one paper. "I know that when [the child] is ten I'll be 67 and I do wonder how she will feel about that, but we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it." There'll be other tricky conversations: Tollefsen will have needed to use another woman's egg to become pregnant at her age, something that might also take some explaining ('You see darling, post-Soviet economics being what they are, this obliging Russian lady is, well, um, actually your biological mother, though you know that of course I'm your real mother. So now at least you know where you get those lovely Slavic cheekbones. Now tell me, been having any more trouble with the school bullies of late?'). If I were Tollefsen, a lady whose frumpy wardrobe makes little attempt to hide her post-menopausal status, I could lose my sense of humour at being taken for the child's grandmother. If I were her child, I'd be counting the days till I was old enough to put as much ground between me and her as long-haul flights permitted. Vancouver, California, somewhere like that. Miles away from Mum's sheltered housing complex. And given the health risks to women of repeated IVF 'treatment', some of which are only now emerging, Tollefsen might be wise not to bank on too extended an innings. Having children 'fashionably late' is one thing, turning up after the party's over something else. It's sad that Tollefsen now feels regret at devoting her prime years to looking after her mum (a theme that looks set to continue in the Tollefsen family) but she can't bring back those years when she was meant to be having children. She would have done better to resign herself to that. 

Posted 24 March 2008 12:30 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Fashionably Late - the book Older mother

PostingBBC Three Counties Radio

For anyone interested, I'm on BBC Three Counties Radio tomorrow at 10.15am to discuss whether anybody would be mad to start a family in their twenties these days. As I was saying to the producer, I never planned to have children a bit later in life. In all honesty, I would liked to settle down sooner than my late thirties. But my taste in men ran more to the Daniel Cleavers of this world than good old Mark Darcy. And so I remained single.

Also, frankly, I blame my husband Va-vay (definitely not a Daniel Cleaver type). There he was, living not a million miles away from me in London, both of us working in similar organisations, both of us loving word games, nonsense and hill walking, perfect for each other. But it took us until we were in our mid-thirties to bump into each other at an airport and fall in love. Most inefficient of him.

I love being an older mum, mainly because I'm very grateful it's happened after all this time. But the truth is that being pregnant, working and looking after our beloved Beanie is knackering, and I do wonder if it would be the same for a younger woman. I trudged home at lunchtime today with the shopping for our tea, hardly able to put one foot in front of the other. I didn't even dare buy more than a pint of milk, for fear I wouldn't be able to carry a two-pint bottle all the way home. I was so out of breath with lugging the shopping upstairs to our flat I had to sit down and have a glass of water. Please don't get me wrong, I know it's a blessing to be pregnant. But is it this hard being pregnant when you're in your twenties? Or do you have more stamina and energy then?

Posted 17 March 2008 14:54 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Fashionably Late - the book Older mother

PostingPramface babies

pramface460_Small.jpg"Is anyone ever ready for their first baby?" asked a teenage father in last night's Pramface Babies, which followed teenage mums giving birth in a Merseyside maternity ward. Granted, it was one of the few sensible things he had to say for himself, but he did have a point. Watching Pramface Babies I couldn't help but imagine the producers behind the cameras, you know the type; would film their grandmother in her death throes if they thought there was airtime in it. They found an easy target in the young working class mothers who starred in this show (one of them is pictured above), especially since the women were mostly filmed while in labour. No doubt the producers, with names like Annabel, Gemma and Charlotte will conceive to order at the correct ages, somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties, being neither too young or too old. Pity those of us who don't fall into the 'correct' timeframe for childbearing. Too young, and you're a feckless fool. Too old? Oh, a selfish career bitch.

I have worked and went to school with many women like the Annabels, Gemmas and Charlottes who produced this show. But personally, I have more time for the women ('pramface' is council estate slang for teenage mums) in front of the camera. They weren't the ones making money out of poking fun at other people. They showed love and dedication for their children. Sure, they were a bit daft and naive about what motherhood and relationships involved. But so what? You could see they were so desperate for affection after neglected childhoods, they'd fall for the first half-decent bloke who came along.

You could put together a grisly documentary on posh girl mating habits, that would make far more disturbing viewing than Pramface Babies. Many girls I studied and worked with were frank about marrying for money and status. One woman I knew admitted she was marrying her husband for the Norfolk manor house, opportunities to open church fairs and status as wife of a senior naval officer and had no plans to give up her female German lover in London.

In contrast, the women in Pramface Babies might have been clueless (of course they were, they didn't have the education or experience to be otherwise), but I respected them. They were determined to be the best mums possible to their babies. They believed in unfashionable concepts like 'love' and 'affection'. They were capable of warmth and kindness (not generally a posh girl forte). And unlike many of us (I include myself in this) they didn't waste time agonising about the work/life balance, or the 'right' time to have a baby. They just did it. The only thing that stops me, an older first-time mum, from greater sympathy with them, is that most of them got their figures back within months of giving birth. Now, it would be nice if the same were true for me....

Posted 14 March 2008 13:24 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Childbirth Fashionably Late - the book Older mother Pregnancy

PostingWelcome to Guardian readers

guardianlogo_Small.gifWelcome to anyone who's found this site through its mention today in The Guardian in its weekly Guide. I'm delighted to be included in the paper's Internet section in a column on Blog Roll Mums, where I feature alongside The Baby Juggler, Mommy Has A Headache, Parenthacks, Strife in the North and Sarcastic Mom. If anything on the site strikes a chord with you, please leave a comment. And if any of you became a mum over 35, drop me a line. I'm researching for my book Fashionably Late so would love to hear from you.

Posted 01 March 2008 12:29 | Number of comments: 16 | Comments

Blogging Fashionably Late - the book Older mother

PostingSee, it's not just me

Pregnancy in the over 40s has reached a record high - proving how fashionable it's become to have children later in life. The conception rate has risen across women of all ages - but is most marked in the over 40s. Pregnancies have jumped up by more than 6% from 11.5 per 1,000 women aged 40-44 in 2005, to 12.2 last year. It's worth remembering that the over 40s still account for a tiny percentage of all births - around 3% - but that figure has tripled over recent years as more women, like myself, defer childbearing until later in life.

The Telegraph reports that the news will prompt 'fears that the growing number of older mothers is placing increased pressure on maternity units'. Writing as someone aged 40 and 21 weeks pregnant, you can imagine how thrilled I was to read that. It's such rubbish that older women are causing problems in the NHS.

Apart from going mental when I told a locum GP I was pregnant and she asked me (without looking away from her screen) if I was planning on continuing with my pregnancy, (I never went back to her) I follow all the instructions in pregnancy - little or no alcohol, sticking to (probably spurious) caffeine limits, no cold remedies, fear of pate and liver, obsession with pasteurisation, location of nearby hospitals etc. My roots are growing through grey; I'm too scared to risk hair colouring. Baths are tepid.

Every health professional I've interviewed for my book on being an older mum, Fashionably Late, agrees that older mums are often less of a problem to the health service because, like me, they're compliant and do as they're told, like cutting out smoking, since they want the child so much. That leads to reduced (or zero) risk of complications like listeria infection, foetal alcohol syndrome, poor growth rates.

So it's a bit rich to blame older mums for strains in the health service, whose problems obviously go far beyond a few later starters like myself having babies later on in life.

Needless to say, The Telegraph does not miss the opportunity to have a dig at women concentrating on their careers, claiming that when professional women return to work after having children they often move 'into jobs where the average employee lacks even A-levels'. Can this be true? It's not my experience - or that of my friends. But still, makes for grisly reading.

Older women are often attacked for their 'selfish' emphasis on 'careers' (for 'career' read, grafting away in some horrible job to pay rent/mortgage while being messed around by some bloke too immature to commit to family/children) but this means we've paid shedloads more in tax to fund the NHS. So why shouldn't we cash in our tax investment and get something back? Most of us won't be getting any tax relief on childcare expenses, or much in the way of government maternity benefits, (unlike in most European countries) so we might as well enjoy having our babies on the NHS.

Posted 28 February 2008 15:34 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Childbirth Fashionably Late - the book Older mother Health Pregnancy Work Work vs mothering

PostingSomething in the air

One of the worst things about being an 'older' mum is the humiliation of being disabused of this fantasy that I am competent at the business of life. Having a daughter at the age of 38 has pushed me in new and uncomfortable directions. Take driving, for example. Before Beanie arrived I didn't drive. I never needed a car and I never much fancied having one. It didn't matter that I was a bad driver.

