Good point. I like the idea of making a commitment to physically be available to your children at least until they’re grown, and even beyond. Even with my own sons, I was too often guilty of thinking about what they meant to me rather than what I mean to them; and my wife even more so.
Even if she lives to be a hundred, when I was a child I liked doing stuff with my parents. Going to a conservation area and enjoying nature. Playing frisbee or catching a ball.
I can’t imagine the world of “No. Mommy can’t go to the Pioneer Village, there are too many stairs. We can go to the zoo, but we have to see the animals from a distance because mommy needs to stay on the little train that shuttles you past the exhibits. No, Daddy can’t play catch wwith you, with his arthritis the glove hurts his hand.”
That just seems sort of sad to me. These children will be spending a good chunk of their childhood assisting their parents when it’s usually the other way around.
Get him a puppy.
We have a 1-1/2 year old graddaughter whom we have overnight ,on average, every week to 10 days. We dearly love her, but she completely wears us out!
Of course we’d step up and take responsibility should tragedy befall her parents, but having one of our own in our mid 50’s? Insanity! My wife, still not “100%” five years after chemo, could survive parenthood if thrust upon her, but pregnancy would be out of the question.
The woman referenced by the OP did those twins and their 6-year-old brother no favors by not getting the older siblings on board with this as the older siblings will quite likely end up raising unwanted younger siblings and resenting the Hell out of it.
I certainly wouldn’t want to be raised by someone who didn’t want me to begin with and harbors great resentment over being stuck with me.
I don’t think having a baby at 40 is the same thing as having a baby at 60. 40 isn’t that old and most women are still naturally fertile at 40, it’s not the same situation at all. The fact that his mother may never see her grandkids or be able to do much with them has nothing to do with her age when she had her son but his age when he finally decides to have kids.
They shouldn’t have had the six year old. It’s what zenith said: they created an “outsider” situation for their kid, and now they’re compounding it. Guys, you don’t get to have two families.
I don’t think its the same situation (I had my kids relatively late), but I don’t think there is a bright line either…there are bad ages to have kids (regardless of natural fertility) in our society. Twelve is too young - and I’d say 19 to 24 is too young for most people (although military wives often start their families young with great success - its a different economic situation than most 19 year olds face). But its some sort of bell curve.
At sometime in your mid to late 30s the curve starts decending again. It becomes just hard to chase after a seven year old learning to ride a two wheeler. Your fertility decreases and age related birth defects start going up. Your risks start increasing that your own health won’t hold through.
Of course, its going to depend on situation - if a couple is healthy and active into their 40s, that makes a lot more sense to continue to have children than a couple that is in poor health to start with. If a couple is well enough off that the child has financial security if Dad retires the day college bills start coming in and can afford a trust if they die, that’s a little different than being unable to provide the financial security. If you have a really close network of family and friends that can pick up for you if the worst happens, that’s different than if you don’t speak to your family, your spouse’s family is incapable of taking care of kids, and you don’t have close friends you’d trust to raise them.
Because the parents are dead by then.
I think Dangerosa’s point about an extended network of family and friends apply to anyone who’s thinking about having kids. It’s just easier to raise them if you have other people around.
That said, I think 45 is about the latest anyone should reproduce. I’m not going to propose legislation or anything, but beyond that age I think they’re rather nuts.
60 is way too old, IMHO.
The milk wont be powdered, but it is WAY past the expiration date.
Gee, the parents aren’t standard issued and a third party is involved? Sounds like the same arguments against gay parents.
Not quite. If my sister and her girlfriend have a baby, they’ll still be around in ten years. They will be active parents who can be physically involved in the kid’s life and able to keep up with the kid’s activity levels.
I know this great kid that is being raised by his grandfather (his mom deserves a Pit thread, she dumped the boy off with his grandfather because she finds having a kid makes complicates the dating scene).
The boy is the caregiver. He’s missing out on a lot of his childhood as a result. His grandfather can’t manage well on his own and relies on the boy to take care of him. That’s not something the grandfather planned, it was foisted on him (although he really does love the boy to pieces and he is a very good, kind-hearted man).
My sister and her girlfriend could have a kid and still be parents. Having a kid at 60 is scary because there is the very real posibility that your roles will be reversed when your child is still just a child.
BTW: my sister and her girlfriend have offered to become Will’s legal guardians if his grandfater has to go into a nursing home. He’s a great kid.
I don’t know how you can make such a statement. You don’t know if your sister and her girlfriend will be here tomorrow. Nobody is guaranteed a future.
Yes, but statistically, if they are younger, the odds are good they will still be around.
Statistically, having a child at 60, the parent will be dead by the time the child is 20, and in fact there are good odds that the child will be an orphan by the time the child is in drivers ed.
Yes, no future is guaranteed. But there is a whole business based around the statistics of when someone may die.
Yeah, there are some similarities. You could argue that a woman giving birth 15 years after menopause is unnatural, too. I still don’t think they are the same at all, though. I think parents have a responsibility to make the best decision for the child when they decide to have kids*, and having a parent who will be dead before you graduate high school is not best for the child.
*Perfect world and all.
True enough, they could both be hit by a bus tomorrow. But they are certainly more likely to be around in ten years and are also much more likely to be able to physically participate activley in the kid’s life during that time.
Thought of a better way of saying it:
It is unlikely that the child of my sister and her girlfriend would lose both parents to natural causes by highschool graduation 18 years from now. It is unlikely that a child born to a 60 year old parents will not lose both parents to natural causes by highschool graduation.
If I was 60, that is something that would weigh heavily in my mind when it came to a responsible choice of briging a child into the world as well as how much I could activley contribute to my child’s enrichment. I’d want to be young enough to play ball with my kid.