Great Britain is trying to come to grips with the extremes of parenthood – first the 13-year father (Alfie) and now the 66-year mother Elizabeth Adeney.

Elizabeth shocked the country when she decided to have a child at the advanced age of 66 – when most women of her age are easing into retirement and coping with the empty nest syndrome. Apparently for the successful career woman, nesting has just started. She reportedly has already delivered her son on Tuesday this week by C-section. Her case highlights the controversies surrounding assisted production, medical tourism, and the laws governing these. Apparently, Elizabeth had in vitro fertilization outside the UK where the age limit is 50. Should her act of circumventing the law through medical tourism be considered illegal? Elizabeth reportedly received hate mails about her decision to have a child.

Elizabeth’s case brought out the question as to when is a mother too old to have a child?

For many people, the answer is clear – the biological clock decides. There are others, however, who believe in taking advantage of what science has to offer. After all, even in the Bible, there is the case of Sarah who delivered Isaac at the very ripe age of 80+.

Many people are also bringing up the gender question – when is a father too old to be a father? Think of Anthony Quinn, Larry King, and J. Howard Marshall. Is anybody complaining at all?

What do you think? When is it too old to have a child?

More and more people, both men and women, are putting off having children as late as possible. Most of us are aware of the risks associated with advanced maternal age: chromosomal aberrations, pregnancy complications, risky delivery. Less known is the effect of paternal age and has often been assumed not to matter at all. Researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia report that “time is not on the side of older dads.” The older a dad is, the higher is the likelihood that his offspring will have reduced cognitive skills. Previous studies have actually revealed that advanced paternal age increases the risk for schizophrenia and autism in the children.

The study was based on the performance of 33,000 American children who underwent intelligence tests at age 8 months, 4 years, and 7 years. The researchers claim that the results are surprising but clear: the older a dad is, the worse his children performed in intelligence tests. They speculate that more mutations accumulate in the sperms of older men which are then passed on to their children.

This link between children’s intelligence and daddy’s age is the exact opposite of what has been observed when looking at mommy’s age. Children of older women who escape chromosomal problems tend to be smarter than kids of younger women, thus probably contributing to the myth that menopausal babies are geniuses.

My father was 38 and my mom was 19 when they had their first child (she was his second wife). I was the 5^th child in a family of 6. My dad was 52 when I was born and he was 56 when my younger sister was born. If we were to fit in the pattern observed by the study, I and my siblings should be virtually morons.

I wonder what male celebrities who had children late in life would have to say about this. Michael Douglas was 59 when Carys Zeta was born in 2003. The late Anthony Quinn had his youngest child at age 81!

What do you think?

Ranjit Hayer is 60 years old and is one of the oldest women to give birth, definitely among the oldest in Canada, and certainly as a mom of twins, according the CBC Canada. After several decades of trying to conceive, her patience finally paid off in double dose and delivered twins earlier this week.

Ranjit has been through several miscarriages and even an IVF scam. She and her husband were originally from India.

Ranjit’s case put fuel into the ongoing ethical debate about IVF treatments. In this case, the ground for objection is Ranjit’s advanced age. The cut off age for IVF treatment in Canada is 45 to 50 years old. Because of her disqualification due to her age in Canada, Ranjit went to India to have the IVF procedure done using donor eggs. She was initially pregnant with triplets but lost one embryo. However, she came back to Canada to deliver in Calgary.

With advancing age, pregnancy becomes more difficult and riskier. Ranjit suffered from gestational diabetes and hypertension, as well as placenta previa. She had hemorrhage in her 7^th week of gestation and her twins were delivered by emergency C-section. The babies are doing well but one baby needs breathing assistance and the other is in a special neonatal care unit. The mother had severe bleeding that led to the removal of her uterus as well as blood transfusion and a stay in an intensive care unit..

Many critics are objecting to the fact that people like Ranjit are circumventing the cut off age under Canadian law by having IVF outside the country but still the Canadian health care system has to bear the burden of the costs of prenatal complications as well as the postnatal and neonatal care.

Aside from pregnancy complications and the costs, there are also the social, psychological and financial implications of people close to retirement age still having to raise children to adulthood.

The IVF-at-any-age issue is a very difficult and sensitive topic. On the one hand, technology offers people the possibility of fulfilling their wish for children. On the other hand, at what price and how would it affect the children?

What do you think?

Childhood obesity is a big issue these days and this study by Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters tells us age 2 might actually be the “tipping point” wherein doctors and parents should worry about weight control. Scaringly early, don’t you think?

The study looked at the health data of 111 children from 1 suburban pediatric practice. The researchers observed that children who are currently obese already started gaining weight as babies. By the time they reached 2 years old, 90% of these children were considered overweight. This emphasizes the need for vigilance on the part of the parents as well as the pediatricians. Current estimates of children obesity incidence in the US is at16%.