Now I need wheels to ferry Beanie around town. The problem is that I am still rubbish at driving. Actually, no, that's unfair, I'm being too hard on myself. I'm a reasonably good driver, though a bit slow. It's parking that's the problem. On the way home the other day I attempted to find a parking space in our street. No luck. So Beanie and I drove round in circles until I spied a small space in a lane next to a large stone wall. I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to park. Into reverse. Cue grinding of machinery. Back into first. Edge forward a few inches. Grind the gear back back down into reverse. And so on. The air stank of some vile mechanical malfunction.

As I craned my neck back to see where I was reversing I met Beanie's alarmed gaze. "Don't worry, Beanie, Mummy knows what she's doing," I lied. She wasn't fooled. I wedged the car so close to the wall the wing mirror was brushing against lichen and stone. I could feel the sweat trickling down my arms. Then a man appeared at my window. He seemed like a good guy, so I wound down the window. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Can I help?" You know that way when you've been holding tears at bay and a moment of unexpected kindness makes them flood out? Well, I started to cry. "I can't do this," I said. "Are you trying to park or to get out?" he asked. "To park," I snuffled, as I noticed for the first time a group of people standing around watching my parking, looks of concern on their faces. I was half in and half out but couldn't move either way. "That's my car behind you," he said, and I thought, "Oh my God, I really hope I haven't scratched it." He must have seen the look on my face because he said: "No, don't worry, it's fine. Would you like me to move my car? Would that make it easier?" So he moved his car, but somehow by then I'd lost all confidence so I still couldn't park. Then the man said: "Would you like me to park your car for you?" And I said "Yes, please. Would you mind? Thank you". As he got in the car it crossed my mind this might be some ploy to steal Beanie from me and I said: "You won't drive off with my daughter, will you?" He said: "Oh my goodness, I hadn't realised you had a baby in the back." But he came across as a nice, trustworthy chap, and the onlookers appeared to know him, so I decided it was okay to let him park the car.

I got out and chatted to a couple of other people who'd come out of their houses. In different circumstances it would have been quite nice to meet the neighbours, but my legs were still shaky and I felt at a bit of a disadvantage after the fiasco they'd just witnessed. "Quite a smell of clutch fluid, isn't there?" said one, conversationally. "Is the clutch slipping?" I wouldn't even have known that was the smell and didn't know what he meant by 'clutch slipping' but nodded and rolled my eyes. I haven't felt that helpless and girly since I was a teenager. Beanie looked completely unpeturbed in her throne in the back as the neighbour reversed out with her. She looked less hassled with him than when I was trying to park, in fact. And the job was done in a couple of minutes. The next day, though, when I went back to check on the car there was still a smell of clutch fluid in the air.

Posted 19 February 2008 16:36 | Number of comments: 30 | Comments

Angst Car Daughter Home Older mother Buses

PostingSmelling a rat

kidman380262760b_Small.jpg Article in The Independent today by health editor Jeremy Laurance on older mums that leads with Nicole Kidman being pregnant at forty. Doctors have warned that women who delay motherhood are 'defying nature' and increasing the risks for themselves and their babies, provoking a backlash in some quarters from women who smell a conspiracy against older mothers. The article quotes Daisy Waugh, the TV presenter and first-time mother at 39, attacking the double standard whereby ageing rockers Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart, who both fathered babies in their sixties, are congratulated with a slap on the back and a nod and wink, while 'old girls' like her are 'gently encouraged to worry'. "You keep at it, old boys! Breed away! I just wish people weren't so antsy about the old girls, now that we're doing the same thing... We are fed a constant drip of negative, alarmist stories about the dangers of delaying motherhood and I can't help it, I smell a rat."

Posted 15 January 2008 11:56 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Older mother

PostingPredictions

My predictions for 2008's parenting edicts - with thanks to Scott Pack at Me and My Big Mouth for inspiring the format. I hope - or in some cases fear - they'll prove unfounded, though they might prove closer to the truth than I suspect.

January - any pregnant woman caught drinking, smoking or eating unpasteurised soft cheese will be subject to imprisonment and a fine, announces the government. Any pregnant woman looking like she's enjoying herself will be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

February - a study appears highlighting the plight of women who have no choice but to stay at home to care for their children, claiming these mothers are an economic drain - on the same day the government again refuses tax relief for childcare expenses.

March - more reports decrying 'older' mums who hog medical resources appear. Government ministers make disapproving noises, but do nothing to improve job security or make affordable housing available - steps that would enable younger women to have children more easily.

