Late-in-life parents

I had a conversation with an old high school girlfriend a while back who had just recently delivered a new baby. She and her husband also have two that are almost grown and I said to her, “Here you were, almost done raising kids, and I am just getting started!” She hinted that maybe finishing school and working on a career for a few years was “how it is supposed to happen.” I said yeah, right. I’ll be in a walker at my kids’ graduation, and on oxygen by the time they get married. We both just laughed. Of course with her new baby, she’ll be right there with me. At least she’ll have her older children to pick out her muu muus and keep her medical equipment up to date.

Not long after that, I saw another school mate and my old neighbor both of whom have boys around Brisco’s age. There’s nothing on earth like a proud Daddy. Now it seems it’s time for all hard working coaches in three counties to start having kids. I’m a little worried about the water we’re all drinking.

It’s funny how a person can get an idea into their head and, regardless of the irrationality of the thought, totally believe it is true. I grew up with parents who were so young (or at least young-looking) that my mother was always getting mistaken for a sister. She still does. She never missed a ball game; most of the time she sat in the dugout with us and kept the score book. She chaperoned all our school functions, and it never seemed like an imposition or a drudgery to have my mother along. Maybe that’s because I was such an angelic teenager…or more probably because my mother was still so young, and young at heart.

When I was in my 20’s, it seemed everyone around me was busy having babies and parenting kids. I was the only one who was left to my never-ending pursuit of education and the final answer to the monumental question of “what I really want to be when I grow up”.

Now it seems I am not alone in my (what some would consider) “late in life” parenthood. I had the amazing pleasure of reconnecting with two of my former classmates just last week, one who has a three year old son and the other a son who is only three weeks. While we all agreed our bodies may not have handled having babies as well at 34, it is a sure thing our minds are better off. I can only imagine the damage I’d have done trying to raise two boys at 22!

All things considered, I know that life-for the most part-is simply out of our hands. Yes, we must participate voluntarily, but in the grand scheme of things, we are not in control. And what a blessing that is. For what I thought I was capable of at 25, I know now at almost 35, that I would have no doubt found a way to make into a terrible mess.

I’ve also decided we are only “late in life” if we choose to be, regardless of our chronological age. I’ll be attending a 97th birthday party for my husband’s great-grandmother this weekend. I’ll bet she would agree.

And that’s All in a day’s work!