Hey Everyone,
The discussion in the Age Differences (within relationships/marriages) thread has me thinking. We've been talking about whether or not there is a moral objection to large age differences between partners/spouses... While the general consensus seems to be that there isn't anything morally wrong on the surface, I did post the one concern I would have regarding children:
(Taken from a post I made in that thread.)
I do think there comes a point where large age gaps can become a moral problem.
I wrote a thread years ago asking if a man insists on marrying a woman half his age, who does he expect to take care of her and their children after he dies? Most especially if he has always been the sole breadwinner and leaves her with no real job skills or means to support their family.
I can't remember a single person answering that the older man should be in charge of leaving his wife and children an inheritance, and I can understand this, as I am NOT AT ALL trying to advocate that women should only marry men with money. But what really shocked me is that I think maybe only one guy at most even thought to mention a life insurance policy. This had me wondering, "Does anyone think about/worry what will happen to their family if they die? And if so, what do they do about it?"
What I found disturbing was that this seemed to imply a feeling of, "I can marry this young hot thing, but when I die, that's her problem to deal with. She's no longer my responsibility, and neither are our kids." How much does God hold a man (parent) responsible for his (their) kids, even after death? The Bible says that parents are to store up an inheritance for their children.
If someone is several years older, has, and/or develops life-threatening medical conditions, I would think this would bring up some very serious moral questions about the couple's future, especially if they want to have kids. Now of course, you could run into the classic gold digger scenario as well.
But (the posts in that thread) seem centered around the insistence of age-gapped couples who genuinely love each other, so let's go from there.
I grew up in a family with a stay-at-home mom and a dad with a very stressful job. One of the things my parents talked about regularly (even though they were only 2 years apart,) was savings and life insurance, because my Dad's biggest fear was keeling over from a heart attack and leaving my Mom destitute with a young family. I don't know if this is an anamaly in Christian families, but I never hear anyone else talking about it.
Yes, of course God can miraculously heal, but I wouldn't bet a future family on just hoping for a miracle. Years ago I read about a Hollywood celebrity who was much older and passed away, leaving behind a young widow and their young son. He left her plenty of money to survive on, but the thing she was having problems with was finding any kind of support or community for women who were left widowed with a child at age 33 (except, perhaps, for military spouses -- but even then, her situation was quite unique.)
This raises all kinds of questions about the morality of the age at which one should be able to parent a child. If a man is 70 and has a serious heart condition, should he pass himself off as a perfectly viable father to a 25-year-old who wants children?
If he marries a woman who already has very young children herself, what responsibility, if any, does have towards them if/when he dies?
And as I think you can deduct from my posts, I am a firm believer in moral dilemmas going both ways. Years ago, I read about a woman who insisted on every available medical treatment to become pregnant in her 60's. She had twin boys -- only to die 2 years later and I don't think she even had a partner or husband, leaving the boys as orphans. This might sound cold of me, but I don't think she should have pursued motherhood in those conditions.
No, we can't know the future, so we have this uncomfortable line to walk of not being fearful, but also considering the best interests of everyone involved. I think we have to made responsible choices with the information we have, no matter what age.
And of course, it's a different picture if both parties are adamant about not wanting to have children.
But I've seen more than one Christian marriage fall apart because they both SAID they didn't want children when marrying, but then one changed their mind after some time, and eventually decided, "If you can't/won't give me children, I'm going to go find someone who can."
I would like to know:
* Does anyone here have a parent who had children in their 50's, 60's and up?
* What would you say are the pros and cons to this? Would you recommend it to others?
* Were there any large age gaps between the couples? What effect did that have? Did the older spouse die when their child(ren) were relatively young? How did the spouse who was left behind cope?
While everyone is welcome to answer, I'm particularly interested in hearing from any adults whose parents had them when they were much older and how it affected them.
Of course, parents could die at any age and I've known several people who lost a "normal-aged" parent while they were young. But here I am specifically thinking of when older people purposely decide to have a child, knowing full well that they might not be around to even see their child become a teen.
I'm trying to think of how I would feel if, let's say, my hypothetical father was 60 with serious health problems, but decided to have a child with my hypothetical healthy 30-year-old mother anyway, then dies at 65, leaving my mother to raise me alone, along with 2 other young half-siblings she brought into their marriage.
I know myself well enough to know that I would have been angry at my father for, as I would see it, being selfish. Now maybe I couldn't judge him -- maybe God had chosen that I would be born from them in that way, and I would have no right to judge. But I would still feel abandoned, angry that we now had to struggle so much, and jealous of those who got to grow up with parents of "normal" age.
How would others feel in this situation?
I would be very interested in hearing people's thoughts about this topic.
