While reading another thread, I was thinking about something that had passed my mind some time ago but I kind of lost until now. It seemed most of the people I went to school with as a child were born when their parents were in their 20s. Now a days (or at least in my circle), it’s the norm to have kids in your late 20s if not to start in your 30s. Some people start later than that. So, with this logic, the later you have children the less time you have to be a grandparent. If we keep pushing this, it will be become the norm for your parents to be dead by the time you have children. So, here’s my question. Do you think grandparents will ever become extinct so to speak? If we become a cultural (or world) without grandparents, how will this affect children?
I don’t think so. While the upper age limit for parenthood is being pushed back, there are still plenty of people having children at an early age when their parents are still alive.
My family is on it’s 4th or 5th generation of having children in the middle-30’s. So… my dad’s mom was in her 30’s when she had him, and dad was in his middle 30’s when I arrived. I still knew grandma. You see, if you live to be 90 or so that’s all possible, and dad’s side does tend to live long.
It’s more great-grandparents who tend to disappear, although my dad still seems quite healthy and may yet meet his great-grandkids (we just don’t want to hurry the younger generation into reproducing).
So no, I don’t think grandparents will disappear.
Remember that life expectancy is increasing. So, those in the grandparent generation are staying around longer to be able to interact with those of their grandchildren born to “mature” parents. For example, my grandmother was in her mid-30s when she had my father and he was pushing 40 when I was born. My grandmother lived to be about 103 years old (and kept her mental faculties), so we had time to get to know each other well.
Realistically, there is a limit to how far back maternal age can be pushed, so it’s unlikely we’ll get to the point where the “average” age of the mother is much older that late thirties.
I was born when my parents were 34 and 36. My grandparents were also in their mid thirties when my parents were born, with the exception of my maternal grandmother. Although she was the youngest, she was the second to die when I was five. The others died when I was 4, 12 and 22. I can’t really remember the ones who died when I was 4 and 5, but I remember the other two. My granny (the one who died when I was 22) lived to be 99 and even had great grandchildren.
The biggest issue in my experience is that not only are older grandparents less able to help with babysitting etc, but more likely to need help with their own lives, leading to a tough time for parents trying to look after teenage children and elderly parents simultaneously.
On the other hand, retired grandparents are a lot more available to help with babysitting and such: if someone becomes a grandmother at 50, they will likely be working until the grandchildren are in high school.
I am 38 and my best friend growing up has already been a grandfather for a year so certain part of the population is still keeping the younger grandparent torch alive. As stated, there isn’t that much that can be done right now for female fertility. Don’t let the magazine articles of celebrities fool you. Very little progress has been made in extending the female reproductive lifespan. She was born with a set of eggs and when they are infertile, that is it unless she wants to use donated eggs from a younger donor with unrelated DNA.
If all females pushed off childbirth until their later productive years at say, starting at 35, that still leaves a lot of room for grandparent. Only some segments of the population push it that far and grandparent life expectancy is also increasing towards the 80’s and beyond so there isn’t any reason to think that it will ever be routine for kids never to know their grandparents.
There are still plenty of people willing to have kids in their teens and very early twenties. The best time for most professionals is after they have finished school and established an income in their mid to late twenties and that isn’t going to change much.
How old was your friend when he became a father? For that equation to work either he or his child was a teen when they gave birth.
Well, you could always freeze your eggs when you’re in your 20s and have low risk for things. Possibly become pregnant later in life. Or take it a step further and have someone carry your fertilized egg for you at any time.
No offense, but I don’t know anyone who was willing to have children in their teens. Every teen parent I ever ran into didn’t plan that. In my area, it’s very frowned upon. While early 20s is accepted, it seems more people are putting off.
This is was just hypothecial situation. I’m more curious about what affects not having grandparents (or the majority of familes not having them) would have on children and society as awhole.
My best friend was 18 as as the mother of his child and out of high school when they had their first child. Their son did the same so that works to 37 plus plus change for grandparent status. They are still married.
Just because you don’t know any people willing to do that doesn’t mean that much because the question is about people as a whole. A large percentage of the world population and even many American subpopulations considers having a first child in the late teens through early twenties perfectly normal. Having a first child in the early 30’s or later as a convention is a rather new first world phenomenon and it isn’t sustainable by itself. It is risky to begin with and results in net population decreases in the people that practice it, especially European and Asian countries like Japan. Those are supplanted by people that reproduce younger and more often. Getting married and having a first child late is a common strategy for professional females here in the Boston. The plan falls apart quickly for many of them once they pass 30 because they didn’t start the multi-year steps early enough to do it the traditional and a large percentage of the ones I know that purposely tried to start late remain single and will probably never have kids unless they can manage a way to adopt one and even that is iffy.
