During therapy, Roger discovered that his perfectionistic expectations for himself and others contributed to his desire to remain childfree. He thought he had to be the perfect father for the perfect child. Although he still wasn’t ready to be a father, he realized that he could work on this problem. He began keeping a diary of these unreasonable expectations and made a check mark on a record pad every time he stopped himself from making an unfair demand on himself or his coworkers. Over the next few months, the demands decreased, and he even began joking about them.
A year has gone by, and Aileen and Roger are comfortable with the decision. They have become more emotionally engaged with each other because of this. Their story illustrates some of the ways couples grow during the decision-making process:
Learning how you as a couple handle conflict and make decisions
Recognizing and expressing emotions
Recognizing weaknesses and correcting them
Noticing needs and fulfilling them
Improving intimacy and communication
Can you think of any ways that working through your conflicts may benefit you?
Who is that woman sitting on the park bench and bouncing a husky six-month-old on her knee? Her hair is streaked with gray and laugh lines stretch out from her eyes. You might guess that she is in her forties, but you aren’t sure about her relationship to the baby—is she the mother or grandmother? These days it’s impossible to tell. More and more women are opting for motherhood later in life or winding up as older parents by default.
Some older mothers and fathers deliberately postpone parenthood to advance their careers, save money, travel, and develop their relationship. Despite some concern about fertility over thirty-five, they feel relatively in control of their lives. Even if they have problems with fertility or parenting, they have a sense of control.
But many older parents have a child later by chance rather than choice. (I elaborate on these reasons later in this section).
Whether you planned the delay or it was somehow imposed on you, there are both advantages and disadvantages. Taking a look at them can give you a perspective as you work on the decision.
Advantages of Delayed Parenthood
When you make your decision, you have more to go on. You have more self-knowledge and life experience. You have had a chance to see siblings and friends raising children or living childfree. You can use them as a sort of ad hoc laboratory to help you think about your own possibilities.
Older couples are more willing to settle down. If you’ve already enjoyed traveling, or spent years hanging out with friends, you’re less likely to chomp at the bit if you have to stay home with a newborn. And despite the persistence of the stereotype, most older couples have little trouble adjusting to being tied down even though they are used to so much freedom.
You probably have more patience and tolerance to bring to parenthood now than you would have had when you were younger.
You are likely to be more financially secure than when you were younger and, therefore, more likely to be able to hold on to your standard of living and to hire household help and babysitters.
If either of you wants to cut back to part-time employment or take a year off, it’s easier if you’re both established professionally. And of course, your increased nest egg facilitates such cutbacks.
Because you’re older, you may be better at combining career and parenthood. In Passages, Gail Sheehy thought that older women seemed to have a better chance of integrating career and motherhood.
Disadvantages of Delayed Parenthood
The medical risks for both mother and baby are higher. There is also a higher risk for genetic defects.
Some older parents find that they don’t have enough physical energy to keep up with their kids. It may be harder to play ball with them or take them on camping or hiking trips.
Although life expectancies are increasing, with many people having long, healthy older years, there is some chance your child might lose you to death before he’s reached adulthood.
You may never get to see your grandchildren, especially if your child herself delays parenthood.
You may have to face the problems of retirement and empty nest at the same time.
If you take several years off from work, you may have trouble going back. You may run into ageism.
If you’re thirty-eight when you give birth, then you’ll be fifty-six by the time the child is grown. You may wind up envying your friends who had their children at twenty, emptied their nest at forty, and have more energy to play with their grandchildren.
If you have fertility problems, they may get worse as you get older.
The Medical Story
Although the chances of fertility problems, miscarriage, and birth defects increase with age, your chances of having a healthy baby are probably still reasonably good. If you’re healthy, eat well, exercise, and have good prenatal care, your chances of having a healthy baby may be better than those of a younger woman whose health is below par. Of course, you will want to talk to your gynecologist, urologist, and other treating specialists for information specific to you.
It is possible to test for some genetic defects during the pregnancy. If the baby would have serious problems, you might consider terminating the pregnancy. This is obviously a difficult choice, but knowing it is possible may be important to you, especially if you are over thiry-five. Even if you do not terminate the pregnancy, you might want to have the information in advance so that you and your medical team can be prepared. (For detailed information about this concern, see genetic counselor Kayla Sheets’ “Preparing for and Screening for a Healthy Baby” in the appendix.)
Motherhood Over 35 Is Not for Everybody
For many women, motherhood before thirty is preferable; those women who want to have it all, but not at the same time, may want to put their energies into parenting first and focus on work in their later years. This can be a good choice for a woman already in her mid-twenties who hasn’t made a career commitment yet. By the time she decides what she wants to do and establishes herself in that career, she may have trouble getting pregnant. If she’s eager for a baby, she might not want to take that chance.
