LUCY CAVENDISH now dares to say… No woman should have a baby over 40! 

Fifteen years have passed since I gave birth to my daughter. I was 40 years and four months old and already a mother to three lively boys who were, then, aged 12, six and three.

I had always vowed to finish having children in my 30s and certainly never entertained the idea of giving birth over 40 — after all, I knew only too well the sheer exhaustion you live with when you become a mother.

But, after three sons, I desperately wanted a girl and so I broke my rule.

That last roll of the dice has taken its toll on me in ways I simply didn’t imagine: mentally, physically and emotionally. It’s why I have now come to the firm conclusion that women should think twice before having children over 40.

Let me say now I love all my children fiercely, warmly and unconditionally. This is not about love, rather it’s about the relentless assault on the self. 

Even when I was pregnant with my second son, Leonard, now aged 20, I was already being called a ‘geriatric’ mother by the medical profession at the age of 36, which used to drive me mad. I mean, I wasn’t that old, but they obviously knew something I didn’t.

I know, of course, that many women are having children over 40 and I take my hat off to all of them. They are nothing less than heroic at finding the willpower and energy to be flourishing, active and engaged.

The rate of women giving birth after 40 has doubled in the past 30 years and, in some parts of the country, there are more babies born to women over 40 than there are to those under 20. 

The rise of IVF means that in the three years to 2021, 824 women over the age of 50 — more than five every week — have given birth, up almost 20 per cent from the three years prior. Since 2019, at least nine women aged 60 and over have given birth.

And almost every week we read about a celebrity having a baby in her 40s from TV presenter Christine Lampard to singer Janet Jackson, who announced she was pregnant aged 50.

This weekend actress Hilary Swank gave birth to twins at 48. ‘It wasn’t easy. But boy was it worth it,’ she posted on Instagram.

What you don’t see, however, in those joyous family photos, is the sheer toll that pregnancy and the demands of a newborn has taken on their bodies and minds. 

Completely concealed, too, are the years ahead when the mother reaches middle age — when nature really would like her to call it a day — but when she’s expected to deal with the demands of a teenager. When I had my first child, Raymond, I was 29 and full of vim and vigour. 

My body withstood the trials and tribulations and the physical load of pregnancy and childbirth with aplomb. I wasn’t married to my son’s father, but we were very much together.

At 40, it was a different story. The tiredness was overwhelming and I don’t believe that was just because I was a mother — and a working one at that. I think it’s because my body had simply aged: 40 is very different to 29.

My skeleton wasn’t so strong, my tummy muscles were stretched, my brain was starting to be overtaxed and my energy was definitely lower than two decades previously.

That’s the problem with having babies after 40. It doesn’t matter how much yoga we do, how knowledgeable we are regarding sleep, nutrition, or mindfulness, and how well preserved we may appear on the outside, our bodies are not the naturally fit and healthy version of themselves that they were when we were in our 20s.

It may sound naive, but this hadn’t occurred to me prior to my daughter’s arrival. I had a good pregnancy and birth. I am an energetic, optimistic sort of a person. I couldn’t see any problems with having a baby over 40.

And, more naively still, I hadn’t really thought much beyond the birth. I didn’t take on board quite what having a teenager is like when you are heading towards 60, an age when many women are grandmothers. 

I also ended up as a single parent and have largely brought up my children by myself.

The father of my eldest son lives abroad and has done for some time. The father of my three subsequent children and I broke up over a decade ago and that hasn’t helped.

Many mothers are very excited to be having a baby in their 40s, especially if this is their first, following years of harrowing disappointments.

Society is now structured in a way where it is perfectly normal for women to build their careers before having babies. 

This makes sense. It’s tough managing a successful career when you are breast or bottle-feeding, changing nappies and having to leave meetings early to pick up children from nursery.

Science has meant that we can now freeze our eggs or have IVF. Although IVF is a very difficult journey that I know no woman chooses lightly, more and more we’re coming to rely on these technological advancements to help us have children later in life.

I had always vowed to finish having children in my 30s and certainly never entertained the idea of giving birth over 40 — after all, I knew only too well the sheer exhaustion you live with when you become a mother

In theory, all this has made it far easier to delay motherhood until you are in a position where your job is more secure and you hopefully have a roof over your head.

However, most women are so focused on the mechanics of having a baby that they rarely think beyond the shock and delight of the birth.

However amazing the science is, it can’t make you less tired.

It can’t make your body ping back into shape and it can’t prepare you for the sheer exhaustion of the later years. 

Most 40-something mothers are naturally blinded to the trials and tribulations ahead, of adolescence at a time when they simply won’t have the energy or patience for it, no matter how much that baby is loved and was wanted.

