[GovernmentShrinker]

A hundred+ years ago, women's life expectancy was much, much lower than it is now, especially when they were bearing children nearly non-stop without beneift of modern medicine, antibiotics, etc. But nobody thought there was anything wrong with a woman in her mid-40s, and very poor health, having yet another baby, even though she wasn't likely to live past 50.

Nowadays, if a perfectly healthy woman wants to have a career for a couple of decades, and then have a couple of children in her early 50s, when her life expectancy suggests she'll almost certainly see them through college, everybody starts starts wringing their hands.

The trend towards medically assisted late child-bearing is coinciding with a trend of abandoning the you-can-have-it-all-at-once myth. Professional women increasingly understand that children need to be raised in their own homes, by their own mothers, and having the children AFTER the career is a way of doing justice to both. It's not for everybody, but I see no reason to condemn it.

[TXBubba]

Your reply makes it sound like having a baby is all about the mother and her wants and desires. When you become a mom things should be all about the child and its needs. Being an older parent and having a brother and sister-in-law who are older parents I'm not speaking out of the blue. There is a reasonable point at which consideration should be given to life expectancy and quality of life for the child. There are even adoption agencies that limit the age of parents who can adopt based on the sum of their ages. Their reasoning certainly doesn't have anything to do with the physical birthing of a child.