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Should we be worrying if we adopt in our forties and beyond? Are we just too dang old?
One of my favorite readers on this blog might think so. She’s commented on many of our posts, and has this to say about older parent adoptions:
Older parents lack patience and are set in their ways. I am the child of older parents, as is my husband and best friend. We all hate it. If I could discourage older people from adoption I WOULD!!! It isn’t fair for the child, and so often I think it is just selfish human nature because people want it all.
I have yet to meet an older parent who I think has done it well, or met a child of an older parent who was happy with that situation.
I actually am in a support for children of older parents. I’m trying to see an upside of older parenting, which is why I read this blog. But i haven’t seen one yet, and when older parents talk about becoming parents they almost never talk about their children. It is always about themselves and how happy the child made them. Awful, just awful.
She says we are selfish and I guess we are. We want to grow our families, be parents, and love children. Some of us may also have altruistic purposes for adopting, but even those could be selfish as well.
As older parents should we just call is quits and say enough is enough and we are just too old to parent?
I think not.
Good news from the home front!
Medicinenet says:
Indeed, some doctors say they are reassured by the stability of older parents. “They’ve made a conscious decision to have a baby,” says William Gilbert, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center. “That’s very reassuring to me, as opposed to younger parents who haven’t grown up themselves
Now, that’s not to say our dear reader above doesn’t have some strong points. Some parents may be too stuck in their ways to parent over forty. Yet could that be true of some parents in their thirties as well?
Maybe you are just too old to kick around a football when you are older.
Again, not true:
Stamina? Staying power? “People age at different rates,” says Richard Paulsen, MD, of the University of Southern California fertility center. And Hinman, an older parent himself, points out that a bookish 30-year-old parent may be less likely to get out on the soccer field with the kids than would a fit 60-year-old. Furthermore, the 60-year-old is likely to have more time to spend with a child, as well as more patience.
Obviously I’m using the above quotes to protect and confirm my own point of view.
But that’s the point.
And maybe adopting vs giving birth at a later age may make a difference. I’m not sure.
MM, dear reader, I’m not alienating you, respond!
Anyone else care to comment?
Ok, this irritates me truly! My grandmother was an older mom (36 and 40 respectively) and my other grandma ran circles around me when I was in my teens ( she skated, water skiied, went back to college all in her 50s and 60s). Everyone is different, granted, but to say that being parented by an older parent is a deficit? I think being in an orphanage and without parents is a true deficit not complaining because your parents were “too old”! How about those kids who never had parents or whose parents were horribly abusive and neglectful! It seems like they are the ones who really have something to complain about. As a school teacher who loves the energy of her hs school students and who is not so set in her ways that she cannot make room for her beautiful adopted son at the ripe OLD age of 42, well, I find the complaint frustrating and narrow. Obviously, I lack information about this person’s particular experience, but as someone who does triathlons and who’s brother just completed an Ironman at 39 – I don’t really get the issue!
JMHO – Romee
Romee,
Thanks for the comment! I’m hoping that MM won’t go into hiding after this one!. She’s really posted some great comments over the months that have got us thinking.
Obviously as an older mom I agree with you!
Well, I may have been a bit harsh, but I have spent my life in education and some of my student’s stories are truly heartbreaking. I can assure you they would have gone home with someone who would love and parent them regardless of age, and I think that is what matters most of all.
Life is imperfect, awful things happen and at the end of the day it is the people we love and who love us that matter more than anything.
Romee
Well I’m TRYING to be more open minded and educated and am willing to concede the point that fourty today isn’t what forty was twenty seven years ago when I was born. My DH and I live in the most liberal part of the country where most people don’t even become parents until their late thirties to mid forties. I’ve got a lot of examples to look at and talk to. I’ve even been talking to my counselor about some issues with my own older parents. However, consistantly around here I see bad parenting from older parents, unfortunantly this area of the country abounds with awful parents, but I see it over and over again with the older parents around here.
As far as patience, I’ve always heard from older people “I’m not as patient as I used to be”
I’ve got more to process, but as always I LOVE your blogs, even though I don’t agree with much. I think it is great that I can post when I heartly disagree and you don’t remove what I have to say.
Remove it? I’m using it!
Mmhh, interesting. I could say the same about the parenting I see from the younger parents I encounter who married right out of high school. Or even a previous boyfriend who married in his twenties and who’s family and children are a mess. I would have made an AWFUL parent in my twenties and early thirties. I had so much to learn about myself and all of the issues from my parenting experiences (incidentally, not by older parents).
I would be interested to hear what some of the awful parenting is that you are seeing from these older parents so I can watch to see that I don’t commit the same mistakes. I don’t agree with you about older parenting being the problem, but I am always open to learn.
BTW I have been in therapy for years for issues created by my parents, but I don’t see it related to age (obviously, they were in their midtwenties), but related to family dynamics, poor role models, and all of the other stuff that creates disfunctional family environments.
