Choices

I went to my 20 year high school class reunion recently and was pleasantly surprised to see that a number of my classmates were either pregnant or had newborns/toddlers. One mommy-to-be worked two jobs for years while her hubby was in medical school, and by mutual decision, waited until he was finished and established .  Another had  a series of miscarriages and was finally able to bring a baby to term (she had a healthy baby boy 9 days later), and yet another was a surrogate for her younger sister who was unable to conceive due to endometriosis.  While waiting on my drink at the bar, I came upon a conversation between another group of classmates:

"Can you believe so and so is pregnant?" *gasp*

"Now she knows she's too old to be running after a toddler...GAWD!"

"Her oldest just started high school; that's just like starting ova..."

"We're over 35..there might be something wrong with the baby..."

The list of negative BS went on and on.  Mind you, this diverse group of women (ol skool) included two classmates who are grandmothers, one with 5 kids (ages 19, 18, 17 and 16 y.o. twins), one who has three baby daddies, and one is SWNK (by choice).  Now there were others in this group conversation, but these are the quotes I chose to blog about.  I related their 'discussion' to a couple of coworkers whose opinions were like night and day and made my lunch hour much more animated, to say the least. 

Coworker #1 (CW1) called the ol skool group a bunch of haters, jealous because they chose to become mommies sooner rather than later.  "Those new mommies are courageous and overcame a lot to fulfill their dream of becoming mothers," she said.

Coworker #2 (CW2) felt that the ol skool group's 'concerns' were valid, and the new mommies should be more concerned about how their decision to wait (no matter the reason) would affect the children in the long run.

Huh?

She elaborated further by stating that the ol skool group (at face value) benefitted from "gettin it out of the way so they could start livin, you know."

"Well, by the time these new mommies reach retirement age, their kids will just be starting college and that will put them in the poor house. They'll be too old to enjoy their grandkids and where's the joy in that?  And let's not talk about the increased risks of autism, down's syndrome and other health challenges to kids of women over 35. It's just not fair to the kids.  They should just get a dog or two."  She laughed, I guess to warm the air around us which had suddenly become quite chilly. I was dumbfounded, and CW1 was chomping at the bit, lol.

CW2, went on further to say that older mothers would be shunned by younger mothers at birthday parties, MMO, field trips, etc. because of the age difference.  I don't know where CW2 got these statistics, whether she conducted her own survey or if they were from personal experience.  I don't know what her life story is because we don't kick it like that outside of work.  I assume she has kids because her office is plastered with pictures of the same kids in different poses.  She could be an auntie; I don't care enough to find out.
CW1 is a divorced mom of 2 tweens, and we will sometimes switch schedules with one another to go on field trips or do lunch with the kids during the school year.
She recently entered the 'dirty 30's' and I'm close to singing a swan song to this decade, lol.  My point being, what difference does it make how old we are?  I'm sure one reason why we get along so well is because we have something in commmon, i.e. being a mom.  CW1 said she was a change-of-life baby, meaning she was conceived during 'the change', and her mother was a good 20 yrs. older than her classmates' mothers. Her mother was the life of the party at all the kiddie function-sleepovers-what-have-you when she was a child.  She believes her mother would have been the same had she been a 'traditional' mom.  I tend to agree.  I was strongly encouraged from that point on not to invite CW2 to our table anymore, lol.

Barring medical challenges to conceive (and outside of rape or not wrapping it up), most women choose the next step of motherhood.  I'm sure my new mommy classmates took all of these concerns/fears into consideration when they made the decision to wait to have kids. I talked to a couple of them a few weeks after the event, and the consensus I got was, after the 'Big O', becoming a mom at this stage in life was the best thing ever.  I cosigned heavily on that, too!