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Lete’s start with a few headlines from recent times…
‘ RODS A DAD AGAIN AT 60! ‘ - Rod Stewart welcomes latest baby with young wife Penny Lancaster
‘ROCK STAR RICK PARFITT ON BEING A DAD TO TWINS AT 59′ - Rocker Ricks joy at birth of children
‘JULIO WELCOMES BABY A BABY BOY’ - Julio Iglesias reveals baby joy at age 63
‘ NEW BABY FOR GREAT GRANDAD JULIO IGLESIAS AT 87! ‘ - Julio’s 87 year old father becomes a dad again.
Now, try this…
‘ CANADIAN WOMAN, 60, GIVES BIRTH TO TWINS ‘ - Doctor questions implications of someone that age having children…
‘ 66 YEAR OLD WOMAN SET TO BECOME BRITAIN’S OLDEST MOTHER ‘ - pregnancy reignites debate over older motherhood…
Oh boy, talk about the old double standard! but why ?…why is there a debate at all over women past the age of fifty becoming a mother when obviously it is perfectly acceptable for men who are well past it to become dads? just look at the the discrepancy in those headlines – it is always ‘joy’ when an elderly male celebrity sires a child – when an older female does the same thing it is ‘controversial’.
The debate actually surrounds women over fifty being given access to fertility treatment; we all know that men remain relatively fertile into their 90’s (though their little ’swimmers’ reduce in number and ability) The problem is that with men it is natural and with women it requires medical intervention. But it is the attitude that bothers me: old dad’s – yes; old mum’s – no. Once again I ask, why?
Okay, so an older Mum might not live to see her baby reach the age of 18, 25, 0r 30. So…? how many of us who have our children at the age of 20 or 22 have complete assurance we will be alive a couple of years down the line. Jade Goody died at the age of 27 leaving two little boys without a Mum – does this mean we ban young female cancer sufferers from attempting motherhood ‘in case they die’…? of course we don’t.
Then there is the old chestnut ” nature designed menopause for a good reason…” - and bollocks to that one! nature ‘designed’ menopause way back in our evolutionary phase when females gave birth at a very young age (ten, eleven, twelve years of age) and also died at a very young age. Even just 100 years ago a woman’s life expectancy was just 50 years old – now we live well into our 90’s, generally outlive men and enjoy better health.
Medicines, good nutrition and better standards of living have changed this – so what is wrong with altering another aspect of female health, fertility? a woman used to be lucky to live long enough to enter menopause and when she did she died within a few short years of it. Now women are spending an average of 35 years being fertile and 45 being infertile. Nature has not gotten around to correcting this aspect though more women today are entering menopause at a later age.
We do not question elderly men for their ‘irresponsibility’ at becoming a parent late in life but we question a woman; why do we not remind Rod Stewart that he will probably not see his youngest child get married but then call a woman the same age as him selfish because she will be the oldest Mum at the school gate…?
It is not as if we have an entire population of women in their sixties or seventies about to fill the maternity wards, most women that age are trying to keep up with grandchildren let alone consider pregnancy again – and yet when we hear of just one or two women in that age group falling pregnant through IVF we all go into condemnation-mode and wince with disgust. So why should we feel so threatened when an isolated case like Elizabeth Adeney comes up?
Why should older dads be praised and admired and older mums vilified ? – why should elderly men have their viagra when IVF is denied to older women? why should the female body be expected to go ‘into retirement’ and stay there while men’s are being praised for still functioning…?
In my opinion we should be focusing on the growing problem of 13 and 14 year old females falling pregnant – we should be saving our disgust for those females in their 20’s who neglect, abuse and kill their children. We should be directing our outrage at a Govt which encourages and finances dysfunctional homes and irresponsible breeding.
And when we read about women like 66 year old Elizabeth Adeney we should actually be happy for her and her baby; that child is wanted, it will be loved and whether he/she has a mother for 10 years or 25 (very likely) it will be better cared for than children like baby Peter who had younger mothers but certainly had no happy life.
Copyright © 2007-2010 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.
Actually, I don’t think old age parenthood is fine for men or women.
Don’t forget that older paternal age is a major risk factor for schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder etc.etc. in the offspring.
Men are getting congratulated for still being virile enough to get a woman pregnant. Happens no matter what age they are but the older they are the more unusual and therefore the most publicized. We don’t think of their motives in fathering a child. We assume it was the happy by-product of having sex.
Whereas women are being condemned for their motives. Having a baby post menopause is not possible without medial intervention. So it is not the outcome of having sex. It is the outcome of a complicated and costly medical procedure. As such it can be seen as a pathetic attempt to cling to youth. Much like a face lift. Mutton dressed as motherhood.
Yes, and I don’t know why people get so worked up because the number of older women having babies is no where near the high number of men over 55/60 becoming late-life fathers. Look how many faded rock stars and actors have younger partners and young children. But thats okay it seems.
