- I had my first baby when I was 40 years old.
- While parenting at an older age is not easy, it's also wonderful.
- I envy younger parents energy, but I am financially stable after so many years working with no kids.
There are lots of hard and scary things about finding yourself a first-time mom at 40, if you are lucky enough to have a child at this age at all. For me, it started with the "geriatric pregnancy" label slapped on my medical file during pregnancy, which made for lots of extra scans, doctor's appointments, and nerves around complications and health risks — none of which materialized.
After I became a mom, I experienced the stress that can come with caring for both young and elderly family members as part of the "sandwich generation" and a persistent, pesky, anticipatory sadness around aging in general.
Overall, I've found parenting at an older age is not for the faint of heart — but despite that, there are a lot of wonderful things about it, too.
I've already done everything I wanted to do before I had kids
The first thing I love about being an older mom is that I have zero FOMO. I've already lived through multiple different eras. Nights out until 4 am, solo travel, city life, grad school life, living with an apartment full of wild roommates, living alone — I've done all of it, and at this point, I'm ready to commit to evenings in with a tiny adorable tyrant.
And I know I'll be out and about in the world again when this phase of caring for a little one has passed.
My friends have done it before me
I'm also benefiting from those who've gone before me. I have a network of friends and family members who had children before I did, and now they share lots of wise parenting advice with me — along with a stellar stream of hand-me-downs.
Other parents told me that breastfeeding is kind of a nightmare, that sleep training is miserable but also worth it, that the cost of childcare rivals a mortgage, and that there are strategies to managing the immense burden that comes with running a house, raising a kid, and holding down a job. Some of the most comforting words I've heard as a parent have come from this village, and they all boil down to, "I've been there."
I'm at a different professional level than I was 20 years ago
While I'm not a wildly successful millionaire who can afford to retire early, some hard-fought perspective comes with spending 20 years in the workforce before having a kid. I have different professional core values at this moment than I have in the past: The most important things for me right now about my job are the kind and understanding colleagues I'm surrounded by, meaningful work, and flexibility.
And I now work as efficiently as possible — because I never know when my kid could get a fever and I could find myself without childcare for a week.
I do often look at younger parents and envy their energy and lack of lower back aches and the time they have ahead of them. And I acknowledge that multiple things can be true: that I'm glad to have had a kid at this moment in my life, but also navigating grief around some of the challenges that come with parenting at an older age.
Mostly, I'm just conscious about using the time I have well. I spent a lot of my 20s and 30s wondering if I'd ever be able to have kids and weighing how I'd map out my life if it didn't happen. Now that it has, I've found that — as with so many things — it is all in how you look at it and how you choose to spend the time you have.