You can find examples of females that have managed to freeze eggs and conceive their first child at 40 but you generally don’t hear of all the ones that tried and failed and then tried some more and gave up because they ran out of money. The latter make up the silent majority of them and many of the successes are with babies they delivered but aren’t genetically theirs. Modern fertility treatments can do lots of things but extending the lifespan of female eggs is not one of them. Without a major breakthrough, most children will know some of their grandparents because of increased life expectancy of those grandparents and the inability for most females to have children later in life.
Just wanted to pop in and go off on a tangent, to say my grandmother is 106 and is a great-great-grandparent. I wonder what it feels like to know your grandchild is a grandparent themselves?
Seriously, The Dope is either filled with liars or people who tapped into the elixiar of life. You’re not the first person on here to claim you have a relative who’s made it past the century mark. To my knowledge the number of people who made it past 100 is pretty rare.
I’m not calling you a liar, but I seriously do think some Dopers are fibbing a bit about how old their kinfolk is.
[hijack]Would you like to see my Nana’s long-form birth certificate? :rolleyes: I did use the weasel word “about” because my grandmother was not from the USA and was born in a very rural area where registering births wasn’t the virtually automatic process it is in the Western world these days. However, we do know when she died, and by cross-referencing her baptismal record with other family records we know she was at least 99 years old and very probably 103, or close to it, when she died.
FWIW, our family has more documentation on her father, and this shows he was at least 106 years old when he died and probably closer to 110 (but he was not in good health for most of his later years).
Aside from my grandmother, I have known at least two centenarians (non-relatives) who reached advanced age still in fairly good health (could walk, were mentally acute, had few chronic health problems).[/hijack]
It’s just not very likely that there should be very many people with such elderly ancestors on such a small message board…
If a man hits 110 and a half, he’s already among the hundred oldest men of all time. Among live men and women, there are only several hundred people of age >= 110 in the entire world. Of course, the numbers increase as one falls further towards 100, but how many people can be up there? (Reminder: “hundreds” is a very, very, very small number of people, and almost all collections of hundreds of people have empty intersection with the SDMB)
And how small do you think this message board is? Membership here is in the five digits, and anyone 100+ with descendants is going to have a lot of descendants in most cases.
The posters aren’t claiming to be 100+ themselves, they’re claiming to be related to such a person, and relatives of such persons is a MUCH larger set of people than the one containing those 100+.
I don’t have much qualm with claims of mere centenarian ancestors; it’s claims in the higher echelons of centenarian-hood which seem more questionable. But, at any rate, I don’t really have much qualm with those either; YaraMateo’s comment inspired me to look at the numbers, but I no longer wish to continue in any ensuing argument.
My grandmother is 95, and my oldest cousin’s children are entering college now, so becoming a great-great-grandmother is certainly possible for her by the time she reaches 100. At 25 years to a generation, that’s not all that extreme.
If Shagnasty’s friend’s family has followed the same pattern of 19 years to a generation, that would mean that his great grandparents became great-great-great-grandparents) before 100.
More to the topic, on the other side of the coin, I’m over 40 and my fiancee’s parents are older than mine, so the grandparents of my children might be over 70 by the time they’re born. Presuming our parents live beyond 90, my kids will still know having grandparents, but not quite the same way I knew mine. If they wait as long as me to have children, I might be too old for my grandchildren to know me at all.
Consequences? Fewer people to watch your kids when needed, fewer Christmas presents, and probably worst of all, fewer amusing stories about the good old days.
I think that’s one of the worst aspects of waiting to have children. Grandparents fill a specific and special role for both the grandchild and the grandparent. I sure hope all that financial security is worth the tradeoff.
I mean, you could drive a Ford and give your parents and your children the benefit of that special relationship, or wait and get that Lexus, but have your parents miss a meaningful ability to participate in a full relationship and have your children know your parents as doddering old fools. Even 70 year olds in great health have physical limits, and most 70 year olds are not in that great of shape.
According to Wikipedia, there are over 70,000 centenarians in the US. Also in the US, the average person has two children. Which means those centenarians can have a lot of descendents.
It would be more far-fetched if nobody claimed to have a 100+ year old relative.
I think this is overstating the case a little. As I said before, grandparents who work 40+ hours a week and live a couple states away are not exactly in a position to play a role in a kids’ life: grandparents who are retired are much more likely to help with childcare and otherwise be involved. I’m also not sure how “spry” you need to be to play a big role: grandparents who can’t play tag can still watch TV with kids, have kids help them cook a meal, attend school functions, listen as kids talk about their day etc., etc.
One of the oldest women living women in Europe (I think France but I’m not sure) actually has no children. Then again, she claims part of the reason she made it too over 100 is she never had sex. So… :rolleyes: