As a child, I have been always told that I looked younger than I really was, especially that I was shorter than average. That was before hitting my teenage years, when I have been through a sudden and total transformation and became taller than most of my classmates. In the contrary to what my length was reflecting during my childhood, I have been told that I sounded like a grownup comparing to those of my age!
Now a day, looking back and thinking about it, I realize that the reason is that I was born after fifteen years from the last twins siblings my mother had given birth to. Having older parents and siblings helped shaping my personality, and I have noticed exactly the same thing in my little students in my preschool who have older parents!
The health push back and concern about women having babies when they are older has been well known. In spite of risks, in 2014 877 women in Bahrain who are 40 years old and older gave birth, and this will continue to happen. Especially, with technology to monitor and protect both mother and fetus, numerous risks have been reduced. These advances have provided a sense of security, a cushion of sorts, for women to try to conceive in an older age.
BUT WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS FOR THE CHILDREN OF “OLDER” MOTHERS?
1. Children are expected to have positive long-term outcomes.
When the researchers investigated data from siblings who basically had a similar home environment, they noted that the sibling born when the mom was older was taller, remained in the educational system longer, was more likely to join university, and performed better on cognitive tests, achievement tests, and SATs than the siblings born when their mother was younger.
2. Children acquire more advanced language skills.
Because a lot of older mothers are retired or stay at home mom, and they are less attached to new smartphones technologies and online socializing than younger moms, they have more time to spend and to talk to their children who become exposed to more vocabulary while interacting with their mother at very young ages. An enriched language skills are crucial element of children’s cognitive skills and is evident in how they accomplish in school. In short, Children exposed to more enhanced language environments demonstrate more advanced language abilities.
In addition, most older mothers have older children who are in their senior years of school or college who act as role models to the younger siblings. With highly educated siblings, a child is exposed to the types of nourishing influences that promote academic success.
3. Children are on the receiving end of educational and emotional support.
Similarly, parents’ education and family income influence children’s success indirectly through parenting behaviors and educational expectations that inspire reading and constructive play and offer emotional support in the home. Parents’ educational achievement seems to be a key variable in children’s well-being in general.
4. Children likely to receive more parental time and attention.
More moms who choose to have children in older age have made strides in or met their professional goals, saved money from being in the labor force longer, or boosted their earning potential before having babies. Such circumstances often give parents more dinars to invest in their children and offer a sense of security and stability.
Older mothers—and fathers—who are less worried about their earning potential or less stressed or pulled by their jobs have a tendency to to be more patient and can spend more time with their offspring.
5. Older mothers projected to live longer, to be there for their children.
Opposing to some argument, developments in healthcare and people’s attitudes towards exercise and remaining fit, indicate that older mothers live longer. A study in Menopause Journal studied older mothers’ life expectation and found that women who had their last child after the age of 33 are expected to live to 95. In fact, researchers stated that these women had twice the probability of living to 95 or older than those who had their last kid former to their 30th birthday. The good news for women having babies after 40 is alike.