Am I/Are We Too Old to Parent?
After starting to try for pregnancy in their mid-thirties, Jen and Will underwent fertility treatments in their late thirties. By the time it was clear that high-tech treatments weren’t going to work, Jen had turned forty and Will had just “celebrated” his forty-third birthday. After infertility grief counseling, they decided to adopt. They found a congenial agency which assured them, to their relief, that despite their ages, they would receive an infant placement.
This good news didn’t sit entirely well with them. “Maybe we’re too old,” Will worried. He asked me, “Will we be able to keep up with our baby?”
Jen added, “Even without a baby, we’re already exhausted from working, exercising, seeing friends, and taking care of our house.” In addition to these doubts, they were angry. “When we first started trying, almost ten years ago, we had more energy. We would also have been in sync with our friends. We couldn’t have a child when we wanted to. Having one now wasn’t our dream.”
“Before we even talk about the energy question,” I told them, as they held hands on my office sofa, “let’s just acknowledge that there’s a part of you that’s on strike. Adopting but not on your timetable is one more way that becoming parents has been out of your control. And you’ve seen most of your friends have kids just when they wanted to. Some of their kids are almost old enough to babysit yours. You’ve waited a long time.”
I went on to tell them: “You will have enough energy when the baby finally lands in your lap. For most people in your situation, what you are labeling as age-related exhaustion is actually the exhaustion of grief, of decision-making, of the adoption process, and waiting for placement. You will feel light-hearted and energetic when you can just enjoy your child instead of struggling to bring that child i
nto your life.”
People I tell this to listen politely but often don’t believe me. Until it happens. It is so much fun for all of us, when they visit later with the baby, smiling and energized.
Minimizing the Problems of Older Parenthood
What can you do to minimize the problems of being older parents?
Despite the advantages that maturity brings, older parents do face problems that younger ones don’t, for instance, decreased fertility, lower energy, coping with chronic pain and illness, and the possibility that your parents, the child’s grandparents, may die before they meet or care for your child, or that they will be too sick or frail to interact with the child.
Get plenty of exercise.
If you don’t already exercise, don’t wait till you have a child to pick up and run around with. Time waiting to get pregnant or adopt is a great time to start. It will increase your confidence about being physically ready for the child, decrease your stress, and increase your optimism about becoming parents. You’re more likely to have a comfortable pregnancy if you start out fit and continue to exercise. Your baby will benefit, too.
Boost your health.
Get a complete physical. Treat chronic illnesses and maintain healthy nutrition. Of course if you are taking any medications, you will need to check with your prescriber, gynecologist, and urologist if you need to stop or switch before and during pregnancy and nursing.
Stay Active.
Pursue current interests, and be open to new activities. Get to know some of the younger people as well as those your age who are becoming parents. Pregnancy and adoption classes and groups are great opportunities. You may actually feel younger and more hip as you hang out with millennials. Learn about current child-rearing practices, and choose the ones that make sense to you. Have interesting discussions with your partner about parenting. Don’t want to raise an arrogant brat? Don’t panic. There are lots of parents and experts who care about character and altruism, and who support each other (see the Bibliography).
Plan for your retirement and old age.
See a geriatric social worker/case manager, your doctor and/ or lawyer about advance directives such as a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order, Living Will, or Five Wishes. Geriatric case managers are licensed social workers with specialized training in tough discussions about aging and parent-child communication as well as advance directives.
So you won’t overburden your child, work with a financial planner on college tuition as well as retirement.
Try to give your child meaningful time with their grandparents.
If your parents and in-laws live in other cities, you may need to use vacation time and money for less glamorous but meaningful vacations if you value these cross-generational connections. You may be in the unfortunate positon that your parents have died or are too impaired to relate well and interact with your child. If this is the case, it is extremely helpful to grieve the loss of the grandchild-grandparent relationship you had hoped for.
Reasons for Delaying Parenthood
I am sometimes asked, “Why do so many people wait until their late thirties or forties before trying to have a child?” The assumption is that people “forgot to have a baby” or put their careers way ahead of parenting. While career preparation is a major reason for delayed parenting, there are other reasons.
Being married to a partner who didn’t want kids or would have made a bad parent.
Needing time and psychotherapy to heal a tough childhood and feel confident that you could parent differently.
Finishing school, getting launched in a career, finding a new job.
Saving money and getting out of debt including college loans or recovering from being unemployed or underemployed.
Finding and affording a kid-friendly and kid-safe neighborhood.
