Ogged's on the cougar hunt; he's after you.
Oldest of the guys I work with told me this week I'm older than both his parents.
Put together!
What are you, a camp counselor?
It took me a second to interpret 2 without appealing to time travel.
IDP is, like, his own great-grandcolleague.
Is being a grandmother in your early 40s all that weird? The youngest granny I ever knew was 34. I lost touch with her, though because she was elected to Parliament and had to move to her constituency.
attractive, funny, laid-back
Translation: GILF.
Is being a grandmother in your early 40s all that weird?
Considering how many 40-ish childless women I know, it does seem strange.
I'm probably less than a year from being a great-aunt by marriage -- Buck's mom had a kid at 19 who had a kid at 19, and said kid is now married.
The youngest granny I ever knew was 34 . . . she was elected to Parliament
Awesome.
9: But hopefully more than 5 years away from being a grandmother...
Heh. Based on family history, I've got 20 years. My side of the family is remarkably stable over several generations having a first kid at 27.
Go to the kindergarten parents meeting. Everything from fresh faced twentysometings to Fred Thompson look alikes with the trophy wife's baby. Depressing to realize you have underwear older than some of your "peers".
Story in Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, an early oral-history project from the late fifties, in an Anchor paperback, goes like this.
Professor of his was a retired NH SC Justice. He was a surprise late child of his parents, who had had another boy, many years earlier when they were young, who had died in childhood. When the Professor was growing up, this other child, and the memory of his infancy, were a constant presence in the house.
One day this Professor began class in a subdued, soft voice: "I'm going to ask you to indulge my melancholy mood today. I'm feeling very sad and solemn: You see, my little brother died a hundred years ago today."
My mum was 38, I think, when she became a grandmother. She also became a mother at the same time, so my brother and my nephew are almost the same age.
I was an uncle at the tender age of one.
Then again, my mom was forty-four when she had me.
My nieces are older than their uncle. Their grandmother was a compulsive mom.
My mum was 18 when she had me, so she was still in her 20s when I started high school.
Kotsko, you better not have been dating my mom.
And while my mom was older-than-average when she had me, I think the rest of my family sprogs at a relatively standard age (late 20s).
20: You started high school when you were 11?
I'd imagine there'll be lots of 30 something grannies around soon. Where I grew up, there were a lot of 16 year olds having babies. Not so much in my age group, but the kids 3 or 4 years younger than me, it seemed pretty common.
I know a few grandmother's in their 30s. But yeah, it does make one feel a bit behind in life.
re: 24
Btw, that's not unusual in Scotland. About 1/4 - 1/3 of the kids starting high school will still be 11. Just the same as about 1/4 - 1/3 will be 4 when they start primary school.
I'm forty years older than my son, my dad was 34, his 38. When my grandfather was a boy he was summer companion for his widowed grandfather, who'd been born in the 18th C. I'm only the eleventh generation from 1635, when my anscestor was shown as 21 on the manifest of the Planter. I wonder how many generations there'd be in a mother-to-mother chain, if I could construct one.
My brother is 10 years older than I, so my niece started having great nephews when I was about 45...
I've got a couple of friends, on in her mid-30s and one in his 40s whose fathers remarried young women and have just recently produced half-siblings.
24: Secondary school in the UK tends to be 6-7 years. I doubt ttaM went to university at 15. Unless he did.
heebie, you disappoint us. We thought you sprang fully armed from the brow of Zeus.
My arms were completely formed when I was born.
My mother has repeatedly said that she thinks my brothers and I will all bear her grandchildren around the same time. For perspective, I'm going to my brother's high school graduation this weekend.
re: 31
Secondary school in Britain is never usually more than 6 years. In Scotland it's typically 5 or 6 years, but no-one does more than 6.
I went at 16 as it happens.* But that is fairly unusual -- 17 would be more typical. Most kids will choose to do 6 years of high school [I did 5].
* although I dropped out after a year and went and worked for several years before going back to university.
37: Weird, virtually everyone I went to undergrad with were 18 or 19 when they entered, depending on if they took a gap year or not. And possibly if they had an extra year of 6th form. I was considered very young at 17.
Is Scotland really unusual from this standpoint?
re: 38
Scotland is generally a year earlier than England for everything. In terms of educational 'milestones'.
What about your kiddie pools, Heebie?
Psst. Free pics of Heebie's boobs:
http://heebie-geebie.livejournal.com/188194.html#cutid1
They filled when I started flowing.
In Scotland they graduate at 15 and go to work in the mines. The entrance exam for the mines is "What is your name?", and the pass rate is well over 90%.
