…should there be a cut-off age, a time when a woman is considered too old to conceive?
This talks about women in their 60s who are giving birth. Here’s one story:
Rosanna and Mauro Della Corte were overcome by grief when their only son, 17-year-old Riccardo, died in a motorcycle accident in 1991. The only way to cope with their loss, the couple concluded, was to have another baby. So in 1994, at age 62, Rosanna gave birth to a baby boy conceived through IVF, using Mauro’s sperm and a donor egg. They named their new son after his dead brother. The older Riccardo’s memory looms over the living one. His photographs are all over the family’s home, and in 2005 Rosanna told British newspaper The Observer that her dead son “was so beautiful, probably better looking than little Riccardo,” who was then 11 years old. The Della Cortes were vilified across Italy when news of the younger Riccardo’s birth came out, with the Vatican going so far as to call Rosanna’s pregnancy an affront to God. The criticism even spurred new legislation restricting IVF treatments, making Italy’s laws on the subject among the strictest in Europe.
I say yes, let’s pick an age — provided we get to do the same for older fathers. Seems fair to me.
In fact, I used to think it was selfish of people to have children when they’re older. The child stands a big chance of being orphaned, etc., but you know what? I figured out that I don’t get a vote on others’ childrearing decisions. I choose to have no more children. That’s a choice I’ve made for myself. I hardly want the responsibility of making that choice for others. You?
Dating Jesus 
First of all, I think this couple has probably done irreparable damage to their second son, making him be the replacement for their first one.
Anyway — even the most age-appropriate parents can die young (my father when I was 18, my friend C’s father when she was 16, my friend A’s wife died when their daughter was 12), but the older you are the better the chances are of leaving your kids too early — and THEIR kids with no grandparents!
That’s all true, but I feel like I’m taking on more than is my right if I tell older parents don’t do that. It is definitely not a choice I would make, and yeah, the one I highlighted seems really really off to me (saying the first son was more handsome than the second — what?). But…
As a person who knows a little about this first hand, YES, there is damage. I don’t want to admit irreparable – there’s always hope. My guess is that this boy has a long road ahead of him in finding himself. My heart goes out to him. No one can replace another person and it’s not fair to bring a person into the world and immediately give that person the mission of relieving pain and loss. Hopefully, that boy will shed that role and become himself. I lived that and am working on it to this day.
That’s an awful burden to place on a child. I feel similarly about children who are born to “bring a couple closer together.” That’s emphatically not that child’s job.
Tell me about it. I got the name, the clothes, the toys, the stuff…and the love…or was it her love…it was tough to say. The burdens were having the impossible task of living up to the view of what that person was to the family when you’ve never even met the deceased and removing all the pain and being responsible for family happiness. It’s impossible to deliver this and kids don’t know that.
In the situation in this story, I view that part of the story as a bigger problem than having older parents.
That might be the case. If someone is trying to transfer onto a child the person of another, that’s just not fair.
“I’m taking on more than is my right if I tell older parents don’t do that.”
Right. But one would hope for some careful thinking about this, not just “I want…”
That’s true but you know what? I got pregnant because my brother and HIS wife got pregnant, and I thought, Hey! I can do that! I can’t say I put a great deal of thought into my own motherhood. It was the best experience and I’ve never regretted it, but I was about as unformed as they come.
Yah but you were twenty-something, and the probability of your surviving beyond his college years was pretty likely (not guaranteed, I get that). I believe you’ve said that when you and Mr. DJ got together at a slightly older age, you decided not to have more kids. If you had decided otherwise, it would probably have been a more carefully-made decision, no?
I believe we should not judge…my only suggestion is that ALL parents (young OR old) ensure that they have chosen trusted guardians for their children should they die before their child reaches adulthood, and have it in writing in their will or other appropriate legal documents. I believe there is a reason in the universe for every being who enters it. Our job is to make sure they are taken care of. No matter the process for their entry…
” I believe there is a reason in the universe for every being who enters it.”
I agree with that and think that’s a tough thing to figure out for most, but it will be even tougher for this boy, I think, given his role of replacing someone else.
“I believe there is a reason in the universe for every being who enters it.”
This is hard for me to understand. Does this mean that the role for some beings is to suffer? There are so many people on this earth (don’t know about the universe) who are born into HORRIBLE situations which, for many, are never alleviated.
I do not necessarily subscribe to the idea that all things happen for a reason. Sometimes, I think things just happen.
