The last child: difficulties faced by mothers who decide to give birth after 40 years

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

They are often mistaken for grandmothers or thought that their children are from different fathers. Or they think that this child "turned out" by accident. Women who have given birth to their last child after crossing the 40-year milestone often meet with misunderstanding in the eyes of others. This social pressure, in turn, stops other mothers dreaming of "one more, last" child - little is said about this in society, and therefore it seems that "people will not understand."

“You have no idea how tired I am of people who think that my children are from different fathers,” complains 46-year-old Claire, who gave birth to her youngest child at the age of 40. - "These people simply cannot understand the desire to have another child and therefore think that he was just a mistake. But believe me, there was no trace of a mistake."

At the time of the birth of their youngest child, Claire and her husband Damion (44 years old) already had two teenage daughters. But Claire was sure that her family could not be complete without a third child. However, her husband did not think so. "It took a long time to persuade Damion, he did not want a third child. But it seemed to me that I literally feel the presence of a little boy at our house. Perhaps this is the feeling that convinced my husband."

In fact, Claire ended up having a baby girl. Before her husband agreed to another child, she had to go to various persuasions: Claire promised that she would get up at night and feed the newborn, that she would pay for the nursery and garden herself, and even that she would invest in paying for a motorcycle for Damion, which would become for her a kind of "ransom." As soon as her husband said yes, Claire became pregnant within a week.

Women who decide to give birth after 40 often have to not only take full responsibility for the child, instead of sharing it with their partner, but also defend their right to the very possibility of getting pregnant "at that age." Claire's friends, for example, used to tell her phrases like "What the hell do you think?" And her older daughters were "shocked, surprised, but in the end they still resigned themselves and were even delighted with this news."

For 45-year-old Nikola, who has two sons, one of whom is 18 years old, and the second - 4, the problem of relations between children is familiar not by hearsay. "My sons get along, but this is not a brother-to-brother relationship, rather an uncle and nephew. For the younger, the elder is just another adult in the house."

Nicola, like Claire, at one time faced condemnation from other people. “When I was eight months pregnant, a stranger came up to me in the store and said:“You’re taking risks at your age, don’t you understand that?”I was so offended, I even burst into tears later at home. ?"

Nicola always wanted to have another child, but the first pregnancy at the age of 26 was so difficult that the woman simply could not decide to go through it again. "I felt so bad then that I even had convulsions. I didn't want to experience it again." However, by the age of 40, Nicola was "ripe" for this decision. She spoke with her husband that it was worth trying, "while my eggs are still dry," although she herself thought that the idea would not succeed. "It took me two years to get my first child. And I got pregnant with the second 6 months after the decision was made."

Fortunately, Nikola's second pregnancy went wonderfully. But this time my mother herself was much more responsible: she did yoga, ate right, "did everything according to the book." But while acquiring another child, Nicola lost several friends. "People judge others without even bothering to figure it out. Because of this, I lost several friends. They were so tactless that they just called me crazy to my face. especially when they were repeated to me over and over again. It's good that my husband supported me."

“I’m sure there aren’t many mothers whose eldest child goes to university and the youngest goes to nursery,” says 44-year-old Avril. She and her husband Lenroy now have four children - 18, 15, 10 years old, and the youngest just turned 4. Raising so many children turned out to be very difficult, Avril even calls it a "real nightmare" - to organize leisure, study and raising children with such the age difference takes a lot of energy.

"Mommies at kindergarten make me especially angry. Don't get me wrong, they are cute and want the best for their children, but we are on a different wavelength with them." Over the years, Avril found, trends among mothers have changed dramatically. "Young mothers see danger all around, even in the sugar lump in the cake. So I'm desperately old-fashioned in their eyes."

Avril began to see less of her friends because of caring for the baby, which means that she had to look for new friends among the mothers in the kindergarten. As a result, Avril found a friend who is 7 years younger than her. “Young mothers do not understand that their lives are now completely dependent on children. When I say that it’s time to think about which school to send their children to, they laugh.” Despite the difficulties, Avril does not regret having given birth to her fourth child. "It just killed me that I will never be pregnant again, I will not breastfeed. These are actually very sad thoughts. And these thoughts are still with me, especially when I look at my youngest son and understand that I do not want to, to grow up."

Briton Alexis has not yet reached 40 years of age, but she already has 9 sons and, moreover, she is about to give birth one more, tenth, boy.