Needing time to recover from a divorce and get established in a new relationship with someone who wants a child.
Caring for an ill or dying family member.
Recovering from a medical problem.
Considering single parenthood but waiting a few years in hopes of finding a partner to share parenting with.
Years of infertility, pregnancy loss, and adoption before finally bringing home baby.
You may worry that, family and friends, medical personnel, or adoption workers will judge you for not trying sooner. Most people will be compassionate, especially if they know there have been circumstances out of your control. An adoption program or fertility clinic may want some sense of what changed, why you are looking at parenthood now, but usually their focus is on understanding, not judging.
Talking to Parents and In-Laws About Older Parenthood
“Oh, but this is going to be so hard at your age,” Carolyn’s mother-in-law, Alice, bemoans to her and Steve.
“Please try to understand,” Carolyn tells her. “We don’t get to go back in time to have magically met in our twenties.”
Steve adds, “Our only choices now are to never have a child, which would be very sad for all of us, or to become parents in our forties under less than ideal circumstances.”
Carolyn nods and says, “I think I’m more exhausted now, with my sadness and the thought of never being a mother, than I will be even carrying around a toddler.”
True or false:
Only children are spoiled.
Only children are selfish.
Only children have more emotional problems than other children.
Only children are lonely.
False, false, false, and false. Research by social scientists Sharryl Hawke, David Knox, and Toni Falbo indicates that only children are more creative and well-adjusted and get along better with their peers than other children.
Why, then, does the myth of the unhappy, lonely, only child persist? I think there are three reasons:
1. In past generations, only children who were unhappy were sometimes victims of self-fulfilling prophecies. Because professionals told parents that their only children would be unhappy and maladjusted, they expected them to be. On top of that, many parents felt guilty about not giving their child a sibling, so they overprotected and spoiled them to compensate for their guilt.
2. In the past, parents of only children generally didn’t choose the option. Their one-child status was forced upon them through infertility, pregnancy losses, divorce, or the death of one parent. Disappointment and loss negatively affected these parents and their children. For instance, parents who had miscarriages before they had their only child were more likely to be overprotective. Nowadays, with our understanding of grief, parents can heal from these losses and be more relaxed and joyful with an only child.
3. Old wives’ tales continue, but you can challenge them and sort this out for yourselves.
According to Margaret Mead in Margaret Meade, Some Personal Views, (Rhoda Metraux, ed.) the one-child family is the family of the future. She predicted that women would marry and have one child relatively late in life in order to be mature enough to integrate motherhood and career. She thought that if women had more than one child, the demands of work roles and parenting roles would be too great. Having one child could make for a balanced life without undue stress.
If you are a two-career couple, having an only child may be the perfect way to have your cake and eat it, too. You can reap all the rewards of parenthood without being overwhelmed by too many burdens.
Advantages of an Only Child
You spend fewer years raising young children, so you’re less tied down. You also don’t have to spend as many years worrying about child care or as many dollars paying for it.
You can involve the child in your work and your social life. It’s not so hard to take one school-aged child to a friend’s house, to a meeting, or even to some workplaces.
You have more time and attention to give one child. It’s hard enough to juggle one child and a career, but when you have two children, what little “quality time” you do have has to be juggled between both. Parents of only children tre
asure their one-to-one time with their child. Fathers and mothers may take turns having special, intimate reading times or special trips.
Even if you’re a full-time, at-home mother, a one-child family may turn out to be the most satisfying. You have the time to paint, dance, do volunteer work, or pursue other activities you like. Or you might want to revel in motherhood, making natural baby food, starting a play group, and picnicking in the backyard. There are mothers who love these activities with one child but who would not enjoy them as much with two. They would feel frustrated having to divide their attention between two children.
Two children are noisier than one. If you must have a house that rivals a monastery, then you shouldn’t have a child. But if you want a relative balance of child and quiet, you might be more satisfied with just one child.
One child means less distraction. You won’t have two children competing for your attention. You have to referee a lot of fights. Also there are no guarantees that siblings would actually enjoy each other’s company. Even if they do get along, they may have very different interests that make it hard to plan joint family activities. One child makes planning easier.
Disadvantages to Having an Only Child
Some only children demand a lot of attention because they lack companionship. You can solve this problem by helping your child make arrangements to be with her friends, but this doesn’t always work. Winter snowstorms and summer vacations may deprive your child of companionship, while other children have siblings as built-in companions. However, don’t let this problem hold you back from having an only child. Most parents of only children prefer the hassle of making social arrangements for one child to the far greater hassles of raising two children. Play dates are popular with all families so typically they are not hard to arrange.
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