Becoming a parent is a significant event in a woman’s life. Motherhood is an incredibly special—and oftentimes also challenging experience.
Here at Meridian, we’re proud to empower new and expecting mothers with high-quality mental health care from our team of expert providers so they can better navigate the experience. But the obstacles mothers must overcome don’t start and end during the perinatal stages. Being a mom is a lifelong journey, and for many women these days, that journey is beginning later in life.
According to NPR, the mean age of mothers giving birth for the first time in 2014 was 26.3-years-old, which is nearly a 6% increase from a mean age of 24.9-years-old in 2000. Three decades before that, the mean age was just 21.4-years-old. While researchers note the trend is primarily due to sharp decreases in teenage pregnancy rates, they say increases in first-time births among women in their 30s is also a driving factor.
Whether women are foregoing marriage and children for career aspirations—or simply choosing not to have children at a certain age solely because it’s expected of them by traditional norms—the typical age that’s now considered “normal” to give birth is moving higher and higher.
With more and more women now taking on motherhood at older ages, many are discovering the experience presents a particularly unique set of circumstances. Here’s what mental health experts are observing.
When reality doesn’t fully match expectations
As a licensed professional counselor at Meridian who specializes in working with new mothers, Sue Kehias, M.A., L.C.P.C. says women who become mothers later in life sometimes grapple with identity issues.
“Women who have children later in life often had an earlier vision of what parenthood would look like,” she explains. “As life circumstances change, that woman’s vision of motherhood may not have adapted, and this can create dissonance in the types of parenting choices or challenges they now face. The real concrete trials of parents may not be what they imagined.”
Examples might include how to prioritize the adults’ needs with the needs of a child, feelings of distance between mother and child due to the disparity in age, more frequently encountering health limitations that impact the mother-child relationship and even coming to realize how age could affect relationships with future grandchildren.
Lois Nachamie, a board-certified psychotherapist who works with “later in life” moms and their families, says mothers often don’t consider their relationship with potential grandchildren until their child grows older.
If you give birth at age 50 and “your own child wants to wait until they’re 40-years-old to have a baby, then the [grandmother] is 90,” she tells New York Family. “I don’t think that should stop anybody. I just don’t think it’s something that hits people until they are older and their child is older.”
Despite some of these setbacks, it’s not all negative. Kehias points out that older moms are also more likely to have access to a dependable network of friends, financial stability and a well-established career.
Balancing parenthood and professional life
While a well-established career can help provide a more comfortable lifestyle for older moms and their families, striking the right balance between “mom” and “professional” requires a strategic approach.
“Older moms can be faced with choices about how to ‘succeed’ as a parent, but also not lose the gains they’ve made in their careers or life track,” Kehias says. “Even when childcare costs are not a problem, the decisions around choosing caregivers and who will manage responsibilities such as taking care of the child when they’re sick are factors that weigh on parents.”
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It’s not at all uncommon to struggle with mental health issues as a parent. If you think you or someone you know might benefit from professional support, contact Meridian today to learn more.
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Not only that, but for those who take on parenthood later in life, they may also find themselves in what’s known as a “sandwich role,” wherein they’re simultaneously caring for aging parents and their children.“This can feel especially overwhelming when it seems the needs of others are coming from all sides, often challenging women to lose some of their own autonomy or identity,” Kehias says.
For parents struggling to care for their families while also earning a living, Kehias notes that employers’ recent trend of reimagining benefit offerings to provide a healthier work-life balance can be especially valuable.
Examples include:
- Flexible schedules
- Paid or non-punitive leave
- A “family first” culture
“Employers should know that mentally and physically healthy employees benefit the workplace immeasurably,” Kehias says.
Navigating motherhood during the pandemic
Raising a child during the COVID-19 pandemic added an additional layer of complexity to what was already a unique situation for older moms and their partners.
According to a recent survey of 1,285 working parents by researchers at Ohio State University, 66% of respondents met the criteria for parental burnout. This nonclinical term describes a situation in which parents feel as if they’re too exhausted to continue taking care of their children.
“The pandemic and subsequent precautions forced many parents, particularly mothers, to the breaking point,” Kehias says. “A major factor has been managing their own mental health while dealing with concerns for their children’s emotional and intellectual needs.”
As we move forward beyond the pandemic, it’s crucial that parents take measures to protect the mental health of both their children and themselves. Because although the situation has improved immensely, some of the mental health fallout will still remain for some time.
“Parental burnout isn’t just going to end magically when the pandemic finally ends,” Bernadette Melnyk, who conducted the Ohio State research, told the New York Times. “The chronicity of the pandemic has taken a toll and depleted many parents’ coping reserves that will take time and patience to build up again.”
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Are you or a loved one struggling with mental health issues in parenthood? Meridian can help. Contact us today to learn about receiving professional care.
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Photo by Brett Sayles via Unsplash.com
