How did the age of when your parents conceived you effect your life?

I’m the youngest child and grand child. The oldest sister is 14 years older and the closest one in age is six years older. The parents were 37 and 39 when I was born, which was considered old at that time. Most of the friends had much younger parents who seemed more involved in their children’s lives than mine were.

When I headed off to college, Mom said, “I cried when your oldest sister left, but I am glad to see you go.” After college, I was home for a brief time before heading off to the big city to find a job. Mom said, “Here is some money for a meal on the train. It is the last meal I am buying for you.” When I got my own apartment, she said, “I will never show up on your doorstep unannounced, and I expect the same from you.”

In all three of these cases, offense could have been taken, but I understood her point. It was a way of saying, “You are learning about growing up and adulthood.” Today, I am 48 and she is 85. I suspect that we have a stronger friendship bond than the other siblings do because, while she played the ‘mother’ card, she was good at treating me as an adult.

@Pied_Pfeffer I have an older brother tha’s 11 years older. He left home when he turned 18 to join the Marines. From 7 on I was the only child in a way. My parents kind of went through the kid thing and treated me almost like an equal. As strict as they were is some aspects being from an older generation they interacted with me as if I should already have known stuff I didn’t at an early age. They retired when I was only like 10. I think I lacked discipline and they spoiled me. They spoiled me far more than my brother cause they were set when I arrived. Because of that I had to learn discipline as an adult. It was hard. Even with that when I first moved out and tired to be on my own they were so used to taking care of their kids that they wouldn’t let go. It made things very hard.
Not to be so detailed… It’s just on my mind…

Oh, my parents were still strict with me. And because Mom and Dad started their own business when I was young, I was brought up in a much more spartan lifestyle than the siblings, as it took years before they were able to make a profit. That, too, had an impact on how I choose to live my life.

I was an accident. Born out of a short moment of passion, not love. I spent the next 40 years watching my parents argue about the accident.

Divorced for two decades… they still argue about the accident. I’ve never told them how I feel about it, knowing that ultimately, I was the ball and chain which locked them together in spite. They don’t even know what they’re talking about now. Anger spews from their mouths as utter noise, bereft of anything meaningful. Nothing constructive. Nothing inspiring.

I was just thinking about this the other day as my deceased mother’s birthday is coming up on June 30th. She was 28 when she had me. Birth order and number of children effected me much more than her age as I am number 3 out of 6. My oldest sister was hell on earth during her teen years and my older sister wasn’t much better. I got good grades and didn’t cause any problems so I was really overlooked because my mom was dealing with other things. I think my younger sibs found the same thing. It is a struggle to be heard in situations such as those. So I became witty and sarcastic (something that was valued by our family). I could make them all laugh.

I took me some years to figure out that I didn’t need to command a social situation through humour, that I was good enough.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – I was an accident too, when my mother was 20 years old. What were they thinking? Idiots.

Divorce. Father who lacks the ability to accept responsibility for any action he has made. Single mom. Near poverty. Fun stuff.

It’s not as though they made this mistake while at college or in the middle of learning a trade. This was 20-year-old lost loser boredom at its finest.

@tom_g they got you.

This brings to mind a question my mother was asked quite frequently: Would she have had as many kids as she did if she had to do it again? She called the question ridiculous, and it was. As she said, “Who would I give back?”

As hard as it was sometimes, and it got really hard, we are all decent human beings with an equal right to exist.

I cannot begin to imagine how parents think it is ok to bitch and bellyache about surprise children. It happens. Deal with it. It is certainly not the child’s fault and shouldn’t be taken out on the child.

I was the the third of four, born when my dad was 30 and my mom 31. They had been married 9 years then.

My parent’s age wasn’t a factor . The bigger effect on me was the gap between my older brother and sister (6 and 4½ yrs). About the time I was walking and talking on my own they were headed off to school. In my family I was alternately kind of the pet and lost in my own world.

