Being an older mum is great and here’s why

Louise Scodie - 19 Dec 17

We need to be more positive about older mums. So many people criticise women who’ve given birth later in life. You’ll be the oldest mum at the school gates. You’ll be too old to cope with sleepless nights. You should have got started earlier. Blah, blah, blah, yawn, yawn, yawn.

Do be quiet, dissenters. I’m an older first-time mum myself. I fell pregnant at 40 and gave birth to my daughter at 41½, to be precise. I’m here to tell you that there are plenty of advantages to being an older mama.

According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2016 the rate of babies born to women aged 45 plus was up by more than a third in six years. Older mums are a growing force to be reckoned with and we know that there are a host of marvellous benefits to enjoy when you give birth closer to 50 than 30.

Here are just some of the great things about being an older mummy.

Experience days

More years on the planet equals more years of life experience, and there’s nothing that’ll help you to raise your child more than the wisdom you’ve gained scything through the jungle of life. We’re talking the whole gamut of life experience, from Oscar-worthy successes to mistakes so cringeworthy that you still want to hide behind the sofa when you think about them. Pass on your learnings from this whole messy and wonderful spectrum and your bubski will be well-informed for their own life journey ahead.

Not going out-out

By the time we hit our 40s, most of us have grown out of nightclubs and bars. Who wants to stand about in some noisy scuzzbox, surrounded by people in their 20s? If I’d have given birth 15 years ago, I might have missed going out-out a lot more than I do now. My idea of a good time these days is a night in with a chamomile tea, which is handy, as that’s what you mainly end up doing with a baby to look after. When I do go out, I make sure it’s an event worth going to and I appreciate it all the more.

Fighting fit

You can’t take care of a baby unless you’re taking care of yourself, and that’s something you’re more likely to do when you’re older. Farewell, partying and puffing away on cigarettes; hello, healthy eating and responsible self-care. You’ve drunk enough fizzy drinks and eaten enough crisps on the sofa to know that when you eat right and exercise, you feel much better about yourself and life itself – equipping you perfectly to look after your bubs.

No to nonsense

The older you become, the less likely you are to care about other people’s nonsense. This nonsense includes, but is not limited to, opinions on how you’re raising your child. For some reason, friends, family and strangers alike seem to think they can pass comment on your parenting skills. In your 40s, you’re long enough in the teeth to know that opinions are like bumholes – everybody’s got one. So you delete, move on and carry on confidently doing your own sweet thing. Au revoir, bumholes!

Louise Scodie

Louise Scodie is a writer, broadcaster and communications expert and a first-time mum to Amber, who was born in summer 2017. When she's not writing or looking after Amber, Louise can be found exercising, Instagramming or drinking hot chocolate. Louise married and had a baby later on in life and is passionate about the benefits that being a "late starter" brings.

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