A person who is born into a horrible situation, may also do good things for another person or experience simple joys at times. I believe every person has value in some way.
I agree completely. But it sure sucks to be that one person.
“A person who is born into a horrible situation, may also do good things for another person or experience simple joys at times. I believe every person has value in some way.”
I am in NO way saying the people who are born into suffering don’t have value. I’m wondering (not arguing, not criticizing, but very puzzled) about the idea of there being a reason — because I don’t believe, say, in an afterlife to which they may aspire, what could the reason be? If it’s a simple joy that’s considered to be the balance for the starvation of a refugee child or rape by enemy soldiers or … I dunno, we can all think of plenty of horrors in this life … the concept is just not clear for me.
I think I understand your point. I don’t think the reason is the intent of making that person suffer. I don’t know what the reason might be. Maybe the reason is to not let another person suffer alone. I don’t know – it’s not much, maybe not enough, but it’s something. If there’s value, isn’t there reason for being? It’s a subtle difference and I may be missing it. After cooking all day, I’m tired.
I cooked three whole hours and gave it up. The bread, I’ll do tomorrow a.m. I hope everything you made came out marvelously.
Thanks. I hope you end up full and happy tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving.
Backatcha, friend.
Naming the new son for the deceased son, and keeping up photographs of the decesased, doesn’t seem to be a psychologically healthy situation.
And the chances of birth defects or developmental disabilities in the child increase dramatically, the older the mother is.
It’s not a matter of you, me or anyone else telling a couple what to do. But I do hope in such situations, they are aware of the risks and the necessity to “let go” of the deceased.
I picked the wrong one to excerpt, I think. I have a friend who had her first baby at age 41. My son was 16 at the time. It was surreal to watch her go through all that.
My sister’s second child (in a second marriage) was born when my sister was 40. Her first child was 16. The parents of her daughter’s friends (plus other PTO members, parents of playgroup kids, etc.) were all much younger.
“”And the chances of birth defects or developmental disabilities in the child increase dramatically, the older the mother is.”
Well, they did use a donor egg which was probably from a considerably younger woman. But I read not long ago that there MAY be a connection between an older father and autism. (But of course that’s been blamed on so MANY possible causes, who knows?)
I have not read up nearly enough on autism to understand much about it, though I have a nephew who has Asperger’s. That, I get. Kind of.
What if an 70 or 80 year old woman wanted a baby. I do think there should be a cut off for parents. At some point, it isn’t fair to the child and is clearly a decision made to benefit the adult. That doesn’t seem balanced. (can’t think of a better word)
I wonder if any 70- or 80- year old would think she could actually do that, have the energy to carry a child, and then deal with an infant, a toddler. Of course, one of those women in the article was in her late 60s…
So you don’t want a limit on the number of embryos implanted either?
I have to admit I do not get the octo-mom, not at all.
This again, really? Hokay. My parents were in their 40s when I was born. I always felt I was a replacement for my dead brother. They were going to name me John if I was a boy–my brother’s name was Sean, the Irish form of John. Even as a little kid, I knew this, and it seemed like a confirmation that I was his replacement. When I was little, my mom used to rock me in her lap and tell me about him and say that I looked just like him, that I had his eyes and his hair and his complexion. It really fucked me up as a kid. Now that I’m an adult, I can say this:
1.) No, Mom. They’re MY eyes and it’s MY hair and MY complexion. His may have been similar or even identical, but these are mine.
2.) When I was born, my parents wanted a boy. I’m not a boy. I am me, and my parents can take what they get.
3.) Maybe I was originally conceived as an outcry of sadness, but at least my parents wanted a baby. It’s not like they just got drunk and Mom got knocked up on some one-night stand by accident.
4.) I wasn’t conceived under the most ideal of circumstances, and I wasn’t born into the perfect family, but through all the horrible things I’ve been through, I am more mature than my chronological peers and calmer in emergency situations. Sometimes, it gets to you and you think it’s not fair, but it is what it is.
As far as a cut-off date for pregnancy, I think the body already comes with one of those installed. It’s called menopause.
Thank you for this, Kickable. I don’t know what it’s like to be a replacement, and I can’t imagine that would do anything but mess one up but royally. And yeah, menopause could be considered the cut-off, but the technology exists to bear children even beyond. I do not understand why, though.
It’s good that you see the positives in yourself and your successes, despite the childhood crap, kick. When it gets to you and you think it’s not fair, you need something to help you accept “it is what it is” ’cause ya can’t change the past.