When my OBGYN scribbled "advance maternal age" on my chart once my pregnancy test came back positive, I felt like stale bread. Rancid meat. It was really deflating despite the fact my stomach was rapidly growing because of the twins in my belly. I was old. This is reality. My reality also consisted of not being able to relate to Teen Mom at all. It was hard to deal, but I had no choice. There was no way I could get 20 years back.
It's quite irritating when assumptions are thrown around -- and this goes for anything, but especially when it comes to the touchy subject of age and women. See, I believe there is no one-size-fits-all answer for when is the best time to have a baby. I say, it all depends on the woman.
Older moms may be of advanced maternal age, but we aren't going to accept being considered stale, over, or out of time. I put together a list of 10 things that really annoy the crap out of us older moms. And no, we don't need a diaper ... yet.
It makes our eyes roll when:
It's assumed we had IVF to get pregnant. Not all of us did. I know it may be hard to believe, but even "old" people have sex and have this amazing ability to get pregnant the old fashioned way! Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with using IVF to get pregnant. The end result is still a human baby. No one makes a fuss if a woman conceives a baby while in the back seat of a car one night when she and her husband felt a little frisky on the drive home from the restaurant; why do feet in stirrups and medical assistance ruin the magic that a baby's on the way? People think older mom are having hot flashes when we run after our kids at the playground. We don't. We can even run around in heels because, you know, we've been around longer and perfected that art. Younger moms say they would never ever ever have a baby after 35 as if it's as bad as electing to have a year-long urinary tract infection. We get it. You got knocked up young and it's awesome for you. If I got preggers young, I'd be writing this from a young mom's point of view. But we're all moms -- young and old and in between -- and we have far too many other mommy wars going on amongst us. Let's not be ageist, too. People think 35 is old. It's not. AT ALL. When the young ones turn 35, they will see. Anyone 65 or older is too old to be a grandma, and they should just bury themselves to save the rest of us the time. If you look up grandma in the dictionary, isn't there a little purple-haired old lady? Okay, I dislike that stigma, too. Grandmas are the best and I miss mine very much, but my 65-year-old mom is a super sprightly Me-ma who is great with my kids and runs around after them ... even in heels. You're never too old for these kinds of things. Some say older moms will be dead before they get to see some grandbabies. Way to be morbid. People die all the time and not just because of old age. Some think we're all career-driver hookers who spent our 20s slutting it up around town before we decided to make some babies. And so what if we did? It was fun! Those who did it survived and now have some really shocking stories that they will never, ever tell their kids when they grow up. But according to the haters, older moms won't have to worry about that because ... We are going to orphan our kids at a young age or subject them to changing our diapers when they are barely out of their own. Easy tigers, our current life expectancy is around 78.5. So unless you're having babies at 68, you need to check your math. Younger moms think we are all jealous of them. It doesn't happen often, but believe you me, it's happened where a younger mom has flat out told an older mom that she was just jealous. Hoo boy. People are jealous of people all the time. But a lot of older moms are really happy how their lives have turned out so far and don't wish they had their kids when they were younger. Let's stop the assumptions and just let our kids play together. People say, "Oh that's cool you're an older mom, but it's just not something I would do to my kids." Clearly you're on board with the younger moms are better thing -- you have to be and that's wonderful. But being an older mom isn't something we are doing to them and talking about it in that way is like saying it's some form of abuse. Which gives me hot flashes and not because I'm old.Older moms, younger moms ... age doesn't matter. What matters is how good of a mom you are to your kids. Don't you agree?
Image via pasa47/Flickr