4 ms·

My wife and I were older than you both when we had two healthy kids. Don't beat yourself up. Correlation != causation. You won a bad lottery, a lottery that you

My wife and I were older than you both when we had two healthy kids. Don't beat yourself up. Correlation != causation. You won a bad lottery, a lottery that young parents 'win' too. Small comfort I know, but that's the truth.

echelon 4y ago
The probability increases because DNA errors accumulate. You're playing a smaller and smaller lottery as you age. Just because you had a healthy kid does not mean everyone will or that there is no risk. Humans evolved to have sex and get pregnant before middle age. That's just our biology. DNA itself is a machine, and ours doesn't have built in protections to accommodate later pregnancies with high fidelity. If we had evolutionary pressure, it would. But there is no such pressure.
- peter422 4y ago
  The numbers go way up in the relative sense but are still quite small in the absolute sense. Evolutionarily speaking I think the differences are irrelevant.
  - klipt 4y ago
    Evolutionarily speaking, the dangers of having older parents are definitely dwarfed by the fact that older parents just tend to have fewer kids. Cultures that encourage starting families at 25 will genetically dominate cultures that encourage starting families at 35.
    - Brigand 4y ago
      Even though I agree with you, I would like to point out that more experienced and stable parents could be enough of an advantage to balance the benefits of having younger parents. Especially for fathers that have already a settled career and more time to invest in their offspring.
- jasonfarnon 4y ago
  If it were as simple as DNA errors accumulating with age we should observe 1) big population-level jumps in complications when parents started having babies in their 20s rather than teens (in India, my grandparent's generation, 14,15 for the mother and 17,18 for the father) and 2) big population-level effects in complications across birth order. Do we?
  - vagrantJin 4y ago
    Isn't it strange that human cultures at some point thought "teenagers" are when people should start families all over the world from the rolling hills of Bahia to Tamil Nadu to Guandong to the riverlands of Ahafo? Thats more than simple correlation. Having kids when you are in middle age might have been known as physically difficult, especially for the mother. We've made huge leaps in medicine to trivialize child birth but for most of human existence, it was a game of dice, to some degree it still is, where mother and/or child could perish. Maybe younger women cope better with the physical stresses of pregnancy? Nature seems to think so.
    - jusssi 4y ago
      > Isn't it strange that human cultures at some point thought "teenagers" are when people should start families Not really. That's when they start having sex. So you end up having kids whether you like it or not.
      - vagrantJin 4y ago
        It isnt so simple as they start having sex. The idea that teenagers sleep around like rabbits is relatively new. Usually sex followed some form of commitment - this case being marriage - in order to protect young women from free willies. Sex wasn't always free.
CobaltFire 4y ago
We absolutely understand this, and my son will be ringing the bell in about 10 days provided one last blood test comes out clear. It's been a long road to understanding we weren't at fault for either condition though. We lost a lot of friends and family who just found us too needy during that, and that hurt our self confidence as well.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pkphilip 4y ago
  So sorry to hear that. One needs friends and family especially during such tough times. Hoping that things work out well for you all
- aliqot 4y ago
  Keep your head up, it's going to be clear
- nostromo123 4y ago
  Praying for you and your son that it goes well, try to be optimistic.
- mynameisnull 4y ago
  We felt some of the same, not everyone vanished but several did, and I personally didn’t blame them, as we were hard to deal with. I also caught some back channel talk confirming that we were a bit too serious. We made some friends at the hospital but after all those shared experiences and solidarity none us really kept in touch either. Which is sad in a way but honestly we were all there for one another when we needed it in the way we needed it. We had to reboot our lives in every way imaginable and that worked for us. It doesn’t for everyone though, some people need the familiar things in life to stay grounded, my wife and I mainly needed each other. Do your best for yourself and each other. That approach was the main thing that kept me sane afterwards and I don’t regret it for a minute.

echelon 4y ago

The probability increases because DNA errors accumulate. You're playing a smaller and smaller lottery as you age. Just because you had a healthy kid does not mean everyone will or that there is no risk. Humans evolved to have sex and get pregnant before middle age. That's just our biology. DNA itself is a machine, and ours doesn't have built in protections to accommodate later pregnancies with high fidelity. If we had evolutionary pressure, it would. But there is no such pressure.

peter422 4y ago
The numbers go way up in the relative sense but are still quite small in the absolute sense. Evolutionarily speaking I think the differences are irrelevant.
- klipt 4y ago
  Evolutionarily speaking, the dangers of having older parents are definitely dwarfed by the fact that older parents just tend to have fewer kids. Cultures that encourage starting families at 25 will genetically dominate cultures that encourage starting families at 35.
  - Brigand 4y ago
    Even though I agree with you, I would like to point out that more experienced and stable parents could be enough of an advantage to balance the benefits of having younger parents. Especially for fathers that have already a settled career and more time to invest in their offspring.
jasonfarnon 4y ago
If it were as simple as DNA errors accumulating with age we should observe 1) big population-level jumps in complications when parents started having babies in their 20s rather than teens (in India, my grandparent's generation, 14,15 for the mother and 17,18 for the father) and 2) big population-level effects in complications across birth order. Do we?
- vagrantJin 4y ago
  Isn't it strange that human cultures at some point thought "teenagers" are when people should start families all over the world from the rolling hills of Bahia to Tamil Nadu to Guandong to the riverlands of Ahafo? Thats more than simple correlation. Having kids when you are in middle age might have been known as physically difficult, especially for the mother. We've made huge leaps in medicine to trivialize child birth but for most of human existence, it was a game of dice, to some degree it still is, where mother and/or child could perish. Maybe younger women cope better with the physical stresses of pregnancy? Nature seems to think so.
  - jusssi 4y ago
    > Isn't it strange that human cultures at some point thought "teenagers" are when people should start families Not really. That's when they start having sex. So you end up having kids whether you like it or not.
    - vagrantJin 4y ago
      It isnt so simple as they start having sex. The idea that teenagers sleep around like rabbits is relatively new. Usually sex followed some form of commitment - this case being marriage - in order to protect young women from free willies. Sex wasn't always free.

CobaltFire 4y ago

We absolutely understand this, and my son will be ringing the bell in about 10 days provided one last blood test comes out clear. It's been a long road to understanding we weren't at fault for either condition though. We lost a lot of friends and family who just found us too needy during that, and that hurt our self confidence as well.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pkphilip 4y ago
So sorry to hear that. One needs friends and family especially during such tough times. Hoping that things work out well for you all
aliqot 4y ago
Keep your head up, it's going to be clear
nostromo123 4y ago
Praying for you and your son that it goes well, try to be optimistic.
mynameisnull 4y ago
We felt some of the same, not everyone vanished but several did, and I personally didn’t blame them, as we were hard to deal with. I also caught some back channel talk confirming that we were a bit too serious. We made some friends at the hospital but after all those shared experiences and solidarity none us really kept in touch either. Which is sad in a way but honestly we were all there for one another when we needed it in the way we needed it. We had to reboot our lives in every way imaginable and that worked for us. It doesn’t for everyone though, some people need the familiar things in life to stay grounded, my wife and I mainly needed each other. Do your best for yourself and each other. That approach was the main thing that kept me sane afterwards and I don’t regret it for a minute.