My mom was 41 and my dad a few weeks short of 45 when they had me. I wasn’t exactly planned, but my parents weren’t upset either. My mom had miscarried a few times before me, so I was unexpected. But they were both working professionals and could definitely afford to have a kid.
My dad happened to get laid off a little before I was born, due to the corporation he was working in getting shut down, so they decided to move to the country, where he would raise me for five years and go back to work afterwards. Both of my parents put a lot of work and knowledge into raising me, something I don’t think many younger people would be able to do. They put me in all kinds of lessons, taught me at home and had me in preschool by age three. My dad’s a black belt and was in the tech industry, so I grew up learning martial arts and computers. There was always opera on because he loves his Pavarotti and would frequently (and loudly!) sing along. My mom is a dentist who transitioned to being an ICU nurse because she wanted to have better hours to spend with her family. She taught me about gardening, piano and reading and insisted I learn french. I would bake with her and have french lessons when she was home, even though my dad is the one who speaks french and can cook (my mom is great but she burnt water once).
As I got into school, my parents efforts seemed to have paid off. I realized quickly that I knew everything being taught already and asked if I could be moved to a different class. The school I was in was a private one at the time and refused as it was unprecedented to skip a student. So my parents pulled me out and took me to the local school district, who let me do just that after a few months of testing.
That being said, there were many downsides. Both my parents are exceptional for their ages, generally getting mistaken for being ten to fifteen years younger than they actually are. But they are still older and have problems. My dad was on blood pressure medications that made him sleep a lot during the day. Because I was an only child, there was a lot of pressure put on me to do many extracurriculars and excel in all of them. A side effect of that was I didn’t get a lot of social time with people my age, which eventually caught up to me. I spent a lot of time in the house with my dad and our pets, but when he was napping I had nothing else to do but amuse myself, so I was bored frequently. So, I did what any normal kid would do, asked for a sibling.
By this time my mom was 48 and my dad 52. They didn’t know if it was possible, but I suppose something motivated them to try. One day they sat me down at the dinner table, something that had never been done before or since. My mom very seriously said that if I had a sibling I would have to promise to help take care of them. I nodded enthusiastically and she and my dad told me that she was pregnant. We spent the next hour thinking of baby names (I think one I suggested was Ash. I was really into pokemon at the time.).
About two or three months later we went to new york for a check-up. My mom was an older mom so the pregnancy was high risk and she was taking no chances. My dad didn’t want to get stuffed into the room with the doctor so he decided to sit in the hallway and wait while my mom and I went to see the doctor. It was supposed to be a short visit, since they’d seen him a few weeks prior. The doctor came in and started with small talk. My mom introduced me and he started asking her questions, one of which was “How many more kids would you like to have?” Immediately both of us knew something big was coming. “One,” my mother said “maybe two.” she hesitated, putting on a nervous smile. “Why?” The doctor looked at my mom “You’re having triplets.” “What?!” she laughed in disbelief and started saying something else to the doctor that I didn’t hear, because I burst into the hallway and yelled “Mom’s having triplets!” to my dad, who immediately got up and started pacing.
The pregnancy was rough on my mom, who was on bed rest for about three and a half months. But she managed somehow. I remember bringing her saltines and Shakespeare to read from the library every week. At age 49 and 53, my parents became the parents of triplets.
This was easily the best thing that’s ever happened to me, personally. My siblings (16 now) are as lively, stressful, smart and funny as they come. None of them look the same and all have completely different personalities. Without them I think I’d be a selfish brat of a person, caught up in personal achievements more than anything. But when my mom said I’d have to help out, she was not kidding. There were times as my mom was working the night shift in the ICU and my dad was just worn out that I would have to be the parent. I ended up being there for a lot of milestones that my parents couldn’t, like teaching them to swim, read, ride a bike. Attended a few parent teacher conferences in one or another’s stead. Being an older parent to four very young kids is not easy.
They took their hyper focus off of me and spread it evenly to the four of us, which translated to my siblings having a way more easygoing upbringing than I did, without tons of unwanted lessons. My siblings are more free to pursue their own interests and less pressured to pursue my parent’s interests. None of them skipped a grade and my dad asks for minimum C’s instead of minimum B’s now, but they are way happier for it.
As for me, I eventually got the hang of working for my own interests instead of just to make my parents happy, which often wasn’t enough of a motivation so I did poorly in school until my junior year of high school, when I had this realization. I’m in university now and I’ll be graduating with honors next semester with a degree that my parents would not have picked for me. From there I’ll probably move onto more school. Sometimes we all wish our parents were different, but for me that has never been because of their age. If anything, I see age-based deadlines like getting married, getting an education, having kids and even what ‘old’ is as arbitrary because of how exceptional they are.