April - moves by women's pressure groups to persuade employers to introduce more and higher-status part-time jobs are rebuffed by UK firms, who insist the only way to hold down a high-powered job is by living in a camp bed under the desk. 'It cuts down on commuting time,' workers are told. Plans emerge for training counsellors in 're-introducing' workers to their teenage children and rehabilitating staff in family life.

May - in a bid to cut costs, cash-strapped NHS hospitals turn away women in labour, encouraging them to give birth naturally, at home on their own, without a midwife or doctor. "Light some candles and hop in the bath," the few remaining midwives employed by the NHS tell women. "Good luck." Women are encouraged to think of the bragging power they'll have following a 'natural' birth.

June - new mothers to be offered tax credits for breastfeeding. Better-off mothers plan to spend their 'boob money' on restorative underwear that will lift their depleted assets. Unfortunately, the effect is negated by a decision to allow formula milk makers to sponsor the few cash-strapped labour wards still open.

July - IQ tests are introduced for six-month-olds, who are to be streamed at council-funded nurseries. Anxious parents employ home coaches who push babies to improve their loading and stacking skills.

August - as stats show that more children are born to women in their thirties than any other age range, 'older' mothers are praised in the press for their emotional maturity, financial stability and parenting skills.

September - a survey showing that children whose parents spend time playing, reading and interacting with them grow up to be well-balanced individuals makes front-page news.

October - outraged by the spate of wierd celebrity baby names, the UK government follows the French example of introducing an official list of baby names. Anything not on the list (Fifi Trixibelle, eat your heart out) is not allowed. Management consultants are called in to make an appropriate list (Jean-Francois looking unlikely to catch on in the UK).

November - research proving that 'older' women's fertility is not much different to younger women's remains ignored by all the mainstream and specialist medical press.

December - no more babies are allowed to be born this year, the quota has been reached.

Posted 01 January 2008 17:28 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Older mother Parenting gurus Work

PostingRoyals are different

262pxEdwardSophieWedding_Small.jpg Good to see Sophie, Countess of Wessex, leaving hospital last week with her new baby James.  Especially heartening to see Sophie's joy after all she must have suffered with an earlier ectopic pregnancy. Interesting, though, to note the lack of tut-tutting in the press about the relatively advanced age of James Alexander Philip Theo Mountbatten-Windsor's mother, since Sophie has reached the grand old age of 42 years old, which would normally be old enough to cue a bout of hand-wringing at the selfishness of 'career' girls who have the cheek to want well-paid work, fulfilling lives and children. But perhaps as a royal she has immunity to charges of 'having it all' and accusations of hogging medical resources laid against other 'older' mums. It'd be nice to see a similar tolerance extended to the rest of us, since I can't help being sick to the back teeth of reading stories criticising women for having the temerity to reproduce past the age of 35, despite the fact it's a natural enough thing to do, as the Countess of Wessex has just proved. In any case, though, I'm delighted for Sophie and wish her and her family all the best with this, their most precious Christmas present.

Posted 22 December 2007 17:39 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Older mother

PostingCue the Counterblast

Piece in the Telegraph today saying we are evolving to have more children later in life. To help us stay fertile longer we will be less troubled by diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart problems and obesity that occur in middle age and beyond.

Professor John Hawks, the anthropologist who led the team of scientists behind the research, told the paper that genes allowing us to stay fertile for longer, as we delay having children, seem more important than living longer in itself.

"The trend has been towards later reproduction," Hawks told the Telegraph. "Many people wait to have kids until they are in their late 30s to 40s. But very few people lived in their 40s more than 50,000 years ago. That's a big biological change. So genes that impede fertility at later ages must be experiencing stronger and stronger selection pressure."

Hawks continued: "The bottom line: people are unlikely to live much longer in the future - at  least, due to genetic changes - but they are likely to be better at having kids older."

Music to my ears.

Posted 11 December 2007 11:54 | Number of comments: 3 | Comments

Health News Older mother

PostingTime and Tide

Apologies for the lack of recent postings. I've only just realised it's been six days since I managed to blog. Six whole days. Shameful contrast to the high watermark of summer, when I set myself a target of daily postings.

I'd love to blame the downturn on Christmas and being too busy with shopping and partying to blog. But the truth is I haven't been too well and have hardly left the flat. I'm also finding I need to put any spare time into writing my book.