She also became a mother at the same time
This is not quite right, I think; she already was a mother, and she persisted in her motherly state across the birth of her new child.
re: 43
Heh, the irony being that Scotland has one of the most educated populations anywhere (measured in terms of the percentage of school-leavers who continue into higher education).*
* I say that with no whiff of patriotism, I hope. There's all kinds of shitty things about the place, but getting people into university is something it doesn't do that badly.
And possibly if they had an extra year of 6th form.
I was surprised when I took a PG year in England that this was pretty common, esp. for studying for the Oxbridge exam.
What's strange is that so many of us are now at the almost-grandparent age and we're still dealing with elementary school kids of our own.
I recommend that people start families at 20. That way, your kids are out of the damn house just about the time you're ready to start a career.
I don't feel comfortable with anyone having a baby until they've had a couple abortions.
I recommend that people start families at 20
Amen sister. Plus, you have alot more energy at 20 than 40, esp. after being up all night, for whatever reason. I guess you must chose when you want to Paaarty- 25 or 45.
A neighbor of mine in his early 70s has several great-grandchildren, and his mom is still alive. Theirs is the only family I've ever known of with five generations among the living.
Plus, you have alot more energy at 20 than 40
Uh, I was seriously lacking in some emotional maturity at age 20. I think it was good I didn't have a kid.
Theirs is the only family I've ever known of with five generations among the living.
Among the undead, this sort of thing happens frequently.
51. Trade offs. The grass is always greener. etc.
you have alot more energy at 20 than 40
Another benefit is that your fortysomething parents have enough energy to really help you with the kids. My in-laws are in their 80s, so while it's nice to have them around, it's not exactly much help.
46 - That doesn't really happen any more. Used to happen a lot though, but that was before my time (left in 89).
and 37 - secondary school is 7 years, in this southern country at least! 5 years to GCSEs, then another optional 2 for 6th form. Though it seems likely that everyone's going to have to stay until 18 in the near future.
Let's all agree that it was a good thing that heebie didn't have a kid when she was 20. She needs some affirmation and higs. You need more than kiddie pools to raise kids.
My sister adopted two kids when she was 40 and divorced shortly afterwards (sharing custody). We were all apprehensive but the younger is 15 now and things are going well.
55 - It's especially uncommon since the Oxbridge exams were forcibly dropped sometime recently. Now they can only force people entering certain colleges in select subjects to take the STEP exams, which are a sneaky way of putting in the same requirements.
The Scots have been cast as noble savages ever since about 1500. There was a classicist at that time named Buchanan who was very well-regarded in French circles, but he got the jokes anyway.
You can make it without higs. They're useless, sort of like the appendix.
With higs, all my cares drop away and I feel really free.
"I was seriously lacking in some emotional maturity at age 20. "
Highly overrated when it comes to parenting.
50: a friend's parents both survived 4+ years in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Her father's family all perished, but her mother's mother lived. My friend's niece married at 18 and bore a child almost immediately. So for about 5 years, my friend's grandmother -- slated for extermination with all her family -- instead played with her great-great-grandson.
Highly overrated when it comes to parenting.
Perhaps, but I'm a lot happier now. So for my own (selfish) quality-of-life, I'm glad I waited.
Yes, you waited so long. What are you? 25 now?
Among the undead, this sort of thing happens frequently.
The great-grands take undeath at a leisurely pace, of course, as in the original Night of the Living Dead, while the youngsters have the energetic joie de ne pas vivre of Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead.
I'm 20 and eleven-twelths. It's been a heavy year.
You do need the emotional maturity required to refrain from hitting things that are being extremely annoying.
I'm not sure that Heebie is alert to the down side of higs. In moderation they're fine.
68: Boogie oogie oogie? It's electric?
The having kids young v. old question is interesting. Younger you have more energy, but you'll also probably stupid. Older you (likely) have more money, but less cognitive flexibility. On the sleep front, older people generally need less sleep than younger ones, but do much less well having their sleep (and their other routines) frequently interrupted.
Socially, you just aren't going to find a whole lot of professional women having kids before becoming established on some level, which means thirtyish. If you had all your ducks in a row, you could probably do fine having a kid or two in college, pre-school during grad school, and then by the time you were working the whole daycare thing would be much easier. But who has their ducks in a row like that.
72: Picture me making the Scooby-doo "Aroo?" of non-comprehension.
re: 55
Ah, I genuinely didn't realise it was 5 years for GCSE. I thought it was like Scotland -- 4 years for GCSE, then 1 year for AS and another year for A levels.* I can't help wondering 'why?' mind you.
* it's not the same exams in Scotland, but you know what i mean.
heavy year = gaining weight = 120 = very light
There's also Bryan Caplan's approach.
