Beyond Parental Status: Psychological Well-Being in Middle and Old Age

Famous and not so Famous "Older" Mothers & Fathers 

• John Travolta, 56, and wife Kelly Preston, 48, welcomed their new son Benjamin.

• Meryl Streep had her 4th baby just before her 42nd Birthday.

• Nicole Kidman had her first child at the age of 41.

• Susan Sarandon gave birth at 46.

• This past weekend I went to a friend's house where I met a women who had her second child at 41. She had her first child in her early 20's and she is now in college. She explained how much harder it is to have a child in your forties due to not having as much energy. Her child's father is in his 50s and also admits their son gets away with a lot more than the children they had in their 20's. 

• I hear through the family grapevine that my cousin who will be 50 this year plans to try for his first  child with his wife who is in her 30's in 2011.

 As someone who was not sure if she wanted children and now has a darling, smart and hilarious three year old son to spend time with, I'm happy for anyone, who successfully has children either naturally, with the help of medical intervention or adoption. Hopefully, they have a loving and affectionate relationship with their child over their life course. 

I'm afraid if my husband and I had chosen not to have children we both would have been similar to the childless women & the women who had poor parent-child relationships in the Koropeckyj-Cox study. The childless women & women with a poor relationship with their child reported more loneliness and depression.  Childless women were 3.8 times as likely to be lonely and 3 times as likely to be depressed as mothers with affectionate relationships with their child.  It appears from this study that I may have been more vulnerable to depression and loneliness than my husband if we were child-free. Also, if he continues to have an affectionate relationship with our son, he may be at a lower risk of suffering from loneliness and depression than childless fathers. However, if either of us develops a poor relationship with our son, we may be at an increased risk of depression and unhappiness. This study did not find the number of children the participants related to their well-being. In summary, having our son does not guarantee psychosocial well-being for my husband and me, but if we continue to have a loving and affectionate relationship with our son it will help as we get older (Koropeckyj-Cox 2002). .

 
Koropeckyj-Cox, T. (2002). Beyond parental status: psychological well-being in middle and old age. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(4), 957-971.

Information about John and Kelly found @:
http://www.popeater.com/2010/11/24/john-travolta-baby-benjamin/

Other famous "older" mother information, found @:
http://www.mothersover40.com/celebrities.html#anchor_138