3 Upsides of Being an Older Mom/Dad

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When my old knees ache when my son demands, with cries and wails, to be picked up, I tell myself there is an upside of being an old mom. However, I’m not an old mom who is an experienced mom.

Nope.

We were in our late 40s when the adoption agency placed our beautiful son in my arms. Our first night alone, it was clear we had no clue what we were doing. It’s been a year, so far, so good.

We might not have the same level of energy as younger parents. And yeah, we’ll be senior citizens when Junior graduates high school. But there are some upsides to being an older parent.

3 Upsides of Being an Older Parent

Friends who have been there

Friends we’ve known for years, have kids 7-18 years older than ours, so they’ve been there and done that. We even know the kids they’re talking about when they give advice or share stories. Their kids are not always so much older that the advice they offer is necessarily out of date, as it could be with asking our own parents.

Senior and Junior at bedtime

Career stability

We’re both pretty well established in our careers and were at a mid-point when we became parents. I chose to say no to training and other opportunities so I could pick up Junior well before 5pm from daycare. My husband cut back his hours so he could spend more time with our son. Years of working long hours and participating in various projects have allowed us to downshift and focus on Junior.

Withdrawing from banked leave

One of our friends warned us, ‘oh, yeah, you’re going to be sick for 6 years.’ After placing Junior in daycare, we’ve been picking up one bug after another. It is a rare moment when one or more of us, aren’t sick. My younger co-workers have struggled with leave (sick and annual) because of the way it is calculated for newer employees. Thankfully, we’ve had a huge bank of leave because we’ve been at our workplaces for over 15 years. However, I’m thinking if we were younger, we’d be able to ward off more sniffles. Maybe.

Would have been better to be younger? Yes. But that’s not where we are now. Now we have to take account of the gifts we have, not the ones we don’t.

2 COMMENTS

  1. I love this perspective. Thank you for being open! I also tell myself there are so many older moms in DC, at least we won’t be the only senior citizen moms at high school graduation, right?

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