Mini Episode 16: What is it like becoming a mom later in life?
For today’s mini episode, Jackie will explore two very similar questions that our listeners sent in..
They write:
Can I ask a very personal question? How old are you? I am 40 and trying to get pregnant and having trouble and, at the end of the day, wondering if I’m too old to have the energy to be a mom. You look very happy with your choice to be a mom.
And another listener wrote:
I’d love it if Jackie could talk about what it’s like becoming a mom later in life if that’s not too personal to share. I’m in my late 30s and am looking into my options of becoming a mom soon.
Tune in to hear Jackie explore the topic of becoming a mom "later in life" in the most vulnerable and truest of ways. And make sure to listen until the end to hear the question we will be diving into on the next episode. And if you feel inspired to respond to this asker and are interested in being a guest of this episode, OR if you have a short word of wisdom for them, write to us on the contact page on youandipodcast.com or DM us on instagram at @youandi.podcast.
Episode Resources:
Jackie Kai Ellis: Website / Instagram
You & I Podcast: Website
Resources on finding trusted professional help can be found here.
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The following transcript was automatically generated. Please be aware that it may contain errors. Thank you for your understanding.
Welcome to You & I.
I am Jackie Kai Ellis and it’s my genuine hope that through sharing our most vulnerable stories, we know, in the moments where it matters so much, that we are not alone.
It needs to be said, I am not a professional, just someone with some personal experience to share. I do hope this is helpful, but as always, take the advice that resonates and ignore what doesn't. And don’t hesitate to seek out professional help through a trusted source. We’ve provided links on our website in case you need them..
For today’s mini episode, we have two questions that you, our listeners, sent in. They are similar so I’ve decided to explore them together
They write:
Can I ask a very personal question? How old are you? I am 40 and trying to get pregnant and having trouble and, at the end of the day, wondering if I’m too old to have the energy to be a mom. You look very happy with your choice to be a mom.
And another listener wrote:
I’d love it if Jackie could talk about what it’s like becoming a mom later in life if that’s not too personal to share. I’m in my late 30s and am looking into my options of becoming a mom soon.
Because all our askers are anonymous, I’ve decided to name you both, truest child.
Dear truest child.
As of today I am 44.
A week ago I pulled my back so badly that I had to crawl back to bed, where I stayed for days. These things happen, but what made me feel older is that all I did to put out my back…was cough.
What is it like to be an older mom? Well, for the most part I think I’m so busy trying to figure out how to be a mom, period, that I don’t notice that I’m an older one. And I’ve also never been a younger mom so I don’t have much to compare to.
Though I do think about the fact that I’ll be 61 and my husband, Joe, will be 63 when Kai turns 18. I wonder what retirement will look like, if I will be able to afford to retire anymore. I worry about what happens to Kai if I don’t make it to 61. I spent a good amount of time organizing my life insurance, critical illness insurance, education funds and wills. I think about teaching Kai how to cook and clean from a young age, to have basic life skills, to be somewhat self-reliant if anything should happen to me. I know this might all be a bit over the top. I mean, so many people have kids later in life, and I guess everyone with a child should be thinking about this to some degree. But the reality is that the chances of illness increase with age, and because I am older, I do worry.
Though, if I were a younger mom, I’d probably be worried too, just about different things. I’d always heard that the moment you become a mom, you worry about your child for the rest of your life, and I can see how this is true for many, for me, and for my mom who still reminds me to put on a coat.
My mom says that, because I am older, I raise Kai like he’s my grandchild, which seems like a stretch because I know how much TV she lets him watch, but I get what she’s trying to say, because technically I could be his grandmother. And that’s not lost on me either, because I’m an older mom, I do feel this great sense of awe and fortune that I was able to have a child at my age. I’ve known many women who have struggled to conceive and perhaps I am more appreciative that I could experience the gift of motherhood, at all.
Even before I became pregnant, when I was still trying to decide if I wanted kids at all, I remember putting a lot of consideration into my age. There are so many unknowns with parenthood, how it will change your life, but age adds another layer of unknowns as well. And I have a feeling you both have written in because you may be considering some of these same unknowns.
I wondered how it would affect me physically.
I wondered how my body would handle pregnancy. If I would be able to carry a child with little harm to us both. I wondered if my body was strong enough to endure the damage of birthing, and if my baby would be healthy. I, too, wondered if I had the energy to be a mom. If I could handle bending over for hours holding his hands while he learned to walk, or if my back would go out while coughing.
In my experience, and I can only share my own, I was amazed at how strong my body was. I was amazed that, without any conscious thought or effort, my body knew exactly how to create life. I basically ate burgers and mangoes for 9 months and my body made a human being with eyelashes and a nervous system. I learned that my body is wise, wiser than my mind. That it is trustworthy.
And after he was born, the constant feedings, the sleepless nights and days, the learning curve, the diaper changes and googling “how much milk are newborns supposed to drink?” I found that, though I was tired, the energy to get through it just came because something happens when a helpless little human depends on you, hormones seem to be precisely dosed for survival, and when you don’t really have a choice anyway. And one day you look up in baby music class and you realize that all the twenty-something parents beside you also look vacant and dead from exhaustion.