I've been busy reading around the subject of motherhood when not looking after Beanie and working on the book.

Regular readers of this blog might remember I'm a huge fan of Kate Mosse's Becoming a Mother. I liked it so much, I re-read it over the weekend, just to enjoy that feeling of companionship and support again.

I've also been reading Susan Faludi's Backlash - The Undeclared War Against Women, which has got me energised with anger. She dismisses the infertility scare stories of recent years as having little or no basis in fact, blaming them on widespread resentment at women's new-found freedom to work and decide when (or if) they will have children.

Reading Backlash reminded how fed up I am with some of the unflattering descriptions used for women who have babies after 35. Is it not about time the medical authorities thought up something less insulting than 'senile primigravida' to describe a first-time mother over 35?

I'm also losing patience with hearing healthy, blooming women in their late thirties and early forties described as 'older'.

When are we going to wake up to the fact that women in their thirties (and older) are in their prime? These are some of our most productive and creative years. Calling us 'old' is part of the same attempt to stigmatise any woman who shows some choosiness about when and how she has children that also leads to bogus infertility scares and 'man shortage' stories.

I don't think of myself as 'old' or even 'older' - and that's because, looked at in absolute terms, I'm not. I was older than the average first-time mum (29) when I had my daughter (at 38). But that doesn't qualify me for the zimmer frame and slippers quite yet.

Come to think of it, I don't even consider my mother, an energetic 67-year-old, to be  'old'. Though she has qualified for a bus pass that Beanie regularly filches from her handbag.

What do you think is a good substitute for 'old' or 'older' to describe new mums or mums-to-be over 35?

Posted 10 December 2007 12:17 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

Blogging Books Dilemmas Fashionably Late - the book Older mother Paradoxes Work at Home Mum

PostingTruths about later motherhood

India Knight claimed this weekend in The Sunday Times that she was reluctant even to write about the number of women having babies in their forties doubling in the past decade, because doing so might encourage younger women into the deluded belief that delaying motherhood "until you're middle-aged" is a reasonable thing to do. You can imagine how I felt on reading her article, The lie of late motherhood.

Knight argues that women are wrong in thinking they can delay motherhood, because anyone who falls for that line is the victim of a feminist-inspired fantasy that has brainwashed us into thinking we can 'have it all' - career and children.

She claims women of her age (41) "have started talking breezily about IVF as though it were a procedure no dissimilar to Botox." Can this be true? Where are these brassy minxes? Nobody I know talks about IVF like this - what I hear is the strain on their marriages, the pain, injections,  uncertainty, mental anguish, expense, time off work, hospital trips, low success rates, patronising doctors. My friends and I might be pessimists. But at least we are realistic.

Knight doesn't do much either for the confidence of women who do, somehow or another, by hook or by facial surgery crook, manage to become mums later in life. "I know lots of older first-time mothers and they're absolutely knackered," Knight says. "They stagger round, broken with lack of sleep - because getting up three times in the night when you're 43 is not the same as doing it when you're 25 - with huge rings under their eyes and husbands who notice the latter and wonder what happened to the minx they married." My advice to any woman in this situation would be to insist your partner helps with the nightfeeds - and then he too will be such a broken husk of his former self there'll be less chance of wandering eye syndrome. That, or any predatory minx who catches his attention will wonder if he shouldn't be the one getting Botox.

I have great respect for Knight, and have long enjoyed her provocative columns, but have to dispute her claim it can be especially lonely being an older mum. "If they're on maternity leave, they find hanging out with the teenage mothers at the One O'Clock Club faintly disheartening, to say nothing of mind-bendingly boring."

That depends on where you live; round my way, most mothers are in at least their mid-thirties and, truth be told, it's a rarity to see a twentysomething new mum.

Knight is at her most controversial in this suggestion for anyone childless and broody: she advises they give up on waiting for 'Mr Right' and just get pregnant whenever or however they can, with or without a partner. She derides 'the sweetly retro notion of mooching around pining for Mr Right, as the clock ticks away and you find yourself eyeing newborns up in supermarkets.'

Does anything good ever comes from acting out of desperation? Is tricking an unwilling man into becoming the father of your child really going to lead to anything except unhappiness and confusion all round?

