THE THIRD PARENTING OPTION: BEING A MIDLIFE ‘GAP MUM’
Growing up, women are led to believe they have two parenting options: have children young, or focus on career first. It turns out there’s a third option – do both.
Very unexpectedly, this is what has happened to me.
I married and started a family shortly after I graduated from Cambridge, and by 28 I had three children under five. I was working in television, but part-time, so I could prioritise my little ones. Throughout their early years I did all the toddler groups, music lessons, Play-doh messes and bedtime stories. I fitted my work around this happy home life, and it wasn’t until my youngest started primary school that I wrote my first book and my writing career took off. Then, when I was 41, my 20-year marriage ended. While we have stayed close, we have new partners and are starting new lives.
Trying for a child with my new partner, who is in his early thirties and has no children, was hugely important to me. He was so keen to become a father, and I told him on day one I would do everything I could to have a child with him.
I had age-related worries, of course: was I already menopausal? What kind of risks was I taking on for me and the baby? That said, like many of my friends, I’m actually fitter and healthier than I was in my twenties.
Yes, I’m two decades more exhausted, and terrified of the sleepless nights to come, but I feel lucky to have this second chance of parenthood with someone I love.
My children, aged 19, 17 and 14, are thrilled to be having a baby sister – and it seems that telling teenagers that there’s a new sibling on the way is not as unusual as I thought.
I’ve been inundated with messages from women telling me they have done the same, also becoming a “gap mum”. This baby is probably going to be my last chance, and for that reason I’ve worried every day about it going well.
Having another at this stage of my life was something I never imagined, but it’s one of the happiest things that’s ever happened to me, and heralds the start of more decades of family mayhem and joy – for us all.
Girls, there is a third option. And if it happens, it’s a wonderful one. As told to Rosa Silverman