Good luck in your journey!
Romee
Okay great example and a fairly common one that I see frequently around here. Older mom at the pizza place, remember I’m in a city. We are in line on the sidewalk for pizza and my dh, friend and I are sitting eating our pizza listening to awesome live jazz. Okay mom has very nice expensive stroller and is about fifty with a son around three. He runs away, down the street toward the corner. She won’t leave her expensive stroller to chase her son. Waits for someone to come along so she can have them watch her stroller while she FINALLY chases after her son WHEN he is in the middle of the street. Bad parenting, absolutly, but I’ve seen it in younger parents too. It just seems younger parents aren’t as attached to their possessions as older parents are.
It seems many many older parents don’t raise their children, but hire nannies to do it for them, nannies who are in their twenties. not all though
I disagree with that line of thought.
My parents are in the process of adopting. They’re older. Adopting an older child. And while they may have certain things that they’re “set in their ways about” (uhm, don’t we all)… gosh, they just have a LOT to offer a child. SO MUCH. Why should we tell them NO if they WANT to do it?
Blah.
Hey MaryMartha,
I think you need to pull your head out of its shell. Older people more attached to their “things?” I think this is a HUGE overgeneralization and for the most part, down right wrong. We are at the age where we realize that possessions don’t mean a hell of a lot.
I think I’ve responded to this in the past, but I’ll say it again. No one age group has a monopoly on good or bad parenting. There are a gazzilion support groups for unhappy kids, unhappy parents, etc. etc. Older parents don’t have a monopoly on the bad parenting market.
I started parenting at 20 and restarted at 53. I’ve gotten better with age and my daughter will benefit from my enthusiasm, love and devotion – all the things my own mother was lacking when she had me at 32.
AMEN
NO I agree that I need to learn more about older parents, and stop with my issues, which is part of the reason that I read these blogs. As far as Jennas comment that we should tell them NO because they want to do it, well why not. People want to do lots of things that aren’t necessarily good for themselves, their children, or society in general. Where did this thought of letting people do what makes them feel good come from? There is more to life than making yourself feel good. And good for your parents for adopting an older child, awesome.
Well, hiring a nanny is not a horrible thing is it? I was a nanny and a good one right out of college. There are a host of parents of all ages with children in childcare. In this day and age childcare, unfortunately, has become a necessity for many families. Most families simply cannot afford nannies, by the way
I would never leave my expensive stroller (ha, ha – 10 bucks from a garage sale) while my child runs down the street. That is bad parenting at any age.
I am glad you read these blogs and are interested in both views. There are downsides (and upsides) to parenting at any age, I just dislike generalizations about anything. It is like meeting five people of Hispanic descent who cannot speak English and saying “Most Hispanics cannot speak English” or “My dad was a lousy father and an engineer so all engineers will make lousy fathers.”
I have never met someone at any age that had children for only altruistic reasons – every hear these comments – “He looks just like his dad,” “She is such a mama’s girl” said with a huge smile. Having children in this day and age at any age involves pure and selfish motives. To paint older parents as only wanting children to make them feel good is awfully simplistic – sure, it feels good to be a mom – but I want my son to grow up to be the best person he can be, to feel loved and cherished, and to feel he can achieve whatever he wants.
Adoption at any age is rarely a “Gee, I think I’ll add a baby to my decor this year” kind of thought. I have been pondering it since my twenties but I was too busy dating and touring the world and being seriously selfish to consider it seriously. Now I have.
As for the patience thing? I am so much more patient now than when I was younger. I think the only difference now is that I have the confidence to speak up and say something if it bugs me. I have always had infinite patience with children – my nieces, my nephews, my students and now my son (which is not to say that I haven’t been irritated or angry at them at some point).
I am sorry that you had a difficult childhood with older parents. I don’t believe teenagers should have children but that does not mean that all teenagers will make lousy parents.
Romee
Thanks Romee you made some great points
Sorry for my broad generalizations.
wow Michelle, this was a good one. i’m sorry that i missed it. i haven’t checked the boards all week. marymartha you know we love you. i am always tickled by your passionate viewpoints and your strong statements. from your very first post to this blog i could tell that you never intended to offend you just wanted to voice your opinion. great job Michelle. it would be neat if i got a dissenting reader like MM to start visting over on my other blog like she does. i like the way we can go round and round with our disagreements and not end up bashing each other’s heads in!
oh, and i forgot to mention, the one point that MM made that really made me give her viewpoint some serious consideration is the thing about older mothers trying to “have it all.” i definitely think there’s some merit to that. i don’t know if there’s anything wrong with wanting to have it all, but when that becomes the be all and end all to making very important decisions such as having a baby or adopting,no matter how old you are, then it seems like there’s something not right bout that.