As I've said before, I have a lot of admiration for single parents, especially now I know what's involved in bringing up a child. I don't suppose many of them set out to be single parents by design; they, like most of us, are just doing the best they can given their particular circumstances. But surely the ideal situation has to involve two parents under the same roof?

Personally, I don't think we should encourage women to short-change themselves and give up on that dream, even if it takes a while to turn into reality.

Posted 04 December 2007 16:31 | Number of comments: 13 | Comments

Older mother

PostingPlain bonkers

Interesting debate going on here at The Daily Telegraph about when people should have children. The furore was prompted by a story reporting that the number of women having children over the age of 40 has doubled in the last ten years, which the paper says provides the clearest evidence yet that many women are delaying starting a family. 

In amongst the predictable rants (it is the Telegraph, and don't say I didn't warn you) against 'young carers', teenage mums, (you just can't win as a mother, damned if you have children young, damned if you leave it till later) 'feminists' and women who take 'men's' jobs, there are only a few more balanced opinions (mostly, it must be said, from women themselves).

"Women who have children after 40 are plain bonkers," wrote one man. Obviously, as a man, he would understand about desperately wanting a child, the deep, atavistic yearning to nurture a new life that seizes women regardless of age, education, social class or race, the sense that having a baby is what we're meant to be doing, almost (forgive me if this sounds pretentious) a part of our biological destiny, what our bodies are meant to do. If you have to wait until you're 40 to get the chance to do that, of course you're still going to want a child, regardless of what some silly old duffer says.

On a marginally less bigoted note, someone wrote that women can't afford to stop work to have children, now that double incomes are factored into house prices, (could you imagine the trauma of downscaling your lifestyle to accommodate a child?!!) and, of course, lest we should ever forget, there's the difficulty of finding a halfway-normal bloke as your partner in the crime of later motherhood. That one really can take time.

Looking at the Telegraph comments, I was reminded of just what a nightmare it was when I found myself single again in my mid-thirties, wanting to settle down, then realising it was mostly just nutters available, like the ones who write these vile comments and who'd have us knocked up and barefoot, without any state help, probably behind bars even, by the age of 22. Sorry, probably there were tonnes of lovely single guys around, but I just wasn't meeting many of them.

Va-vay, thank you a million times over for rescuing me from my ordeal. Every day, you make me laugh, you make me feel special, you encourage and support me in all my plans and dreams. You always think the best of people, never judge, and are kind and tolerant. If your elephant-strength toenail clippers are the worst I have to put up with these days, I count myself lucky.

Is there an ideal age to have children?

What made you decide to have children when you did?

Posted 01 December 2007 22:47 | Number of comments: 20 | Comments

Husband Older mother

PostingFamily Ties

A friend said: "Read this book. It'll make you cry." She handed me a copy of it then wandered off to look at something else. On the cover was a young mother with lots of curly dark hair holding up a surprised-looking baby, dressed in a stripey baby-gro, against the background of a blue, blue sky.  I stood there in the bookshop and started leafing through Someday and sure enough, in seconds I was blubbing, tears were spurting out my eyes at the story of a mother who dreams of what the future might hold for her beloved daughter. "Va-vay, could you lend me your handkerchief?" I asked. "No," he said. The hankie was already dirty, he explained. I didn't care. Insisted he hand it over. He capitulated.

I didn't cry because the little girl had a particularly grim future in store, just because it made me aware of the fragile hopes and dreams we mothers have for our children, that we project far into the future, many of them unspoken or unacknowledged. "I didn't think you'd cry that much," said my friend in astonishment, when she returned from teenage fiction. "I know," I said apologetically. "I'm sorry, it's just, I find this sort of thing very, well, emotional."

After I bought my copy, (well, I felt I had to after my snotty-nosed outburst) and returned home, I read Someday again a couple of times (it's a quick read, which is just as well, given its effect on me). And cried again both times.

The mother in the book dreams of how her daughter might live her life to the full, leaving home for the first time ('Someday you will look at this house and wonder how something that feels so big can look so small'), diving into a lake, running and singing, experiencing joy and sorrow, herself becoming first a mother, ('Someday I will watch you brushing your child's hair') then in time a grandmother. It closes with the mother looking far into the future, imagining her daughter in old age. In this imagined future, the daughter (whom we first saw as a baby) now has silver hair and we come full circle back to the present, when we see, sitting on a table in her home, a picture of her as a baby in the arms of her mother, who is narrating the story. It's how I felt on becoming a mother, as if I'd at last taken my place in the chain that links one generation of women to the next and to the one after that and the one after that, an invisible thread of love connecting all of us to each other, the thread sometimes taut with pressure, at other times slack. No longer a reproductive full stop. But part of a circle. As if I'd handed on the baton by having my own child. The perfect ending.