The moral of the story: libertarians are wacky.
I do think that ideally folks would have 'em young, and the 40ish grandparents would be around to provide the emotional maturity and occasional respite to keep the kids from being beaten. In the Bitch universe, we'd all do that and then take the kids along to college/grad school, where there'd be childcare coops and taking decently-behaved kids along to class would be unremarkable. God knows college/grad school provide you the flexible time you need, and everyone's poor anyway.
Having babies around everywhere could interfere with all the college orgies, though, which would be tragic.
Also, since I think 79 is meant to be at least somewhat serious, in the Bitch universe are lifetime couples pairing off in high school or are all these people single parents?
79 Sounds great -- but what are the laws with respect to imigrating into the Bitch Universe?
Also, as far as factors protecting against the urge to beat the children, I dare say that the emotional maturity of older parenthood is off-set by the cranky-old-cootiness of being old. The "annoying" antics of very small people seem so much more cute/amusing when you are still young and not yet beaten down by life...
"Ohhhhh. I meant menstrually."
Oh, oops, I'm inappropriately black-faced now.
81 -- Ah, the real Catch-22. The age at which you may be best adapted to becoming a parent may very well not be the age at which you are best adapted to selecting a lifetime partner. The emotional maturity thing really is quite useful for the latter.
81: That's the sticking point. I could see managing a kid at 17 (help from parents, daycare in college, assuming everyone thought of it as normal) just fine; managing a marriage at 17 much less so.
Babies are terrifying. Shame on all of you for crowding my world with more of them.
Allen Iverson's mom became a grandmom at age 34.
Babies are terrifying.
Especially the undead ones that crawl across the ceiling seeking heroine.
My first day of law school, a (childless) 3L told me (upon learning that I was married) that "3L year is a really good time to give birth." In practice, I only know one person who did it & I actually think she took time off. A couple of male students' wives did...
I think in many ways a situation where the whole extended family lives nearby, provides more support, & you have kids younger makes more sense. But that's easier to say than to execute.
"I know Wonder Woman was around here somewhere."
"I do think that ideally folks would have 'em young, and the 40ish grandparents would be around to provide the emotional maturity and occasional respite to keep the kids from being beaten"
I agree completely. I basically did this. My daughter was born during my 3rd yr of law school. Her mother and I were young. Our parents were young enough to want to spend lots of time with our daughter. It was a tremendous help.
89: I was aiming for right before finals, 3L, but took an extra month or two to get knocked up and ended up right after the bar. But it was a good time -- started my job six months late, which they were cool with, and so had a very relaxed 'maternity leave'.
heroine
Drugs won't save you, heebie.
Both sets of our baby's grandparents would love to spend lots and lots of time helping with the baby, but damned if they aren't all halfway across the country. Fucking mobile population.
93: I could have sworn you'd said your first came after you'd decided to start trying, but before you'd actually started trying (birth control failure).
81: Single parents or temporary marriages, either way. Plus don't forget I'm the open marriage lady. I say let's jettison the nuclear family altogether; if papa likes his kids and treats mama decently, he'll stick around in one form or another.
And then we'll all sing kumbaya and toast marshmallows over the campfire, I know.
94: They dull the pain. Are you really going to deprive me of that?
heebie, you noticed by puffy chest! How nice.
96: Second. The first I was using the pill, which works, the second, because of breastfeeding, I was using a diaphragm which I now have little faith in.
BitchPhd:
I think marriages should last 7 yrs, with an option to renew. That makes you really work for it.
And yeah, I know that's sexist. Okay, just to be a good modern feminist, I'll also point out that the same argument can perfectly well work the other way; if a freedom-loving mama likes her kid and treats papa decently, she'll be around in one form or another as well.
A good friend (female) had her first right before finals, 3L year. I can't imagine why that would be your "aim", LB. She took an exam three days after giving birth (obviously not having spent those days studying, or sleeping much), and turned in two (very, very halfhearted) papers a week after that. I don't think she regarded it as ideal timing.
99: That and your voice - "Loud, high-pitched, strident and staccato calls."
I can go along with 101. While we're at it, let's make sure utopia has free birth control, abortion on demand, a flexible 35-hour workweek, universal health care, a minimum of four weeks' paid vacation, and public transit.
Plus ponies.
I think the Bitchworld described in 97 sounds wonderful.
"your voice - "Loud, high-pitched, strident and staccato calls.""
Did you just call me a Republican? Girl or no girl, those are fighting words.
100: really, your second? Huh. You graduated from law school __ years ago... I thought your kids were younger than that.
"free birth control, abortion on demand"
Forget Utopia! I can provide those things for you BitchPhd today. Come to Virginia.
