@Leanne1986 I take offense to your “I know plenty of great older mothers, but in general…” I have high school classmates that have grandchildren older than my daughter. Granted that’s because they had their kids in high school… but some of your statements felt like direct personal attacks – because I am exactly who you are describing. Other people could think “Hey, you’re talking about ME” or “You’re talking about my MOM there.”
There are distinct advantages and disadvantages to every age to have kids. I don’t think older parents inherently mean you get a bum deal. I think my daughter would have gotten a lower quality mom if I had her younger.
In my teens, I would have been one of the classic teen moms who goes out on the town partying and leaving their kids with random relatives trying to pretend I didn’t have a kid.
In my twenties, I would have really resented having a kid. I was busy traveling around the country and performing onstage. I did NOT want the responsibility of a kid and I would have had to either seriously cramp my lifestyle and give up stuff or do the classic teen mom thing and leave her at the doorstop of relatives.
In my thirties, I would have been too darned busy for kids. I went back to college and was still traveling around the country.
Now I’m 41 and done traveling and done most of the stuff I wanted to do. This is the right age for ME and I think my daughter is getting a better quality mom because I’m more focused on her than pining away for lost opportunities or dreams.
I think of how many countless people who have told me stories about how their mothers resented them when they were kids because their moms had to give up so many things to be a mom. My daughter won’t feel that pain. I think that’s a distinct advantage to being older that you can’t fake in the younger ages—well, unless you’re uncreative and don’t have enough wild ideas and dreams to fill out that many years.
It’s not up to other people to decide what’s best for the people directly involved with a decision. It would be easy to tell disabled people that it’s not fair to the kids to have “crippled” parents. Or you could tell the interracial couple that it wasn’t fair to the kids to be “mixed race”. You might think it’s OK because you don’t have those particular prejudices, but someone out there does. It’s not really any of your business or my business what people decide to do about having kids unless they do such a horrible job that social services must intervene.