Until nature rethinks and applies menopause later on in a womans life it will always require medical intervention for an older woman wanting a baby. I think society is just uncomfortable with older women and fertility being combined – older women are supposed to accept what nature throws at them whereas an older man just needs to find a younger partner if he wishes another baby naturally. I would like to know since when menopause became a compulsory condition with a ‘no going back’ clause included.
I don’t think society is uncomfortable with fertility and older women being combined. In fact the opposite. There are many 40 something first time mothers around who, mind you, conceived without assistance.
It is natural for a ovulating woman to conceive. It is natural for a man at any age to inseminate an ovulating woman.
It is not natural for a post menopausal woman to conceive. It is entirely unnatural and that is what people react to. Doing the unnatural.
It was also unnatural for women to live beyond the menopause at one stage; humans actually have the same life expectancy of a chimpanzee – it has been changes in social infrastructure that has seen humans live to the age of 70,80 and 90 today. In many countries the life expectancy of men and women is still 35/40. The simple act of doctors starting to wash their hands between patients back in the late 19th century saw people surviving illness and operations – it was not the introduction of antiseptics, just basic improvement in hygiene. People living to 100 in the 19th century was unnatural – today many can expect to do so.
Already we have people starting to live to be 120 and the oldest person in the world was a woman who died recently at the age of 130 – who ever would have thought such a thing would happen? this will happen more often over the next century and beyond. So what will be the fuss about a woman having a baby at the ‘young’ age of 60??? -none, it will not be an issue in the future.
Many concepts that were ‘unnatural’ even 50 years ago are perfectly ‘natural’ today. I can see a time when women will be able to choose if, or when, they become menopausal. There are many things we humans do that we were not evolved to do but now can due to medical ‘intervention’ and changes in social and environmental factors.
Also worth noting is that in the 1800s when average life expectancy for people was around 35, they were dying of old age at that age. However, that’s the “natural” lifespan for humans.
Although men may well produce sperm until they are well over 60, I suspect that viagra has an effect on the production of children from those men at the older end of the age range. Thus, whilst the sperm might in principle be around, the viagra surely makes it an “un-natural” reproduction, doesn’t it?
That said, the issue surely is not so much whether or not the reproductive process was “natural” (which strictly speaking would mean one that never involved doctors or hospitals ie there are next to no “natural” births in the civilised world) but whether or not the parents will be around long enough to give their offspring a good start in life. If one takes the lifespan of 35 as the “natural” one and with conception around 15 (typical in the 1800s) then 20 years would seem to be the “natural” period of support for one’s offspring. Therefore in that a 60 year old can reasonably expect to live into their 90s that seems to be fine as would conception into the early 70s. Yes, that probably sounds “un-natural” but then life spans over 90 aren’t “natural” either. And, of course, there are women who are still naturally fertile into their 60s already so any assistance to other women who aren’t fertile quite so long is merely giving them equality with those who are.
In some ways this can only get “worse” in the decades to come as the gradual increase in life-expectancy seems sure to continue for quite some time. Those in their 50s can already expect to clear 100 and the only potential show-stopper would seem to be that we currently use around 10% of our brain over our lifetime which would imply an absolute upper limit of getting on for 1000 (don’t expect anyone to live that long anytime soon though!).
When 100 years old becomes a natural normal life span then perhaps I would agree that a 70 year old woman is within her right to have a baby. Also, if a 60 year old woman had a 25 year old husband like the male celebs mentioned have 25 year old wives I would say go for it. Most 20 year old guys do not want to date that old of a woman .
In this economy what pair in there 60’s could even afford to pay for the IVF and the cancers that may result? Not just the mothers, but the babies too. IVF children suffer from a rare genetic syndrome called wiedlemans? at 6 times the rate of the typical child? That means everyones taxes go up! It also means the child could be dieing, loose both there parents and be in poverty there whole life.
If even one young kid has to go through this for a woman in her 60’s to have her dream come true then I would have to say there should be an age limit. Also, if poor elderly women can not have access then nether should rich ones. Many of them are just as worthy to be moms but can not afford to outright buy an egg.
BTW, those donor eggs in some countries like Hungary and Bosnia are perchase from under aged girls parents. The girl then may never be able to have her own baby. Is that fair? Don’t believe it? There is a youtube video about it from a Russian news agency.
I agree with what you say – I was merely questioning societies attitudes towards aging parents. I see nothing wrong with a woman in her fifties becoming a mother in fact my great-grandmother had her last, and 13th, child at the age of 51 with no ill-effects whatsoever. She lived until she was 94 so her daughter had her mum well into her own forties. I do disagree strongly with IVF being given to those very elderly women in India – 71 years old for a first baby is simply ridiculous and that woman is now dying as a result of complications from that pregnancy. This has nothing to do with her being ‘wrinkled’ and nobody’s idea of a ‘glowing pregnant woman’ but the fact that a 70 year old body is not going to do the job of carrying a baby any where near that of a younger woman. The baby she had was sickly and underweight – like she was before she began her IVF. I also think that nature deemed some women’s bodies NOT to carry a pregnancy and to force that body into pregnancy through endless rounds of IVF and other intervention is irresponsible and asking for trouble.