By the time our babies are teenagers, we are too far removed from our own adolescence to have full empathy for all the hormonal, physical and emotional changes teenagers go through.

Newborns are tiring, but I’d go so far as to say that teenagers are even more exhausting. It’s certainly not for the faint-hearted and I can really tell the difference in myself and my energy levels from over a decade ago when Raymond was in fully fledged teen land.

It’s not my daughter’s fault and much as I adore her and want her to lead her ‘best life’ (a catchphrase teenagers use a lot), it’s demanding driving her around, supporting her, going shopping with her, helping her negotiate friendships, taking her on holiday with a friend (I’m too boring and her brothers are boys and they don’t holiday with us any more post-Covid) and managing house and birthday parties.

I’m also in a position where I’m watching with wistful envy as my friends whose children are now independent adults go off on retreats and yoga holidays or are starting new relationships, and are not too shattered to read a book.

My best friend’s children are 26 and 23 and she’s travelling the world doing courses and learning how to paddle board and having a blast. Other friends of mine are taking adult ‘gap’ years and going off to do Good Works.

Some are experiencing thrilling new romances. They are able to go away for long weekends and spend 24/7 with their new partners. They can go for dinners and romantic holidays and their children are off doing their own thing.

Meanwhile, I’m also single, but my time is taken up negotiating homework, revision and helping my daughter get ready for her GCSEs. Then there’s the catering for her and her friends — most of them are vegan and/or gluten free.

If I’d just stopped having kids past my mid-30s as I intended, I too would be having a ball, rather than being stuck on full-time parenting duty.

Not only that, I have started to actually feel ancient. While aged 56 I don’t consider myself old, I have begun to notice that all the other parents I now meet at school events are so much younger than me. Often their 15-year-old is their eldest child and they have smaller children in tow.

My daughter is my youngest and there are times when I feel like a bit of a benign grandma as I watch these people enjoy taking their younger children to excitedly call out raffle tickets at the school fete or blow out the candles of their birthday cake. It makes me feel nostalgic, but also obsolete and self-conscious.

The disparity isn’t lost on my daughter, either. She’s constantly commenting on how young and trendy the other mothers are. I don’t think she does this to hurt me, it’s just wistful observation.

I have also realised I am going to have to work for many more years to keep paying for my youngest child. No retiring at 60 for me.

It’s not her fault she costs money. Girls seem to need so much stuff. The boys cost money in terms of feeding them and buying their sports equipment, but girls’ expenditure is on a different planet.

There’s clothes and make-up, beauty products, hair lotions and potions, jewellery, electronic equipment and on and on the list goes. Marketing targets girls far more than boys and there is always so much stuff to buy in order to keep up with everyone else.

I understand how important this is. As a child, I hated having to wear my sister’s cast-offs. It would make me curl up in embarrassment to turn up to parties in the previous year’s trends. 

I know how painful it is and how that leaves you open to other teenagers’ cruel jibes and I don’t want my daughter to experience what I went though.

The fact that I am so much older than when my eldest son was in his teens means I am that much further away from her world.

I have no idea what she’s talking about most of the time. I’m left bemused by Snapchat and TikTok and I don’t know what ‘reels’ (social media stories) are and I don’t really get the pain of being unfollowed or the worry over how many likes you have on social media. I try to be interested — but a lot of it just passes me by.

There are times when it genuinely feels like we don’t speak the same language.

In terms of parenting and boundaries, I’ve been so battered after 25 years, I’ve kind of given up. I simply don’t have the energy.

When Raymond was sitting his GCSEs I was almost taking them with him. I bought every single revision guide and had him studying on a daily basis.

Over the years this has lessened with every child until now I can actually say I no longer care about exam results. I want my daughter to do well, but I am not stressing either of us out about it. Is this a good thing? I really hope so — time will tell.

I also no longer stress if her skirt is too short or who she’s hanging out with. I’ve met most of her friends and they all seem lovely so I trust her to make good decisions about where she is going and who she is with.

In reality, I’m gazing towards my potential future life and wishing time would speed up a bit.

Even though I know I will miss them being children one day in the future, there’s a large part of me that yearns to be off travelling the world. When that day finally comes I fear I’ll be too decrepit to actually board a plane. 

I really want to be a granny one day and I suspect my sons will have children first, but it worries me that by the time my daughter has children I’ll have one foot in the grave.

These are the things none of us thinks about when that broody urge visits us in our 40s, when we start looking longingly at babygrows in the supermarket.

So I’m urging anyone in this position to think — just think.

I wish I had.