I’m an ‘old’ mother and it’s been the best
Why I wouldn’t change a thing about having a baby at 39
Barely a week goes by without a new report telling women that they better get on with having babies. If not for your own dwindling fertility, then won’t you just think about the falling birth rate! The noise is loud but clear: we are having babies too late, and too few of them. Indeed the average age of first time mothers in the UK is now 32, more than 10 years older than it was for those born in 1950.
Well, policymakers would hate me. I dared to have my first baby at 39 and I only plan on having the one. ‘Don’t follow her example!’, you can almost hear an anonymous suit weep into a graph.
Two reports last week sparked this nervous outcry (and not for the first time this year). Firstly, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority announced that the average age of those starting IVF treatment had passed 35 for the first time. Secondly, the Office for National Statistics reported that mid-2022 to mid-2023 saw the lowest number of births in the UK for 20 years (and there were just 400 more births than deaths).
There are, of course, myriad reasons as to why women are having children later and having fewer of them, including the crippling cost of childcare and the lack of affordable housing. If you’d like a more in-depth piece about these socioeconomic factors then I implore you to read this fantastic article by my friend and former colleague Vicky Spratt.
I absolutely agree that issues with housing need to be urgently addressed, and indeed reforms to childcare are slowly being rolled out (although it is a far cry from universal childcare). But I want to discuss other reasons why some women might want to have children later, past the 35 year mark that institutions obsess over, and how it can be a beautiful thing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have a baby… until I suddenly did. And there are numerous reasons why I'm glad that I was 39 before I became a mother.