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That is part of the point of my whole post. For how much more into a woman's decades are we going to push the having a baby thing? It used to be that 30 was old, then 35, I think 40 still is up there but now 50 isn't sounding so bad? So by the time I'm in my 80's (turning 40 in 2 months) will women having kids once they retire be the new thing?
Ironic that the above post immediately follows one about women having kids well into their 40s in the 19th century, and others having kids in their 30s in the early days of the 20th.
The Hutterite Society women pre-1950 tried to have as many kids as they could as a religious duty. Here is a very interesting study of their fertility: Hutterite Fertility Data and Modern Fertility Anxiety | Domestic Product "A study based on Hutterite data indicated that the infertility rate (deduced from when each woman had her last confinement) was 3.5 percent at 25, 7 percent at 30, 11 percent at 35, 33 percent at 40, 50 percent at 41 and 87 percent at 45. Thirteen percent of them had their last baby between 45 and 49, and nobody had a baby after 49. The average woman in this group had eleven babies! (And unlike in the general population, the women tend to die earlier than the men.)"
Plus more.
Once women had smaller families, like 2-3 kids instead of 6-8, most had kids in their 20s/30s. In the 50s, women married young and had kids young. It was perhaps an abberation.
That is part of the point of my whole post. For how much more into a woman's decades are we going to push the having a baby thing? It used to be that 30 was old, then 35, I think 40 still is up there but now 50 isn't sounding so bad? So by the time I'm in my 80's (turning 40 in 2 months) will women having kids once they retire be the new thing?
30 has never been old to have a baby. The vast majority of women are fully fertile and still in their prime at 30. Unless you're talking about a society/era in which girls married at 12 and were dead by 30 if not sooner.
LOL, in 1891, my 45 year old great-grandmother had my grandmother. She went on to have another pregnancy 2 years later, but it ended in stillbirth, during a diphtheria epidemic.
Both my grandmothers had all 3 of their kids in their 30s. One was 36 and one 37 when they had their last.
I don't know about my greats but grandma had her first at 21 and last at 39. In pre BC days women would conceive until they hit menopausal years, women generally married younger and therefore had their first child at a younger age. Mom had her last at 40, in 1970. At that time it was considered old. My eldest sister was born in 1949 at 19. We see a continual increase in age of births since at least 1970.
That is part of the point of my whole post. For how much more into a woman's decades are we going to push the having a baby thing? It used to be that 30 was old, then 35, I think 40 still is up there but now 50 isn't sounding so bad? So by the time I'm in my 80's (turning 40 in 2 months) will women having kids once they retire be the new thing?
As another poster pointed out even back in the 1900 women were still having kids into their late 40's. They generally had their first at a younger age but with unreliable methods of BC they many continue to have kids until menopause. With changing societal norms, education and careers for women, people are marrying later in life, thus putting off starting a family. Advances in obstetrics has made it possible/easier for women to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term, advances in medicine and nutrition and life style allow us to live longer so whats the problem.
I know circumstances sometimes can't be helped and you don't meet the right person until later in life, but every kid I knew with old parents hated it growing up. I had one friend who's mother gave birth to her at 44 and she was always mistaken for her grandmother. Maybe some of the stigma is going away since it's becoming more commonplace, but I think it's rather selfish to have a baby at 50 knowing your kid's gonna be stuck caring for an elderly parent or orphaned relatively early into adulthood.
I know circumstances sometimes can't be helped and you don't meet the right person until later in life, but every kid I knew with old parents hated it growing up. I had one friend who's mother gave birth to her at 44 and she was always mistaken for her grandmother. Maybe some of the stigma is going away since it's becoming more commonplace, but I think it's rather selfish to have a baby at 50 knowing your kid's gonna be stuck caring for an elderly parent or orphaned relatively early into adulthood.
How many of these people do you really know? Would all these people rather have not been born at all?
How many people do you know in their 70s or even into their early 80s who need to be cared for? I would like to see a concrete number of people you know who are caring for elderly parents? Most people of those ages are doing very well on their own, some even taking care of grandchildren in retirement. And several people have posted life expectancy at various ages that show that a 50 year old woman had about 33 more years of life.
Plus where is the guarantee that if you have kids in your 20s that your kids wont be "orphaned relatively early into adulthood". These people are hardly orphans, BTW.
"Broken out by age, the 2017 birth rate fell for teenagers by 7 percent, to 18.8 births per 1,000 – a record low. . . Women in their 40s were the only group to see a higher birth rate last year. Between the ages of 40 and 44, there were 11.6 births per 1,000 women, up 2 percent from 2016, according to the CDC's provisional data. . . For women in their 30s – an age group that had recently seen years of rising birth rates – the rate fell slightly in 2017. The drop included a 2 percent fall among women in their early '30s, a group that still maintained the highest birth rate of any age group, at 100.3 births per 1,000 women."
So women in their 40s had fewer babies than even the teen moms, and about 1/10th the babies as women in their early 30s, the biggest group of baby moms.
How many of these people do you really know? Would all these people rather have not been born at all?
How many people do you know in their 70s or even into their early 80s who need to be cared for? I would like to see a concrete number of people you know who are caring for elderly parents? Most people of those ages are doing very well on their own, some even taking care of grandchildren in retirement. And several people have posted life expectancy at various ages that show that a 50 year old woman had about 33 more years of life.
Plus where is the guarantee that if you have kids in your 20s that your kids wont be "orphaned relatively early into adulthood". These people are hardly orphans, BTW.
I'm just saying there's a reason fertility wanes in your 40s. If nature intended for women to have babies that late in life, there wouldn't be the need for so much medical intervention.
You can't deny that there's increased health risks and increased risk for genetic defects in babies born to older mothers. Everyone's allowed their opinions, but I think having a baby in your early 40s is pushing it and anything after 45 is ridiculous. Adopt an older kid if you want to be a parent.
I know circumstances sometimes can't be helped and you don't meet the right person until later in life, but every kid I knew with old parents hated it growing up. I had one friend who's mother gave birth to her at 44 and she was always mistaken for her grandmother. .
I honestly don't feel sorry for someone in this situation. Having a mom who "looked old"? So what? This person needs to grow up in a hurry. There are worse things in life than having a mom who looks "old".
And just as you know people who hated having older parents, I know people who liked having older parents. Especially if their parents retired early and could spend more time with their family.
I'm just saying there's a reason fertility wanes in your 40s. If nature intended for women to have babies that late in life, there wouldn't be the need for so much medical intervention.
You can't deny that there's increased health risks and increased risk for genetic defects in babies born to older mothers. Everyone's allowed their opinions, but I think having a baby in your early 40s is pushing it and anything after 45 is ridiculous. Adopt an older kid if you want to be a parent.
Fertility wanes but it doesn't wane to zero in every woman. Nature did intend for some women to have babies later in life. There is post after post on here about women who got pregnant in their 40s naturally.
The health risks and genetic problems have been discussed ad nauseum on this thread. It's really just chromosome defects that are more common in older women, e.g. Down Syndrome, and there are tests for them now. "Genetic" problems such as cystic fibrosis, to give one example, have nothing to do with age and everything to do with the roll of the dice.
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The vast majority of women are fully fertile and still in their prime at 30. Unless you're talking about a society/era in which girls married at 12 and were dead by 30 if not sooner.
