Is Anyone Here the Child of Parent(s) Who Were Older (Having Children at 50 or Above)? What Do You See as the Pros and Cons?

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.

So the age gap is more secondary, and the primary focus of this thread is if it's fruitful for senior citizens to have children with women half their age.

I don't think it's a good idea to start a family when you're a senior citizen even if your wife is in her prime. I believe the best result is having children when you're younger so that your future children will have a longer period in which they have access to their parents. This doesn't always happen and people, for a multitude of reasons, have children later in life. There is a fundamental difference between a man starting a family at 35-40 versus starting a family at 60 - 70. At least the children can grow to adulthood and still have access to their parents with the 35-40 year old men. With the 60 - 70 year old men, there is a significant chance they will be dead before their children reach adulthood especially when we consider the average life expectancy of men is 72 years.

My uncle is 16 years older than my aunt. He was married before and had 2 kids, then remarried (to my aunt) and had 4 kids. He provided for them his entire life and created his own business where my aunt was a stay at home wife and helped with the family business. He is nearly 80 years old and in terrible health. All his children are grown but some are still living at home as they can't afford to live on their own. My aunt is worried about life without my uncle, but they prepared for this financially.

Broadly speaking, I do not think people should have kids if they do not have enough time, money, or outside support (people willing to care for kids if parents pass away), etc. In terms of aged parents, they need to be very well prepared; they definitely need to have finances and care lined up and they should be actively involved with the child. They should be young enough where they expect to have 20 to 25 healthy years with the child; this puts the parent at about 50 at the latest. Biologically speaking, that sounds about right as well since women go through menopause around that age (though their eggs are diminished).

Support system matters too...I don't think two older parents should have an only child.

I had one friend in the past in her 20s, and she was a bit bitter her dad was in his 80s.

Absolutely, great point. That is one of the many blessings of being raised in a big family. Sadly, the growth rate is below replacement level and fewer people will know what it's like to have a more robust family support system.