Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #31 Age: Does it matter when becoming a mum?

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#31 Age: Does it matter when becoming a mum? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: This is the Happy Family's podcast with doctor Justin Kilson.
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  Speaker 1: Were Luc and Susie, our husband and wife radio team
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  Speaker 1: with three young boys. This is the podcast for the time,
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  Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants some answers now.
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  Speaker 2: And su As we had kids a little bit later
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  Speaker 2: on in life, not by choice but by circumstance, but
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  Speaker 2: it was quite fascinating for us when we got the
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  Speaker 2: oldest to prep for the very first time, because as
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  Speaker 2: we hung out with other parents, what we saw was
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  Speaker 2: a huge difference and a change of what age parents were.
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  Speaker 2: We were in a group where where almost everybody in
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  Speaker 2: this group was first time at preph The oldest was
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  Speaker 2: fifty and the youngest was early twenties for their first
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  Speaker 2: kid and everything in between. And it just kind of
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  Speaker 2: showed us that maybe the demographic structure of our world
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  Speaker 2: has changed so dramatically. It's no longer just young mums.
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  Speaker 2: There's a heck of a lot more older mums joining
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  Speaker 2: the school run than ever before.
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  Speaker 1: That science does what science does and comes out and
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  Speaker 1: tries to say that one group of mums is better
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  Speaker 1: than another, and it's all based on age. Doctor Justin
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  Speaker 1: Coilson going all controversial from Happy families dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: Are older mums better?
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  Speaker 3: Oh that's just such an unfair question.
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  Speaker 4: I know, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing young at all?
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  Speaker 4: You know this is this is one of those things
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  Speaker 4: where you can never really say the right thing without
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  Speaker 4: upsetting somebody. And that's not I don't think any of
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  Speaker 4: us intend for that to happen. I think what's really
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  Speaker 4: interesting here is for us to have a conversation about
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  Speaker 4: what the data is telling us, because we all know.
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  Speaker 4: And I'll preface my comments by saying, we all know
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  Speaker 4: some mums who have had their children very very young,
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  Speaker 4: who are extraordinary mums.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And some who have had their children who are quite
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  Speaker 3: you are, yeah, and they have been exemplary mums and
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  Speaker 3: mums in between who have been amazing. And we also
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  Speaker 3: know mums at the other end of the spectrum in
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  Speaker 3: terms of the way they're paired, regardless of what age
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  Speaker 3: they were when they had their children. With all of
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  Speaker 3: that as a preface or as a backdropper, I disclaim
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  Speaker 3: that's it research tells us. In fact, a brand new
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  Speaker 3: study just published that children of older mothers have fewer behavioral, social,
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  Speaker 3: and emotional difficulties. There is some suggestion in this research
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  Speaker 3: that older mums may actually be better mums for a
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  Speaker 3: handful of really quite curious reasons, such as hands and
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  Speaker 3: saying yes tell me why I am so good?
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  Speaker 1: So in my mind I immediately go to the fact,
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  Speaker 1: is it that we were raised generationally different? So for me,
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  Speaker 1: I think there's nearly twenty years between me and my
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  Speaker 1: youngest friend with a child the same age as my children,
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  Speaker 1: So generationally we're quite different. How we were raised. I
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  Speaker 1: wasn't raised in an age of technology, wasn't raised in
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  Speaker 1: an age where it mattered to try and keep up
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  Speaker 1: with everybody.
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  Speaker 2: Life experience.
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  Speaker 3: Life experience has a lot to do with it. Now
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  Speaker 3: I'll share these things, but before I talk about why
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  Speaker 3: it's good to be older, let me talk about what
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  Speaker 3: it's good to be younger. Okay, First of all, maternal
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  Speaker 3: health and baby health in your early twenties through to
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  Speaker 3: your mid to late twenties. Physiologically, that's the best time
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  Speaker 3: for you to be having children. Yeah, and it's the
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  Speaker 3: best for the children as well. From a physiological point
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  Speaker 3: of view. We also know that there are fewer health
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  Speaker 3: risks during pregnancy with younger mums. And I might just
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  Speaker 3: also throw in there that my wife and I have
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  Speaker 3: had children across three decades. Okay, we've had them in
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  Speaker 3: the nineties than auties and now yeah, which is pretty crazy.
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  Speaker 3: So I think my eldest was born when Kylie was
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  Speaker 3: twenty one, twenty one, that's right, and I was twenty four,
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  Speaker 3: and she's well nearly we're in the ballpark of turning
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  Speaker 3: eighteen at the time of recording, or they're about somewhere
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  Speaker 3: close to that. So why does being an older mum help.
