The New Graying Parent

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how old parents are these days? Particularly in urban centers? As I write this, I am one of those who had their child well past the age of 30, having delayed motherhood, and apparently adulthood, because I thought I could do it all, meaning the self-focused drive for advanced degrees, world travel, and just plain growing up before feeling mature enough to have a child. And whether I was ready or not is not the issue since we now have him, for better or worse--poor little man.

With that said, I am forever seeing couples, who look old enough to be grandparents, pushing strollers of youngsters, obviously their own offspring. One can no longer assume just because a woman or man is gray, wrinkled, and tired that they are the lucky grandparents since such questions could alienate your child rather quickly from the neighborhood. Now, when I say older, I mean older. I now see with greater frequency couples, who look well into their forties, if not pushing early fifties, the proud papa or mama of a toddler. There was a fair amount of this in LA, the city notorious for men having, not just second families, but working on their third when most of the peers, in other parts of the country, are shopping for retirement communities. But in those sitations--most visible at school functions--their counterpart, otherwise known as wife number 3, was usually blond and younger, significantly younger, like thirty-something to their sixty or, god forbid, seventy-something.

But the aged couple as new parents is a trend, occurring with greater frequency in cities like New York. When I tell people how old I am, they immediately suggest with great optimism, I should have another baby. If one were inclined to do such a thing, then I'm sure I could. Older women with the help of invitro, surrogacy, and all the other aids for couples facing infertility, are having children later than was possible, even ten years ago. Usually at this point, I tell them I have no interest in having a child at my age, even if 40 is now considered young enough to still have another baby. See, we can delay motherhood or parenthood with all the technological advances available to us. But in truth, my body is still 40, each year another muscle a bit achier or just cranky. Tiredness is a constant in my day since my body, which knows its age, is 40. I may appear youthful--with the help of die for the gray, diet and exercise, no botox yet--but I am still 40. Before long, I will be writing and b**ching about night sweats brought on by menopause. There is no getting around this reality of my own mortality. So, no, I don't want to forgo the little sleep I'm able to get, even with my insomnia, for a new little addition to our family.

I guess I have strong views on this new trend. My parents, for their generation, were older parents. Therefore, my mom and dad were always a good 10 or so years older than my friends' parents. Back when I was growing up, women were generally having kids at the ripe old age of 20 or 21, so having a mom who had had me at 30 something was exotic, different, strange. I never thought I would be an older mom, although in this new trend of parents being older, I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. The say the national average for women having children is 25.1, up from what had been the average age in previous generations. I have one friend who'd had her kids, or started having kids in her twenties. She is the only one of my friends, whose kids are now teenagers or tweens, and who herself is in her early forties.

There does seem to be a cultural shift or bias toward women who'd started having kids younger, or rather, closer to the national average in my world. See, if you'd had your kids in your twenties, chances are you don't have a graduate degree since you were a tad too busy being a mom. And forget trying to go to grad school with kids in the house. How anyone would manage such a feat is beyond me. One can also assume you may not have had a full blown career before starting on the "Mommy Track." So, here's the big assumption: you are somehow less accomplished, less educated, and less something since you started a family at an age that is biologically more appropriate, if not culturally appropriate, for those of us so inculcated by the Feminist Movement. And as I watch my friend, the end in sight when her house will be quiet as her kids head off to college in plain view, I have to wonder if she wasn't the smarter one since I'm now just starting Kindergarten, years before I can drop my son off to some remote college far, far away from home.

What does it mean for a generation of kids, whose parents will be in their fifties, if not early sixties by the time they start college? Our mortality keeps getting extended, so that people living into their 100's is happening with greater frequency. And if you'd read the New York Times article from a few months ago, Korean women who live in Fort Lee, New Jersey outlived their counterparts in any other part of the country. Why anyone would want to live that long is beyond comprehension. That 'cutesy' Today show segment where these old, old faces are imposed on the backs of Smuckers jars is my worst nightmare. Needless to say, I will not be moving to Fort Lee, if, God forbid, there is something in that New Jersey drinking water that serves as a strange fountain of youth for Korean women, specifically.

So, I wander around the city, noticing all the old parents, wondering, how do they do it? I'm just tired looking at the ring of fatigue under their eyes. And forget it if they have two. You know my eyes are frozen like that famous Munch painting, "The Scream," with: fear, dread, incredulity, all mixed with a look like, 'you must really be crazy.'