Ask Lemmy

We have friends with a similar age gap, she is I think 36 and he is 56 now. Their son is 3.5. He also has grown up kids not much younger than his wife. The kid was planned.

It's hard and he is passing on having another child for age reasons (see below), but their son is great and none of them regret the decision. The dad's back and knee are bad, so running after their Duracell powered son who looks like Finn from Adventure Time (that hair! Dude is set for life, he'll make bank as a hair modell) can get difficult. But they manage and are active and a very cute and happy family. Having a kid is always hard and stressful, unless you are a tiktok influencer, then it is the easiest thing you've done because it comes so naturally to you /s

As for it "feeling strange": from my own life experience, things only feel strange if you allow them to feel strange. Everything can be awkward and weird and strange and whatever, or you just decide this is your life and only you get to decide what is and what is not strange.

As for my friends, I think nothing about anything in their life feels weird. She literally lived with her now husband and his son for a while. It was fine. His kids are cool with the younger sibling. They get to choose what is normal. They chose that this is. Their family is. This is their family and their normality.

To add: Having two little kids vs one little kid is a whole different level. He has first hand experience in that, so I don't think not wanting another kid means he regrets it. Not at all. I think he just realizes that this would be not double as hard but quadruple as hard and he won't be able to do that. My husband is 35 and cannot imagine having a second child for similar reasons. He just doesn't have the energy level for another small being - and it will be more than double the energy required, while he couldn't give an extra 50% even if he wanted to.

So the question is really, how do you feel about it? Do you two have some energy left? Are you ok with taking on the majority of the physical work? Even if your partner is doing fine physically now, he might decline sooner than you think, unexpectedly.

I might add, bluntly: you have already decided that it is ok for you that the likely (if not ideal) outcome of your relationship is that your husband dies much before you. You will likely be a young widow. It might also be that he lives to 100 and you die in a freak accident after reading this. I'm not telling you anything new here. This is just to remind you of your choice and your thoughts on this when you decided to commit to each other. Because a lot of people point out that your kid might not have a dad for long. (Which, yeah, other people lose their parents at a young age too, but having it be more likely is another thing, although, does this mean sick/disabled people with a shortened life span should not have kids either, and then we are in eugenics territory or the antinatalists chime in.)

Anyway, I'll get a lot of hate in the comments (honestly taking this question to lemmy where a lot of antinatalists are hanging out is crazy) but in my opinion - which must be totally valuable to you lol - I'd go for it. Even if it is hard and you reach your limits, this is such a short time of intense chaos in your life. And then you'll have a kid. You'll have experienced this crazy thing. And love and support don't care for your age. Hugs and kisses are just as heartfelt. Your kid will be just as much of their own person, no matter what age their parents were. We all don't have a perfect family. But as I mentioned above, normal is what you define is normal. And a perfect and ideal family is whatever you decide it is.

Thank you for reading all of this.