My mom had her first child (of four) at 35.

whoa. How spread out are you all?

Are we still doing "phrasing"?

All of us in different states, separated by at least one other state.

My youngest sibling is less than 6 years younger than me.

And she's the only one of us to ever live in Iowa. Makes you think.

Someone should go on Reddit and announce, "I had a baby when I was 40 years old. AMA."

Eh, they could do it now, or they could wait fifty years.

My mom had me at 44.

My kids were conceived at 39, 40 and 42.

3 to 9

And, I might add, she's still alive, at an uncharacteristically old age for my family. So maybe there is something to that longevity/maternal age bit.

Well, dammit. I wrapped things up a week shy of thirty. There goes my expectation of aging successfully.

First kid, sadly probably only, at 42. I feel positively ancient all the time, especially talking with classmates ' mothers or when kid asks to "be a backpack." If I make it past 70 I'll be the first mother to do it in at least four of my maternal lineage's generations. Pretty sure every daughter has their first child at least five years later than their mother did going back those known three. I was 8 years older than mine, who died at 67.

My mom had my sister and I when she was 40 and 36, respectively. (There's no way to put that that doesn't sound awkward.) She has already outlived her mother by at least 5 years, I'd have to ask the exact number, but my sister and I were both breech births or C-sections for some other reason, so I don't think she's a good example of late maternal fertility.

I had my two at a month shy of 34 and then a month and a bit shy of 37. Sis had one at 39 and one at 42. Don't mess with Sicilian ancestry when it comes to fertility, I guess.

My mom was half Sicilian.

I hesitate to say this, but the chance of it biting me in the ass seems adequately low... Cassandane had Atossa at 44.

Mine were age 31 to 36.5.

I am occasionally wistful that I didn't live an entirely different life where some absurdly large number of kids would have made sense. My two are both absolutely delightful people, and very different from each other: the alternative world where there were six more draws from the same deck, while not something I would have actively chosen (as I in fact didn't) has a fair amount of appeal.

There may be a newly discovered longevity association , but there's also one with breast cancer, opposite- that is early but not late pregnancy is protective.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21805333/

20: The same! Well, it was a feeling long before we had our two and saw how they turned out. I grew up with a bunch of cousins, including 9 in one nuclear family. My wife was one of six, and she had a set of cousins with thirteen. There's so much for the kids, too, in those families. Not the world we live in, though.

I had my kids at an AMA. My grandmother had her last at 39 and my great grandmothers had kids into their early-mid 40s. This is one reason I always roll my eyes at the panic about older moms. Yeah my great-grandmother wasn't having her first kid at 45 but she did have her 9th and 10th kid at 45 and another great-grandmother had her 8th at 42 (dad was 50). Looking at my family tree most women married in their mid 20s and had kids into their early 40s, 42-44. This was the 1500-1800s so no ART involved. They do seem relatively long lived for the time. For example, one ancestor was born in 1690, had her first kid in 1711 (age 21) and her last in 1733 (age 43). She died in 1774 so lived to be 84.

One male ancestor was born in 1610 and didn't have his first kid until 1654. He had a total of 7 kids, the last one born in 1674. He died in 1687 at 77 years old. His wife's birth date is unknown.

His son (b 1659) had 7 kids with his first wife from 1683-1701. She died in 1711 and he remarried a much younger woman and had 8 more kids. The youngest kid was born when he was 70. He lived to be 79. His second wife only lived to 52 but they died in the same year along with one of his daughters so my guess is it might be infectious disease or something like a fire.

I forgot to add, second wife was 43 when she had her last kid.

This seems like the right thread to bitch about menopause and birth control. As une femme d'un certain age, the chances of my actually getting pregnant well past 50 have to be vanishingly small. And yet my goddamn ovaries keep on tossing out a monthly egg, meaning that birth control still seems necessary. I would deeply like my reproductive system to just relax already and settle down into whatever its postmenopausal plans are.

This is one reason I always roll my eyes at the panic about older moms. Yeah my great-grandmother wasn't having her first kid at 45 but she did have her 9th and 10th kid at 45 and another great-grandmother had her 8th at 42 (dad was 50).

This is a great point.

Now I've fallen down a rabbit hole. My gg grandma had her last at 45 but died at 60. Interestingly, she got married in October and had her first baby in March. (Yes I know that was pretty normal back then).

Looking at my direct family tree I'm not finding a single woman who didn't have a kid past 40. The "youngest" final kid so far is at 41. Clicking around through the branches of siblings I'm finding the youngest last kid to be 33, but that is somewhat of an anomaly. She died 6 years later at 39 and it's possible it was pregnancy/childbirth related (though who knows).

One woman had 3 kids with her first husband then married again and had a second kid at 45. No death date for her (though youngest daughter died in 1808 at age 83).

I'm also not finding a single teen marriage. The women are at the youngest early 20s but usually mid or upper 20s. The men range from early 20s to mid 40s at age of marriage. Another thing I wish would die is the idea that everyone married at age 14 until the 20th century.

Interestingly, she got married in October and had her first baby in March.

I had my first baby in April, and then got married in October.

His son (b 1659) had 7 kids with his first wife from 1683-1701. She died in 1711 and he remarried a much younger woman and had 8 more kids. The youngest kid was born when he was 70. He lived to be 79. His second wife only lived to 52 but they died in the same year along with one of his daughters so my guess is it might be infectious disease or something like a fire.

Was this in New England? There was a major epidemic called the "Throat Distemper," probably actually separate epidemics of scarlet fever and diphtheria that were easily confused, from 1735 to 1740 that would match up pretty well with those dates.

28 Yeah, I have no idea how that idea got to be widespread. Maybe it's a Scots-Irish frontiers thing? Certainly not the norm in settled New England.

I do have a teen marriage in my ancestry. Daughter of a preacher -- not of the established church in Westfield Mass but some kind of dissident faction -- marries a guy at 15 and has a kid 5 months after marriage. 1750s. Next kid is born several years later. She lived to be 85.

Oops, 16 at marriage, died at 70. Married in May kiddo (my ancestor) in September. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23191570/alace-tremain

79

I think teen marriage was, as a wider phenomenon in America, peaked in the 40s and 50s.

At my high school, teen pregnancy peaked in 1990. Mostly because of Steven.

I can't remember his last name. He had four kids that I know of, three of them in 1990.