Posted 26 November 2007 16:49 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Books Older mother

PostingGo on, blame it on us older mums

Depressing to read that mature mothers are allegedly responsible for putting pressure on maternity units. I've heard some lame excuses for the lack of NHS funding and its creaking infrastructure, but really, isn't blaming new mothers who happen to be a few years older than average scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel? The story claims the increasing number of women giving birth in later life is putting pressure on maternity units that do not have enough specialists to deal with complications associated with older mothers. Curiously, the article omits to mention that the overall birth rate has been climbing in recent years, which might have something to do with the pressure on maternity units. Nor does it dwell on the amount of funding going into maternity care. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists estimates that to provide safe care for all women in labour, the number of consultants needs to rise from 1,600 to 2,500 immediately, and more will be needed if the trend for women to give birth later continues. We older mums are costing the NHS because we are more likely to need a Caesarean or run into serious difficulties during delivery and so require consultants to be available. How inconsiderate of us. 

Posted 13 November 2007 22:20 | Number of comments: 19 | Comments

Childbirth News Older mother

PostingMotherhood: a marathon for us all

pradcliffeMS0505468x453_Small.jpgWonderful to read of Paula Radcliffe's victory in the New York Marathon, just nine months after giving birth to her daughter Isla in January. Brilliant news, especially after her terrible time in the Athens Olympics. Radcliffe, who's thirty three, is talking about competing in the 2012 London Olympics and having another child before then. Which could conceivably make her an older mum. Go, Paula. It's not just the British flag you're flying. You're an inspiration to us all.

Posted 12 November 2007 15:31 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Childbirth Older mother Out and about

PostingHappy Birthday, Mother at Large

BirthdayBalloons.gif Posted by Va-vay (husband of Mother at Large)

Regular readers of this blog will know that Mother at Large has hinted that she is nearing her fortieth birthday. Personally, I have no reason to believe that this is true - I think she has just been trying to reinforce her credentials as an older mum. However, she is now claiming that the day has actually arrived! Just in case it really is her fortieth, you are invited to a virtual party to celebrate. As you'll have noticed, I have provided balloons! Please feel free to add congratulations, encouragement or words of wisdom in the comments section.

Mother at Large's own reflections (posted on the eve of her birthday) follow...

Tomorrow I officially enter Vintage Chick territory with my 40th birthday. Am I bovvered? Well, strangely, no. I follow an inverse logic for milestone birthdays, the older I get, the more I enjoy them. Do other people feel this way? You'd think it would be the other way round, but no, life has got better for me as I've got older. Ten years ago, when I turned thirty, I was on the shelf, childless and without even a boyfriend. I had to work my guts out in a job I didn't much like, doing unpaid overtime till all hours, and commuting two hours daily from one of London's scarier outer boroughs, walking to and from Kensal Green Tube past drug dealers and their victims.

Somehow I've managed to turn a corner over the last ten years - I'm lucky in that I do interesting work, live in a beautiful city, am married to the man I love and we have our beautiful daughter Beanie. I don't always like seeing the bags under my eyes, or fatter belly, but they're a badge of honour - show that I'm a mother now.

I'm realistic. Soon, I'll need reading glasses and will go on Saga cruises. I'll embarrass my family by buying their presents out of catalogues selling gadgets for trimming ear hair, orthopaedic slippers and jam jar openers. I'll splash out on complicated trolley-and-hot-plate arrangements for ferrying food from kitchen to table, and invest in a tartan shopping bag with wheels I push into people's legs, unapologetically, while at home I hoard cupboards of biscuits that would allow me to survive a siege. I'll develop crushes on children's TV presenters and  give Granny a run for her money in Sudoko and crosswords. I might even take up golf - you can't fight these things, they come to us all in the end. But I couldn't be happier. I might even chance my arm and say, yes, I'm actually looking forwards to tomorrow.

Posted 08 November 2007 22:41 | Number of comments: 22 | Comments

Edinburgh Granny Older mother Paradoxes