My younger brother was a surprise born when my mom was 39. He was born three weeks before we moved cross country. I think our mother’s age affected him because she was just too tired at that point to deal with a baby.

It’s strange because we didn’t study civil rights, we were in the midst of them. My dad was a “separate but equal” guy and to him, that was a progressive point of view. When he tried to teach it to me I couldn’t help but think. “why not just equal?” even though I was just a little girl.
Holy crap. I just read the details and confused “age” with “era” so I answered a different question all together!
To answer the question…. I loved having nieces and nephews that people thought were my siblings. Having an amazing older sister was like having another mom.

My mom was 23 and my dad was 20. My parents are in their 40’s. We get along, mostly. Some of my friends parents are in their 60’s and getting their hips replaced and stuff. I like my young parents. I had my daughter when I was 19 (my dad was a grandpa at 39 o.O) let’s see how that turns out. So far, so good.

My mom was 39 when she had me (my dad was 30), and I’m an only child. I definitely think that made me the splendid person I am today =) I wouldn’t say my parents were extremely strict, but I knew I was expected to behave and perform better than everyone else at whatever I did. Not meeting those expectations meant I’d disappointed them.

My parents were 22 and 27 when they had my brother and then myself. That means I have a mother who’s in her 50’s now and she is capable of being a very active caretaker to her grandchildren, which is a blessing. That’s how I want to be when I grow up and am a grandparent.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir that was a large consideration when my hubby and I were family planning. We wanted our children young so we could enjoy grandchildren and, hopefully, great-grandchildren. We also wanted to be healthy enough to enjoy ourselves once the kids were grown.

My kids are 16, 14, and 11 (I’m 38). We’re all at a nice age for enjoying one another. I couldn’t imagine going through the itty bitty young children stages at this point in my life. Although sometimes I still yearn for another baby.

My parents were 40 and 38 when they had me -their first child after 18 years of marriage. This was way back in the era when you got married at 20 and had kids at 21. It was considered shameful to have a child out of wedlock. My mother had cancer when my brother and I were young and died when we were still young teenagers.
My father raised us to be independent, do well in school, not screw around, taught us how to cook and clean – lifelong habits that have served us well.
Thanks Mom and Dad! You done good!

My working parents were in their late 20s when I was born. I’m the oldest of 5 and followed by a brother after a year. I vaguely remember Grandma taking care of us while my mother & pop worked. They were not that involved with us as I am now with my kids. Brother 3 arrived 9 years after, sister 4 after a year. And the gap between me and sister 5 is 14 years.
We lived comfortably but no extravagances. My mother was rather strict so I kept to myself to avoid “stray bullets that were randomly fired”. And up to now, I’m not that close to my mother.

@tranquilsea You can have another baby! :)

My parents got married right out of college and then had three kids in 4.5 years. My parents were smart, but they were too bright about emotional things. They took care of material and educational things, and I guess that’s what they thought their job was. They never really did emotional things, at least, not with me.

I think they took a few shortcuts they might not have taken if they had been older when they had us. They were kind of hardass in a way one might think would have diminished over time, but they are still hardass that way, so they don’t get to see their grandkids very much. Too bad for them.

Our kids were born when we were 40 and 39. We emphasize feelings and letting them know that we love them. Hopefully they will end up happier than I am.

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@Simone_De_Beauvoir hubby doesn’t want another one my yearning be damned

My mother was 19 when I was born and then divorced shortly after. She remarried someone her own age a few years later and we were always the odd family at my schools and in our neighborhoods. I felt the attitude from most of my friends’ parents that there was something wrong with my family, wrong with my parents’ lifestyle and I hated that oddball feeling.

The ways in which I was effected that I saw as negative had to do with my parents not being very responsible or concerned to have any kind of security or structure in place for us which was in stark contrast to what my grandparents had provided me and also what I saw my friends and their families seemed to have.