societal ageism

The other day I was browsing in teacher supplies and heard another customer talking to the clerk.

Seems that one of her colleagues was having a baby for the FIRST time at AGE 40 and they were having a baby shower for him.
That old? The clerk exclaimed with astonishment.
Yeah, the customer said, laughing with bemusement. He just up and got married and had a baby at 40 years old!

(Astonished, as if he and his wife were just going to pack it in because they had hit 40? WTF?)

They spent some time exclaiming about WHAT WERE THEY THINKING, having a baby AT THAT AGE. Gosh, what WILL they think of next? Having a BABY. At 40! What will those crazy old people think of next.

I was over there in the posterboard section, steaming, wanting to either hide or tell them off. --Shut your mouth! and What the hell is so old about 40?

The all-knowing smugness of the attitude as if they could ever imagine somebody THAT OLD having a child.

Then they started joking about how he had joked that he'd be in a wheelchair by the time the kid got into college. More steam. For that matter, what do they think about 60 being so old? For God's Sake, I know people well into their 60s who are fitter than many 20 year olds. They are nowhere near a wheelchair.

We do happen to have many friends who are older than us who do not seem all that old. And they do call anybody out who dares imply they are "elderly" in any fashion. Some of them even have young children and are fine parents. Not the 60-year-olds, to be sure, but friends in their 40s and 50s, some of whom actually hit the procreation jackpot more than once in their 40s. And yes, I would like to get my child into college before retirement age, but that is not my prime concern.

It just galls me that people want to make remarks about somebodys life choices based on age. Okay, I am not perfect... If anything, I think of people in their 20s and 30s as ridiculously young, even though I was there myself not that long ago. Maybe we need younger friends to balance out the perspective, hmm?

But the whole "too old to be a parent" thing REALLY annoys me. Even before I hit my 40s, I had a friend tell me I was probably too old to have children. I about hit him, I was so furious. Maybe it is/was true. My eggs are crap now, not enough of the proper hormones to make the system run ideally for procreation, but still! It's more likely that I got too much exposure to certain industrial solvents in my workplace of my youth (Not To Be Used By Women Of Child Bearing Age But My Bosses Didn't Give A Fuck) and isn't THAT a happy thought? One of the reasons I got out of that field, but apparently it was too late....

AND the people I know who had children when they were what many people would consider WAY too young have done a fine job, too. So as far as I am concerned, the whole perfect age to be a parent is an illusion.

I digress, I know. This whole ageism pisses me off. Who you callin' old? Better watch it, girlie.

*goes away steaming*

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