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Motherhood After 40, Whose Business is it Anyway?
There’s a debate going on right now, and it’s gaining momentum. It’s the issue of whether or not women should give birth over 40 years of age. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon with an opinion about this.
Last week Kelly Preston and John Travolta announced that she is pregnant at the age of 47 and this triggered a CNN panel discussion about the topic. My colleague Angel La Liberte took part in the discussion. Angel’s Flower Power Mom; the truth about motherhood over forty blog was launched a few months ago, and is a wonderful resource and networking platform for moms over forty, and for all moms really. It is helping to get the message out and raise public awareness.
As a life coach and writer for women in midlife, and as a mother, menopausal woman and caregiver, I am very aware of and passionate about the issues that face older mothers in particular, and how they are frequently sandwiched by such challenges as parenting and their career, parenting and perimonopause, and/or parenting and elder care.
The challenges these women have on their plates would daunt the fainter of heart! Yet they carry on with their daily lives, and they do this under society’s judging eye. These women need support, not criticism. Women have the right to chose when to procreate. Who’s business is it anyway but their own?
Ellen: It’s fantastic that you see how women having children after 40 naturally dovetails into your midlife coaching work. More supporters like you are going to be increasingly needed as over-40 moms deal with midlife issues while raising very young children. It’s a niche area that is little understood and I think we need to start exploring it further. I would definitely like to invite you to do another guest blog at Flower Power Mom over the summer–we need you!
Thanks Angel. I agree, we need to explore it more because the trend is growing. Our bodies are changing and what was ‘older’ isn’t now. Therefore our societies must change to keep up. But social change always lags behind individual change.
Yes, I’d like to do another article in the summer. My neighbor was older, close to 40 I believe, when she started her family. I’d like to speak with her more about the practicalitiess of older motherhood.