95: no kidding.
Being married to a professor plays hell with the living-near-your-extended-family thing. (not that I didn't luck out to land in Chicago).
8 years, and Sally turns 8 July 29.
103: Oh, I'm not saying it was rational, but my 3L spring classes were pretty easy -- I could have taken the exams in my sleep. And NYU was pretty relaxed about rescheduling for medical reasons, so I could have gotten them moved a week or two if necessary.
Oh wait, you mean birth control failed on the second, which probably came after your first, which was at the end of law school. Got it.
It's very important that I have your personal history pieced together accurately. For my project.
Dpn't presume too much on the grandparently units. My mother helped raise her first grandchild but gave clear signals that any future grandchildren would strictly be ours.
Girl or no girl, those are fighting words.
A bake-off? With pies and pastries? Where everyone wins?
106, why thank you!
109, mmmmm, nope. Happy where I am, my parents are in state (hence occasional free nanny care) and I am *not* moving cross country again anytime soon.
105 - Europe would pretty much fulfil your needs.
"A bake-off? With pies and pastries? Where everyone wins?"
I am not very good with pies. I've done some pumpkin pies and a pecan pie. But fine. Pie contest!!!!
I do like my honey pie.
116: Shhhh. See what I said upthread about no more cross country moves.
abortion on demand
From vending machines.
I am not very good with pies.
S'okay - I was just going to pick one up at the grocery store on the way over.
abortion on demand
From vending machines.
I'm picturing the game where the claw picks up the stuffed-animal and deposits it down the shoot.
115:
suit yourself.
My team/cult has free birth control and abortions, free swim lessons, and monkeys!
"I'm picturing the game where the claw picks up the stuffed-animal and deposits it down the shoot."
Ouch.
Conversely to 95, if any of you Bay Area people are parents and would like to borrow some grandparents for your kids, I have at least two pairs I can hook you up with. They're all early 60s, but what they lack in spryness they will more than make up for in enthusiasm.
I'm picturing the game where the claw picks up the stuffed-animal and deposits it down the shoot.
If we're gonna go all arcade-y, I'd guess abortion-on-demand machines would probably resemble this game instead.
126: okay that game is now going to ruin my afternoon. And by "ruin", I mean "make fun instead of boring." Three tries, 1479 is my best so far.
Brock has this right. Of course, different factors weigh more heavily for different people. I'm in decent physical shape for an old guy, and was cripplingly clueless when I was younger. Waiting was the right move for me.
Speaking of bad timing, one of my students had a baby girl the day before the school year started. Needless to say, he didn't get much done that year...
128 to 71. Age also means it takes awhile to compose posts.
130: And you run the risk of forgetting your name.
70: The Hig boson is the gauge of the electric boogieloo...
Okay, afternoon spared. 5 tries, 1539, and I'm completely bored already.
134
Thanks. Afternoon officially to be squandered...
older people generally need less sleep than younger ones
I doubt this is true; I think it's that they sleep much more lightly, and can't stay asleep. But the need is as great as ever.
At the meetup, everybody had a story about people who sleep at work, often hunched over keyboards. I'd benefit from being able to do that, but I'd need to be more comfortable.
105: Hmmm. I don't think I could live productively in utopia, because I don't speak French.
135: Actually, the abortion game was more fun than that.
1136: Actually, it is true. From late-adolescence on your sleep needs gradually decline throughout your life.
Dockery and Son
'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:
Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In '43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn
High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much . . . How little . . . Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong
Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of . . . No, that's not the difference: rather, how
Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got
And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son's harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.
Philip Larkin
_The Whitman Weddings_
Great poem.
Actually "Whitsun Weddings".
If you're gonna time-waste, do it right.
Sally turns 8 July 29.
Hey, cool. Same birthday as my son, his oldest cousin, and a good friend/former partner's daughter.
If you want people to be able to have kids earlier, then we need decent jobs without this increasingly ridiculous requirement that everyone have a college degree. Also, decent access to health care, and affordable housing.
My girlfriend (now wife) got pregnant when we were both 20. I dropped out of school and started working full time. It's largely worked out for us for a few reasons.
1. I was able to work my way up at a couple of different jobs to a pay grade where my wife didn't have to work the first few years we were married. (pre tech crash, now, I would have a harder time pulling this off)
2. These jobs had good health plans
3 I was able to get night and evening shifts so that she could continue school during the day and I could watch the kids.
4. My pay was high enough, and houses cheap enough around here at the time that we were able to buy a house in a decent area by the time I was 25. (again, good timing, 6 years later, no way could I buy the house we're in)
We were very lucky.
> Actually "Whitsun Weddings".
corrected in original. thx.