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  Speaker 3: There's a handful of reasons. It seems that older mums
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  Speaker 3: are more likely to have more stable relationships, which is
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  Speaker 3: an important consideration. The cohabiting phase has usually come and gone,
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  Speaker 3: and research shows really clearly, and this is again one
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  Speaker 3: of those contrabs. Well, it's not controversial in the data,
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  Speaker 3: but it's not a politically correct thing to say. The
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  Speaker 3: data shows that there's this thing that they call the
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  Speaker 3: cohabitation effect, and what that shows is that people who
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  Speaker 3: are in relationships where cohabitation is the way the relationship
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  Speaker 3: works tend to have lower levels of relationship satisfaction, marital
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  Speaker 3: satisfaction should they get married down the track, and also
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  Speaker 3: commitment to the relationship, which means that the kids are
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  Speaker 3: as stable as well. So having a stable married relationship
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  Speaker 3: better for mum, it's better for data, and it's better
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  Speaker 3: for the kids. And we've got data from across Europe,
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  Speaker 3: the United States and Australia that supports that. So we
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  Speaker 3: know that older mums are older mums are more stable
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  Speaker 3: in their relationships. They've also got what you might call
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  Speaker 3: more psychological maturity, which is really important when you're looking
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  Speaker 3: after children. You can be more grounded, more centered, more patient,
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  Speaker 3: more compassionate if you're more psychologically mature. And unfortunately, if
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  Speaker 3: you look at the other extreme from an age point
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  Speaker 3: of view, and you look at teenage mums, they and
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  Speaker 3: their children are the ones who are most at risk.
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  Speaker 3: And a big reason for that is because of the
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  Speaker 3: psychological immaturity. You know, they just flip out and say
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  Speaker 3: I can't stand it anymore, and I wish I've never
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  Speaker 3: had you, and all those kinds of things which are
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  Speaker 3: just so devastating. Now now again, I know a couple
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  Speaker 3: of mums who were teenagers when they became mums, and
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  Speaker 3: they've been exemplar in mums. But we're talking about averages,
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  Speaker 3: which is what psychological studies do. And there's this other
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  Speaker 3: great thing called psychological flexibility. And as we get older
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  Speaker 3: we become well, not all of us, but many of us.
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  Speaker 3: If we develop nicely, we become more psychologically flexible. Again,
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  Speaker 3: if you're a parent, being flexible kind of matters, right,
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  Speaker 3: So it seems that when parents have those attributes, they
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  Speaker 3: do better and then their kids do better.
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  Speaker 2: So the beauty of this, when I look at it,
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  Speaker 2: is go like all of those things, Actually, there's an
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  Speaker 2: element of control you can have if you want to
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  Speaker 2: grow and become more mature as a younger parent, like
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  Speaker 2: you can start to work on that consciously.
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  Speaker 3: Age doesn't have to be the determined factor, but those
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  Speaker 3: things are correlated. You do become more mature as you
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  Speaker 3: get older.
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  Speaker 1: Generally, Yeah, you can.
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  Speaker 3: Do something about it when you're fourteen, or when you're
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  Speaker 3: twenty four, or when you're thirty four. But we need
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  Speaker 3: to work on our maturity no matter how old we are.
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  Speaker 3: Still sometimes need to do that myself.
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  Speaker 1: Don't we all. It is the Happy Families podcast, and
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  Speaker 1: we are talking about older mums today, a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a controversial topic. Talking a little bit more about this short.
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  Speaker 5: Are you endlessly nagging, shouting, pleading, threatening and demanding that
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  Speaker 5: your children, behave Do you live in a dictatorship where
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: the kids are in charge? Time Out is Not Your
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  Speaker 5: Only Option is an ebook with discipline strategies and ideas
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  Speaker 5: that work, and they work without you carrying a load
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  Speaker 5: of parental guilt around all day. No more yelling, threatening,
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: bribing or timeouts. From day one, you'll notice the difference
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  Speaker 5: in your children and they'll notice the difference in you.
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  Speaker 5: Time Out is Not Your Only Option by doctor Justin Coulson,
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  Speaker 5: available as an ebook and an audiobook at happy Families
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  Speaker 5: dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: It is the Happy Families podcast with doctor Justin Coulson,
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  Speaker 1: Luke and Susie with you here as well today as
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  Speaker 1: we talk about older mums and younger mums.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so you have kids when you're younger physically it's
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  Speaker 2: better off. You have kids when you're older psychologically it's
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  Speaker 2: better off. But that seems in a sense almost like
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  Speaker 2: a dead end story. Then to go, well, wherever you are,
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  Speaker 2: then that's it. What do we do if, like, let's
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  Speaker 2: just say we're a young parent who doesn't have this
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  Speaker 2: maturity or we're considering this, how do we change to
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  Speaker 2: not be one of the statistics that is being paraphrased here.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm one of the younger parents as well. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: I was in The average age that parents are having
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  Speaker 3: kids now is about thirty or they'reabouts give or take
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  Speaker 3: depending on which country, and lots of things, but about thirty.
