General Chat

I have a friend in America who decided to try for a baby with her much younger husband when she was mid 40s. She was lucky and conceived fairly quickly and her son is now in his early 20s and he is her pride and joy. She and his father split up when their son was about 14 but he has lived with both of them equally. His father is Mexican so the lad speaks Spanish and English and has spent time on both countries, now studying in Spain.

I recently have been helped with my family tree by a man who retired to Spain. He is my age, coming up to 75, and has a daughter by his second (current) wife who us obviously a bit younger. Their daughter is mid 20s and has lived in Spain most of her life so speaks English and Spanish. Her Dad was around lots more for her when she was young as he retired early.

Knowing how I felt wanting a child, especially after I lost my baby daughter, I would have tried for longer had I not been lucky enough to have my son at the age if 35.

Lizxx

Liz I didnt get married until I was 32. I had my son at 34 and my daughter at 36.
Im so sorry for the loss of your baby daughter, that would have been devastating.

Many women have started having their families later and putting their careers first so having babies in later 30's early 40's which is fine.(but not mid 50's)

My opinion was that after your natural biological clock for a women has passed, say around mid forties, it isn't right that you can go somewhere regardless of your age and "buy" a baby either a donor , surrogate or whatever. Choosing to raise a baby singlehanded in your mid 50's in my opinion isn't right.

There are many single mothers etc but they have not chosen to be single parents. They would be because a relationship has broken down or one partner has sadly died which is completely different.

So just because a gay man in his mid 50's desires to have a child on his own, doesn't mean he should get what he wants because he can afford to.

Florence in the hebrides.

What I don't understand is why a woman can't conceive because her body clock has stopped (for want of a better phrase) yet a man is able to father a child when he is in his 70s or 80s.

ZZzzz that's because a man's fertility is different from a female's. His biological system doesn't work the same way as ours. But why that is, I actually don't know. That's the way we were created I guess.

Not quite so true nowadays it seems.

I reckoned that humans evolved menopause because it takes so long to bring their children to maturity, that it would be a serious waste of resources raising children that would be unable to survive by themselves. Also the males would be more likely to die while hunting and in conflicts, so there is no point in having a male menopause.

However this article investigates the problem a bit more scientifically:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/why-do-killer-whales-go-through-menopause/512783/