In an earlier post, MrsH reviews a study wherein parents are often wrong is estimating a child’s healthy weight. Are we perhaps as parents really blind when it comes to our children’s weights? Is what we parents consider “baby fat” actually the start of a lifetime problem for our children? That our “chubby” two-year old may actually be obese? If so, then it’s time we open our eyes.

When Dara Torres (US), and Constantina Tomescu (Romania) won medals last week in swimming and marathon, respectively, nobody batted an eyelid. Why should they? Many other women like them -Paula Radcliffe (UK, long distance runner) and Lindsay Davenport (US, tennis player), to name a few – have achieved athletic feats not unheard of in this day and age.

What all these women have in common is that they are older than your average competitive sportsperson but are still competing at the Beijing Olympics. At 38, Constantina is the oldest marathon winner in Olympic history while 41-year old Dara is the oldest ever member of the US Olympic swimming team. Paula and Lindsay are both over 30.

And – they are all moms. While many of us juggle between job and kids, these women have to juggle between demanding physical training and kids. That’s the way to go nowadays. No problem.

But let’s go back 60 years and 15 Olympic Games ago in London in 1948 – to the woman who paved the way – Francina Blankers-Koen. This Dutch athlete, better known as “Fanny” had a lot stacked against her. She had to live through the second World War, a time when food was scarce, therefore extra hard for athletes in training. She was a woman at a time when sporting bodies were exclusively male who simply tolerated female athletes. She was 30 years old, a very ripe age in field and track athletics. And – she had two young children during an era when a mother’s place should be at her children’s side and nowhere else. Something that helped through was her determination to succeed and the support of her husband-coach.

War, food shortage, pregnancies, 2 small children – these were not the best ingredients for an athlete’s training. Remember, this was a time when athletes were not allowed to do endorsements or accept any kind of commercial support. While Fanny trained on the track, her kids played in the high-jump area – a perfect sandpit! – according to the Independent. For her unconventional parenting style, Fanny got lots of hate mail – plus the fact that she wore short trousers while training.

Fanny went on to win 4 gold medals in the 1948 London Olympics. She could have won more if not for the Olympic rule at that time than women were limited to competing in 3 individual events only. Public opinion was divided – admiration for her feats and condemnation for shirking on her motherly duties – her youngest was 2 years old during the London games. To show this rather grudging appreciation of her achievements, she was dubbed by the international media as “The Flying Housewife“, “flying” for her athletic prowess and “housewife” to put her in her place.

What even made her story remarkable is the birth of her 3^rd child in 1949 just a few months after she came home victorious from London. She was actually in the very stages of pregnancy during the competition, according to the Independent . Whether she knew about her condition was not clear. At any rate, had her condition been known by the sports authorities, she wouldn’t have been allowed to compete.

Fanny went on to compete in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. In her time, she set 16 world records in 8 different disciplines. The crowning glory to her amazing athletic career was being voted as the “Female Athlete of the 20th Century” by the International Association of Athletics Federations in 1999.

Friday is my boys’ first sleepover ever (aside from sleeping at grandma’s) and they are are so excited they probably won’t be able to sleep tonight. Their preschool is organizing a circus Friday evening and a slumber party in the gym room afterwards. At age 5, this is a major milestone in my twin sons’ life. My husband and I are already checking out restaurants and film schedules. Friday night in town, here we come.

This brings to mind 2 friends who will have something to say about this.

K will probably say, “it’s about time.” K’s girl Hannah is 2 years older than my boys and has been sleeping over at her best friend Sophie’s place since she was 3. Two sets of couples who are good friends have daughters of about the same age. Once a month on a weekend night, Hannah will sleep over at Sophie’s place and vice versa. That means that once a month, each couple has a free night without parenting duties. In addition, once every 2 months, they pool their resources to hire a babysitter for the 2 girls and the 4 parents go out together. K suggested that I should do the same and find a family to share babysitting duties with. Unfortunately with twins, this arrangement wouldn’t easily work out for us.

Now, M will probably say my boys are too young for sleep overs. We were visiting her just a week ago and her 9-year-old daughter Lisa was on 5-day school trip and she (the mom) was pretty nervous. “Relax and enjoy it. Go somewhere with your husband“, I told her. But she was inconsolable. According to her, Lisa never goes on sleep overs. Whe she goes to slumber parties, she’s always picked up by her parents at midnight.

I noticed that my boys have been talking lately about sleeping at their classmate’s place. “D asked me to sleep at his place.” “Can I sleep with J, mom? (sic)” And my answer was always “Let’s wait till his/her mom calls.” In the same way, I bet my boys are always inviting their friends for sleep overs without consulting me. They still have to learn that nothing works (yet) without moms organizing things.

So what do you think? What age is a good age for sleep overs?