Elizabeth Gregory Archives - Mothering in the Middle

’57 at 57

by Elizabeth Gregory

My mom had her first baby in 1957, the peak of the boom. Since day one, I could take for granted that whatever was happening to me was going to be interesting or at least familiar to multitudes. And as a Dr. Spock devotee and nursery school teacher with an MA in early childhood education, my mom was perfectly cast to grow my feeling of specialness, even among the hordes of my equally special peers.

1957 was 57 years ago this year, and as I move through my first Mother’s Day without my mom in the world, I know my loneliness is shared by millions of motherless women and men, boomers and non. For some of us the effect is intensified by missing our dads as well—all access cut to that private family culture of people who get our old jokes and references, and who reliably care about what we think and what we and our kids are doing. What’s the use of a smart-phone if there’s no mom or dad on the other end to savor the photos of my kids that I keep almost sending them? […]

Old = Dirty? (A Commentary on the UK’s First Response Campaign)

by Elizabeth Gregory

Dear Reader: This commentary is in response to a new ad campaign in Britain sponsored by the pregnancy testing company First Response, which warns young women that their childbearing years are numbered. You can find related articles on midlifemothers/facebook.

One of the nice things about being an older mom is the friendly comments you get: just this morning a 29-year old I’d just met remarked apropos of nothing in particular that I didn’t look 55. She hoped she’d look like me when she was my age!

Maybe she was lying, but she had no particular reason to. More likely she was just telling me that I looked a lot better than she’d expected for the elderly mother of an 8 year old. It’s not hard to succeed in that territory. Who am I to turn down a compliment? […]

Babies on Hold…

by Elizabeth Gregory

New CDC birth data confirms that the U.S. birthrate dropped 1 percent to reach an all-time low in 2011, extending the downward trend begun with the recession in 2008. Put down your knee-jerk fears about smaller population. This drop is a good sign, foretelling not a diminished but a strengthened workforce down the line. […]

Not That You Look Old: The Aesthetics of Modern Motherhood

by Elizabeth Gregory

Like quite a few people I know, I had my first child in my late thirties–39 to be exact. My maternal grandmother had a child at 39, too, but that girl was her eighth baby and her last.

This difference summed up for me the change that had occurred in two generations, when I started writing a book about the new later motherhood–its causes and effects, personal and social. Where 1 in 12 first babies these days is born to a mom 35 or over, it was 1 in 100 in 1970. Add in the adoptive moms, and you’ve got a big group. […]

Ladies in Waiting

by Elizabeth Gregory

Midlife moms have made headlines recently – because our ranks are growing fast, and so is the pool of midlife-moms-to-be, as lots of recession-shy ladies are holding off on babies for the time being – a formula for many midlife moms and babies down the line. On the celebrity side, think Penelope Cruz, Carla Bruni, Mariah Carey, Tina Fey. Lots of non-celeb ladies are also waiting til 35 and after to start or continue their families. US births were down 4% overall between 2007 and 2009 – falling in all age groups except women 40 and over, for whom the rate rose 6%! Here’s the illustration:

Births continued downward in 2010. The overall decline is not exactly world changing, however, since we’re only falling back to the level we were at in 2004 — after a big birth rate rise based on a false sense of economic security in 2005-7.

The pattern of delay in evidence here suggests that the ladies are waiting til they feel ready – and in important measure that readiness seems to be defined in financial terms. Women starting families in their 40s tend to have established at work first and to be better off. But even if the economy is still less secure than they might like, by 40 or so it’s now or never for those who aim to form their families standard issue.

For trend trackers, the suspenseful part comes next – how long will those who put off having kids now wait before starting, or before having a second or third child? Though about two thirds of women can have kids unassisted at […]

Later Moms: Rocking the Cradle and the World

by Elizabeth Gregory

We tend to think of later motherhood in personal terms – often focusing on the story of each woman’s journey to having kids at what is still sometimes considered an advanced age. But when all these personal choices are added together, they have enormous ripple effects, unraveling the old social fabric and moving us all toward a very different tomorrow. […]