Motherhood deferred: US median age for giving birth hits 30

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

For Allyson Jacobs, life in her 20s and 30s was about focusing on her career in health care and enjoying the social scene in New York City. It wasn’t until she turned 40 that she and her husband started trying to have children. They had a son when she was 42.

Over the past three decades, that has become increasingly common in the U.S., as birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and jumped for women in their late 30s and early 40s, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend has pushed the median age of U.S. women giving birth from 27 to 30, the highest on record.

As an older parent celebrating Mother’s Day on Sunday, Jacobs feels she has more resources for her son, 9, than she would have had in her 20s.

“There’s definitely more wisdom, definitely more patience,” said Jacobs, 52, who is a patients’ services administrator at a hospital. “Because we are older, we had the money to hire a nanny. We might not have been able to afford that if we were younger.”

https://apnews.com/article/health-new-york-city-race-and-ethnicity-census-2020-ccd74c4eb0f19763346e40ae3e6748af

[Diamond_Dog]

1. When I became pregnant with my last kid at the age of 36

The doctors called mine a “geriatric pregnancy “. This was in 1993.

An acquaintance of mine got the same label when she was pregnant last summer at the age of 34!

[smirkymonkey]

2. That's insane!

Geriatric in your 30s?!

God, I am so glad I never had children. I know I was never meant to be a mother and it would have been tragic if I had been forced. I am safe now due to my age, but I worry about girls and women who are going to lose their freedom to control their reproductive choices. It is truly evil.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. I fully support whatever a woman wants to do.

Have kids, don’t have kids, everyone should make the choice that is right for THEM.

But yeah,I guess waiting to have children when you’re an old lady in your 30s still confounds many male doctors! Or maybe they need to change their terminology.

[smirkymonkey]

4. I do as well, I just wish people would think about it more before bringing children into the world.

A lot of people just reproduce without giving it a second thought as to what kind of parents they would be, how committed they are to parenthood and what kind of life the child would have growing up in their specific circumstances, especially these days.

Too many people have children for selfish reasons and the child is the one who suffers.

[Wounded Bear]

5. This is the normal result of the development of modern society...

Women get more options of how to organize their own lives and society is better overall for it.

World wide, as societies improve, birth rates go down.

[3catwoman3]

6. I was a month shy of my 39th birthday when...

…our older son was born, and 41 6/12ths with our second son. The terminology used for the first pregnancy was “elderly primigravida.” ELDERLY!!! I found it very insulting.

People often asked ifI were tired, being an older mom of busy young kids. Over my 45 years as a peds nurse practitioner, it was quite obvious to me that ALL mothers of busy young children are tired. Mother Nature gave too much energy to little kids, and not enough to those who are trying to keep up with them.

Being “older” had, at least for me, the distinct advantage of having accomplished a lot of what I called “my own stuff” - I had lived on my own. I had worked for several years. I had my master’s degree. I had traveled. My husband and I were (and still are) in a stable marriage. Putting our kids first did not feel, in any way, like a sacrifice.

Our sons are now 32 and 29, and I cherish them.