You just put one foot in front of the other, and then when he began to laugh and play, I just wanted to laugh and play with him, to crawl on the floor playing peekaboo with him, to roar like a lion and learn the ukulele so I could sing his favourite songs for him. It’s true, I did this. He unearthed a youthfulness, a silliness in me, a side I hadn’t seen in myself since I was a child, that I didn't even know was still there.
I wondered if it would be harder, older.
I assume that learning to be a parent is challenging at every age. It’s just the challenges are different. I’ve found that motherhood has just been a slow learning of how to let go, and what we need to let go of can be unique to each person. For me, life is slowly forcing me to loosen my clenched hands, release control of the things I fear losing. It is upending my expectations and teaching me to move with the present. And as Kai, my little heart, grows and needs more independence, my challenge will be to slowly create that space for him to flourish, by letting him go little by little, too.
Though, I think my age does make some things easier and some harder. Funny enough, what makes it harder is also the very thing that makes it easier. For example, it seemed harder to grapple with the change in how independent I felt, having lived a life that felt so free and unattached for so long. But because I’ve had the decades to accomplish so many things in my career, satisfied curiosities, traveled, checked off so many items on my bucket list, I’m also grateful that I could enjoy this part of my life without feeling the added pressure to carve my path, and discover my place in the world at the same time. A preoccupation that I certainly had in my twenties.
Being older, having lived beside many generations of friends that have raised children, I feel like I’ve seen and heard so much about motherhood. I’ve been privy to how scary raising a child can be, I’ve seen so many terrifying situations, sudden illnesses and freak accidents that it can be hard not to remember them all in anxiety. But on the same token, I’ve also seen so much trauma and hardship that it puts the little things in perspective, and I just don’t care if Kai draws on my hardwood floors or smears his fish dinner into my hair.
I wondered if I would enjoy it.
This one worried me most. I lived such a solitary, autonomous life for so long that I was afraid that I wouldn’t like motherhood, or even worse, if I wouldn’t be good at it.
But what I would say is, there are some days I absolutely hate being a mom. I hate it when I am home alone with Kai for so many days that diaper changes blend with diaper changes and after a while you realize you’re talking to the diapers. I hate it when my friends are inviting me on an exotic, all-expenses-paid, once-in-a-lifetime vacations and I am so afraid of leaving my baby that I won’t even consider it. I hate it when I’m trying to work but all I can hear is my baby giggling with grandma and I feel a pang of mother guilt and longing, so strong that I stop whatever I’m doing to go play peekaboo for 5 minutes throughout the day. I hate the sexist societal pressure put on mothers to be perfect and holy, and wholly identified, singularly as a mother. So much so that we feel the need to rip our former identities off us, only to learn how to patch them back on. I hate that I now have to choose between me and someone I love just as much, maybe more. But I also love that he’s there to choose, that he exists and I get to get sick of changing his diaper, that is a privilege. I love that I care about him so much that leaving him scares me, and that I both miss him and am proud of him everytime he grows out of a pair of pants or when he walks all by himself, because he is slowly (and so quickly) growing away from me.
I know I am in a very specific, very early phase of motherhood too, one where my baby is very dependent on me. So I’m sure my answers and examples will be very different even in a few months.
But when I get down to the core of why I wanted to be a mother, it was to experience a new kind of love, to be changed by the vulnerability and bravery it takes to love as a mother. To enter a classroom of mirrors, only to be shown exactly who you are, and to be determined enough to look, really look, and change and accept and love what you see. And this could only be done with the kind of love that could truly break you and so form you too. And I knew that motherhood, for me, would gift me an opportunity to learn to love like that.
What is it like to be an older mother? I’m not sure, but maybe because I had decades to decide if I wanted to be a mother at all, and knowing I very well may not have been able to, I went into it consciously and deliberately, with great intention. And despite all the challenges that motherhood has brought, I love it deeply, and this love for Kai has broken me and formed me in some ways, but more so, it has cracked me open so that my truest, most honest core of me, the person I have always been and always wanted to be, the child in me had the room to grow and flourish.
END:
Thank you. This was such a pleasure to ponder. I hope you got something helpful out of this…if anything, know that you’re not alone. You see, we all struggle, mourn, yearn, question, laugh and cry. No matter our age, background, or titles, at our core, we are all not so different, You & I.
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Incase you missed it in the last episode, check out next month’s question on our homepage.
If you feel inspired to respond to this asker and are interested in being a guest of this episode, OR if you have a short word of wisdom for them, write to us on the contact page on youandipodcast.com or DM us on instagram at @youandi (DOT) podcast. And of course, please submit your questions there too.
If you enjoyed this episode, like and subscribe to our channel, which helps others who might be interested, find us. And feel free to share this episode with someone who may find it helpful as well. Thank you for joining us today. I’m Jackie Kai Ellis, this is you and I.
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