2019 US Census data published in a US News article from May of 2022 says that over the past three decades, birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and jumped for women in their late 30s and early 40s. The trend has pushed the median age of U.S. women giving birth from 27 to 30, the highest on record.
Motherhood also has been coming later in developed countries in Europe and Asia. In the US, it could contribute to the nation’s population slowdown since the ability to have children tends to decrease with age, said Kate Choi, a family demographer at Western University in London, Ontario.
We thought it might be interesting to talk to moms who had children in each of these decades as kind of a compare/contrast exercise of how motherhood might feel differently depending on the age of a mom.
So on today’s episode, we have a mom in her 20’s: Emma Goodwyn (had Dottie @ 22)
Danielle Cunningham: had son Jack at age 32 and daughter Kate @ 35
Stephanie Wolfe: had first child, Hannah, at age 27 and last child, Maisie at 43.
**Bonnie: I was 27 when I had my first child (back in 1996), and 30 when the second was born. Had been married 5 years.
**Renee: Same. We had our kids around the same times.
Just curious to look at some of the factors that went into each of our personal decisions to have a child when we did. Recognize each family’s decision to have or not have children is personal to them, obviously. Infertility or pregnancy loss can play a part in timing that probably wasn’t in your plan/expectations.
Poll each.
—Worth noting that the average age of MARRIAGE has increased in the US to 34, which probably affects the jump in the avg age of giving birth. Although, in today’s culture/society, you can purposefully have a child without being married, ideally, traditionally, marriage would offer the secure environment you’d want or need before having a child. Two-parent families are definitely more financially able to raise children than single-parent households, for example, not to mention having that balance and someone to share the load.
(Disclaimer) I know some older women choose the single parent route because maybe they’re biologically running out of time to have a child and they don’t want to wait for a relationship that might never happen. Others may get pregnant unintentionally and choose to become mothers earlier than they’d planned. There may be different permutations, but in THIS episode, for our demographic, we’re focusing on married women who chose to become mothers within that family unit.
Let’s start with Danielle, since having a baby in your 30’s is currently on trend. It seems like kind of a sweet spot: you’ve had time to go to school, work on a career or vocation for a period, save a little money, be married a minute, and become more comfortable with YOU. Does that ring true for you?
Did that mean that Jack’s arrival was smooth & an easy transition? (Or maybe it was a tougher transition b/c you’d had longer just being comfortable with things the way you & your husband liked them??) Having a solid marriage foundation was great for them. She & her husband felt “ready,” as ready as you ever are for kids. After their first child, they experienced secondary infertility for years and were surprised to learn they had a second child on the way after several years.
Emma: You’d been married a relatively short time when you had Dottie. At 24, looking around at other moms in your community/circle, did you feel different? (Fewer moms your age to relate to? Harder to find compatible friends?) Your stage in life is one where typical 20-somethings are striving—trying to make inroads into a career, use their education, maybe explore/travel/save for a house, etc…. Did having a child make this a different journey?
Society has an expectation of what women should be doing before the age of 25–and that is definitely not marriage/motherhood. Being young doesn’t necessarily equate with “naive” or “immature.” Have you heard those sorts of implications? “‘Aren’t you too young to be a mom?’ ‘What about the rest of your life?’ ‘Don’t you want to travel?’ ‘
Stephanie: How about your experience? While you were not a FIRST-TIME mom in your 40s, there was an age gap between your third child and your last one. How would you describe the difference between you as “Hannah’s mom” versus you as “Maisie’s mom?”
Did you have a similar experience to Emma—did you have a harder time finding other compatible moms with kids your age?
Ability to have children tends to decrease with age. A woman’s peak reproductive years are between the late teens and late 20s. By age 30, the ability to get pregnant starts to decline and becomes more rapid once you reach your mid-30s. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely for most women.
OLDER MOMS vs. YOUNGER MOMS: Older moms have more wisdom/life experience, more money/resources, more or less patience?? (more set in their ways like not getting married until later?)
More financial resources might give you ability to hire help. Fewer resources might force you to be more creative or have “less stuff”
Are older moms more tired? Do they have less energy? (think of the sleepless nights that come with a newborn/toddler).
What pregnancy/birth does to your body? Higher risk pregnancies, higher incidents of genetic issues, bladder, ability to bounce back/lose baby weight, etc.; Labeled “advanced maternal age” (geriatric!!)
Mental health? (“what others think,” comparing, unpacking issues)—how do these differ between decades and how might that affect your parenting?
Physical health: maybe you were a partier in your 20s, eating whatever you wanted and not exercising much? Later in life, you (or your metabolism forced you) to straighten up and get healthier?
The timeline: the reciprocal to having children younger is that you get to the empty nest phase at an earlier age & have more healthy years to enjoy that phase. You’re younger when your kids graduate high school and college.
As an older mom, you maybe sacrifice some of that “retirement age” to seeing your youngest through school/launching.
Contrary to some arguments, advances in healthcare and people’s attitudes about exercise and staying fit indicate that older mothers live a long time. A study in Menopause Journal examined older mothers’ life expectancy and found that women who had their last child after the age of 33 are likely to live to 95. In fact, researchers reported that these women had twice the chance of living to 95 or older than those who had their last child before their 30th birthday. The good news for women having babies after 40 is similar.
Renee read from a book called Them Before Us, which spurred some discussion on what it means to take things in seasons and how sacrifice for a time is not the unthinkable some cultures imply it is.