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  Speaker 3: So I was six years and my wife was nine years.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we'd already had three or four kids by
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  Speaker 3: the time I was thirty. I think I did okay
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  Speaker 3: most of the time. Look, what this really comes down
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  Speaker 3: to is can you be mature? Can you put somebody
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  Speaker 3: else's needs first? Can you be responsive even when you
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  Speaker 3: don't want to be? Do you have a level of
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  Speaker 3: self control that allows you to think about what's in
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  Speaker 3: the child's best interests and respond accordingly. These are the
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  Speaker 3: questions that we need to ask all of ourselves, regardless
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  Speaker 3: of our age. And again this is just a correlational study.
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  Speaker 3: It looked at how the kids were doing at the
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  Speaker 3: age of seven, eleven, and fifteen, and they found that,
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  Speaker 3: on average, the kids with older parents tended to do better.
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  Speaker 3: Doesn't mean that young parents can't have kids that can't
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  Speaker 3: do well, doesn't mean that older parents will have kids
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  Speaker 3: that will do well. Necessarily, just means that on average,
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  Speaker 3: these things seem to be correlated.
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  Speaker 1: I think probably what I take from it isn't that
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  Speaker 1: older mums are better, But there's a lot of good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: If you are an older person still waiting for that
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  Speaker 1: first child, there's a lot of really good stuff in
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  Speaker 1: there for you. And it's not it's not necessarily going
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  Speaker 1: to be difficult and hard journey. In fact, it could
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  Speaker 1: be a great one for you and the child.
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  Speaker 3: It can be. In fact, it can be regardless of
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  Speaker 3: your age. We make such a big deal about age,
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  Speaker 3: and this is a really interesting study to talk about,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm just so I just want to be so
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  Speaker 3: careful that no parent feels like, well, I can't be
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  Speaker 3: good at this, or I'm being told that I'm no good,
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  Speaker 3: because that couldn't be further from the truth. We get
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  Speaker 3: this data and it says, on average, here's what we're seeing.
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  Speaker 3: But if you want to be a great parent, you
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  Speaker 3: pick up a good book, you start reading it, you
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  Speaker 3: learn what you can. In fact, sometimes you don't even
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  Speaker 3: need a book. Some times you just get down on
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  Speaker 3: the floor, cuddle your kids.
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  Speaker 1: Love your child, be attentive.
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  Speaker 3: Give them the love that they need. And it doesn't
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  Speaker 3: matter whether you're a teen mum or a mum who's
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  Speaker 3: single and you know, has gone down the IVF route
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  Speaker 3: at the age of forty five because there are no
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  Speaker 3: other options. It really anybody can love their kids, anyone
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  Speaker 3: can be a great mum.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite quite an interesting thing. We had a
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  Speaker 2: chat with a baby sleep expert. We've covered most of them,
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  Speaker 2: and there's nothing more polarizing the world of parenting than
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  Speaker 2: discussing one side of.
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  Speaker 3: Like got ready for a fight, right, don't train our
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  Speaker 3: babies to sleep? Sorry.
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  Speaker 2: The thing that this particular experts said which really resonated
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  Speaker 2: with me, she goes, I know, as a parent, I'm
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  Speaker 2: going to mess up my kids in some way or another.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to make mistakes. And I would rather make
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  Speaker 2: the mistake of loving my kid a little bit too
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  Speaker 2: much and giving a few too many cuddles than make
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  Speaker 2: the mistake of being too harsh and strict and rigid
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  Speaker 2: on what a routine was. And I thought, you know, like,
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  Speaker 2: there is sometimes in life where we go we get
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  Speaker 2: a choice. If we're going to get it wrong, what
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  Speaker 2: side of the line do we want to be wrong on?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it loves a good side to be on.
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  Speaker 3: I'll take that and if that's what the baby sleep
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  Speaker 3: experts said, maybe we can be friends after it.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Justin Kilson from Happy Families dot com, that are you.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. I know it
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  Speaker 1: was a very very touchy subject, so I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks guys.
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  Speaker 1: There's a whole host of resources to help you with
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  Speaker 1: any area of parenting at the website happyfamilies dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot Au, including books, steveds and a lot of online
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: resources and courses available to help you with anything you
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  Speaker 1: might need. And if you were thinking doctor Justin Wilson
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: might be great to speak at your school or community group,
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  Speaker 1: jump online to Justinkilson dot com to find out more.