Old Mothers Are Young Women

One extremely positive effect of having a child late in life is that your whole life clock moves back many hours. I’m leading the life of somebody 15 years younger, so I don’t get to fret about aging or the next stage of life or whatever. For example, I spent the whole day yesterday chaperoning a field trip. This involved running after a bunch of feisty 8-year-olds across the football field and back in blistering heat while they participated in a multi-stage sporting event. Yes, grandmas chaperone, too, but as grandmas, they get to sit under a tree with coolers of iced tea while moms get to run around, yelling, “Liam! Did anybody see Liam? It’s our turn to go in 2 minutes!” and “Chandra, step away from that ice-cream stand right now! I see you, Chandra!”

For some unfathomable reason, I’m reading one book after another about female aging. Every Fall, for example, I read a book by the Canadian mystery writer Loreth Anne White. Somebody always drowns in an icy lake or perishes in a snow storm in her books, and that’s pleasing to read during our scorching hot autumns. But guess what? This year’s thriller by this author is also about female aging, and its the cruelest one yet. Whatever JD Vance said about post-menopausal women is child’s game compared to what this progressive Canadian writer has to say. But I don’t emotionally connect with the topic because my lifestyle is that of a much younger person. Talking about dried up, useless vaginas (like Loreth Anne White’s characters do) feels very irrelevant to my life.

I don’t recommend waiting until 35 to have children, obviously. If you wait, you might end up with none. But there are definite upsides for those few who can swing it.