Hi
I am starting this blog to track my progress as a mom. Not just any mom but a first time mom at 49. I gave birth 1 week before my 48th birthday.
It has been just a great experience and yes being older does have advantages and disadvantages. Will I see her get married?? Who knows! But will I be there during all the wonderful stages into adulthood. Probably. Can I give her all my attention and teach her all my life lessons. For sure on the attention and I'll try on the lessons.
My husband and I have now lives that revolve around the little one but I doubt this is much different than any parent. I'm just older and more tired and keeping up can be quite exhausting as well as exhilarating.
What I do see different is just how I look at being a mom. (Even though this late life blessing isn't for everyone.)
I try to mingle with other moms of which most of them I could have given birth too!!! It's fine and enjoyable but the generation gap does come into play. Gosh in 1976 when they were being born I was going to my first Springsteen concert. So I look at being a mom differently. I think I came from the last of the generations that didn't get automatic pleasure. We had to work or waited for it. I got an allowance if I did my chores and made things and sold them as early as age 10 just to get some money.
Gosh could anyone cope now with only 3 TV stations ( of which there was no sex or violence), no cell phones, I repeat no cell phones and oh yeah no computers or computer games! Snail mail was important, dresses only in school ( for girls-no pink on your butt) spankings from teachers when you needed it and oh yeah from your parents too. 3 pair of shoes (school pair, church pair and play pair)
And that brings up playing. We went outside hot or cold and played in the dirt,rode bikes everywhere and walked in the woods, learned to love and respect animals and nature (do kids today even know what a National Park is and by that matter does big business or the government) We lay ed in the grass and looked up at the clouds and sky looking for elephants or Indian faces.
We had family dinner together every night and family vacations in the back of a 16' shasta trailer where one little drawer held all your possessions and clothes for the week. Church every Sunday and prayers before dinner and bed every night (this also isn't for everyone but we did it). Respected our parents and grandparents with yes Mame and no Sir. And where talking back to your parents didn't get you a time out but a crack on the butt! I survived and laugh about it now!
And when we went to someones house you didn't run like wild animals and when you did have the luxury of a restaurant you knew better than to make a scene. And manners. OMG can we talk. Napkins in the lap. Please pass the potatoes. Chew with your mouth closed. They used to teach this stuff in school. Now these classes are only for the mentally challenged so they can function in society. What about the rest of the kids who teaches them. How did that happen!
So you can disagree with all this but this is a fact of how I was raised. I watched the men land on the moon, POW's come home from Vietnam and the Impeachment of a President. I'm I guess from a different era being a mom.
But if I can install all or even some of these values in my daughter I will. And maybe she can pass it on to her kids and that would make me really happy.
So being a mom at 49 does have its ups and downs and even though I will meet many moms I may be on this journey a little bit alone because of my age but oh well. I picked it!