The discussion in the Age Differences (within relationships/marriages) thread has me thinking. We've been talking about whether or not there is a moral objection to large age differences between partners/spouses... While the general consensus seems to be that there isn't anything morally wrong on the surface, I did post the one concern I would have regarding children:
(Taken from a post I made in that thread.)
I do think there comes a point where large age gaps can become a moral problem.
I wrote a thread years ago asking if a man insists on marrying a woman half his age, who does he expect to take care of her and their children after he dies? Most especially if he has always been the sole breadwinner and leaves her with no real job skills or means to support their family.
I can't remember a single person answering that the older man should be in charge of leaving his wife and children an inheritance, and I can understand this, as I am NOT AT ALL trying to advocate that women should only marry men with money. But what really shocked me is that I think maybe only one guy at most even thought to mention a life insurance policy. This had me wondering, "Does anyone think about/worry what will happen to their family if they die? And if so, what do they do about it?"
What I found disturbing was that this seemed to imply a feeling of, "I can marry this young hot thing, but when I die, that's her problem to deal with. She's no longer my responsibility, and neither are our kids." How much does God hold a man (parent) responsible for his (their) kids, even after death? The Bible says that parents are to store up an inheritance for their children.
If someone is several years older, has, and/or develops life-threatening medical conditions, I would think this would bring up some very serious moral questions about the couple's future, especially if they want to have kids. Now of course, you could run into the classic gold digger scenario as well.
But (the posts in that thread) seem centered around the insistence of age-gapped couples who genuinely love each other, so let's go from there.
I grew up in a family with a stay-at-home mom and a dad with a very stressful job. One of the things my parents talked about regularly (even though they were only 2 years apart,) was savings and life insurance, because my Dad's biggest fear was keeling over from a heart attack and leaving my Mom destitute with a young family. I don't know if this is an anamaly in Christian families, but I never hear anyone else talking about it.
Yes, of course God can miraculously heal, but I wouldn't bet a future family on just hoping for a miracle. Years ago I read about a Hollywood celebrity who was much older and passed away, leaving behind a young widow and their young son. He left her plenty of money to survive on, but the thing she was having problems with was finding any kind of support or community for women who were left widowed with a child at age 33 (except, perhaps, for military spouses -- but even then, her situation was quite unique.)
This raises all kinds of questions about the morality of the age at which one should be able to parent a child. If a man is 70 and has a serious heart condition, should he pass himself off as a perfectly viable father to a 25-year-old who wants children?
If he marries a woman who already has very young children herself, what responsibility, if any, does have towards them if/when he dies?
And as I think you can deduct from my posts, I am a firm believer in moral dilemmas going both ways. Years ago, I read about a woman who insisted on every available medical treatment to become pregnant in her 60's. She had twin boys -- only to die 2 years later and I don't think she even had a partner or husband, leaving the boys as orphans. This might sound cold of me, but I don't think she should have pursued motherhood in those conditions.
No, we can't know the future, so we have this uncomfortable line to walk of not being fearful, but also considering the best interests of everyone involved. I think we have to made responsible choices with the information we have, no matter what age.
And of course, it's a different picture if both parties are adamant about not wanting to have children.
But I've seen more than one Christian marriage fall apart because they both SAID they didn't want children when marrying, but then one changed their mind after some time, and eventually decided, "If you can't/won't give me children, I'm going to go find someone who can."
I would like to know:
* Does anyone here have a parent who had children in their 50's, 60's and up?
* What would you say are the pros and cons to this? Would you recommend it to others?
* Were there any large age gaps between the couples? What effect did that have? Did the older spouse die when their child(ren) were relatively young? How did the spouse who was left behind cope?
While everyone is welcome to answer, I'm particularly interested in hearing from any adults whose parents had them when they were much older and how it affected them.
Of course, parents could die at any age and I've known several people who lost a "normal-aged" parent while they were young. But here I am specifically thinking of when older people purposely decide to have a child, knowing full well that they might not be around to even see their child become a teen.
I'm trying to think of how I would feel if, let's say, my hypothetical father was 60 with serious health problems, but decided to have a child with my hypothetical healthy 30-year-old mother anyway, then dies at 65, leaving my mother to raise me alone, along with 2 other young half-siblings she brought into their marriage.
I know myself well enough to know that I would have been angry at my father for, as I would see it, being selfish. Now maybe I couldn't judge him -- maybe God had chosen that I would be born from them in that way, and I would have no right to judge. But I would still feel abandoned, angry that we now had to struggle so much, and jealous of those who got to grow up with parents of "normal" age.
How would others feel in this situation?
I would be very interested in hearing people's thoughts about this topic.
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