I have been thrilled to see more love stories published with older protagonists. I’ve just finished reading one–coming out this summer–where the heroine, age 49, is determined to get married and have kids. I confess, I was thrown at first by this. (Full disclosure: I struggled with infertility when I began trying to get pregnant at 29. Three out of my four children are Pergonal babies.)
On the one hand, there is no getting around the fact that the ability to get pregnant is strongly correlated with age. For women, fertility begins to drop around age 32, begins to plummet after 37, and, by age 45, the chances of an unaided pregnancy, hover at around 0%. Technology improves those numbers but it’s still an uphill battle. In vitro has around a 35% chance of succeeding if the mom is under 35. That number drops to around 22% for moms between 38 to 40, 13% for those 41-42, and, for women over 42, has around a 6% success rate. Infertility treatments are expensive and often not covered by health insurance–and around half of all moms who get pregnant over 40 have needed help to conceive.
On the other hand, romance novels are aspirational and should not be limited by the real world probabilities. Just as there are an absurd number of dukes in Regency romance–and that’s fine–it’s fine to have older moms who long for kids have them, whether through childbirth, adoption, or foster care. And though birthrates in the US for women have been declining for years, births to women over 40 have gone up by 3% every year for the past 30 years. (The average age for first time moms is 26.) Pregnancies to moms over 40 now make up 2% of all live births.
Fifty does seem remarkably old to be giving birth. (The heroine uses an egg donor and has a very wealthy spouse.) That said, the benefits of older parents are well-documented. And I am firmly of the belief that all children should be wanted and no one suffers through infertility treatments who doesn’t desperately want a child.
My bet is we will see more and more older moms in romance, especially in contemporary romance. And, after thinking about that likelihood, I’ve realized I’m good with that. Just as love stories should be for everyone, making a family should too. What do you think? Are you seeing more older pregnancies in your reading? How does it strike you?
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Vis fertility and 35: it ain’t necessarily so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9ryP0UyO5U
I just want more romances about adoption, foster care, or people looking at dealing with their grown or adult family members while doing romance.
I got pregnant on the first try at 35, so I know 35 isn’t a death knell to fertility, but even if if doesn’t decrease at the rate we’ve been lead to believe, the risks certainly do increase. I was pregnant the first time at 35 and the second at 38, and the difference in the risk of certain birth defects went up more than 10x in that 3 years.
I do agree that there should be other options explored – adoption is common in m/m for obvious reasons.
I’m with you Lisa. There are so many ways to create family, and to the extent that romances can create HEAs based on that idea, the better. Everyone needs to see themselves in our stories.
Certainly it’s not impossible–it’s just a lot harder.
According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). By 30, a woman’s fertility starts to decline, and after 35 the rate accelerates. Specifically, before 30, women have an 85 percent chance of conceiving within a year; at 30, those odds drop to 75 percent; and at 35 the chance drops to 66 percent, research has found. At 40, a woman has only a 44 percent chance of conceiving within 12 months.
According to the CDC:
Infertility is a 2.5 Billion dollar a year industry in the US.
I’m not saying it’s true for all women over 35. But it is true for many and it’s much more likely in women over 40.
I’m also not talking about adoption. I am married to an adoptee and cheer happy families made through adoption and foster care. It would be interesting to talk about adoption, however!
Mmm, it’s one of those it depends upon the body kinda things!
Yes, but the stats, overall, are pretty clear.
“ people looking at dealing with their grown or adult family members while doing romance”- YES!!
I second this. One of the more poignant stories in Love, Actually revolved around Laura Linney’s character Sarah, whose attempts to balance romance and her responsibilities to her adult brother with special needs showed the genuine struggle that exists there. Fifty or so is when many people find themselves dealing with aging parents, family upheavals etc. and I would want to see how that fits into falling in love.
And of course, anyone in their fifties who had kids early in life, may well be providing childcare for grandchildren as well.
That was great, Lisa. Thanks for the video. I knew some of that info, but not all of it.
I think some concerns come from people getting married later and putting off kids and then having fertility issues, not because the are older necessarily, but simply because they had fertility issues they didn’t know about. When you are 38 and trying to get pregnant, you might have less time to pursue all the fertility option than if you are 28. At the same time, you might be in a better financial situation, so there’s that.
I’m not usually a big fan of kids in romances, but if they are there and well-written, I’m okay with the found family thing. Like Caz says, it’s pretty common in m/m romances. In Life Lessons series by Kaje Harper, the two protagonists are raising two children not biologically related to them, or to each other. It’s an integral part of the story arc and very well done.
i’m an “older mum”, too – had my two when I was just a few weeks shy of 36 and 39. I remember one of the practice nurses at my GP actually calling me a “geriatric mum”! I like seeing older protagonists in romance, but I prefer it when the’ve already had their kid(s) – knowing the dangers attendant on pregnancies later in life I wouldn’t really want to read about a woman having to deal with the possibilty of birth defects etc. not in a romance novel anyway. I’m not generally a fan of kids in romances anyway – some authors have made it work well, but those are books I’ve picked up because I already like the author, not because they have children in!
Personally, I’ve found it harder and harder to warm to 20 and early 30 somethings in romances as I’ve got older. People talk about wanting to “see themselves” in the characters; I will “see myself” in characters with grown up or almost grown-up kids. (Given I read mostly m/m, I’m obviously not seeing myself so much as I’m relating to certain universal life experience the characters are having.)
I find with me it depends n the book. I’ve read stories recently with protagonists in their early 20’s and enjoyed them, In m/m, as you know, age gaps are fairly common so it’s not unusual to get a mix of ages, with one protagonist in their mid to late 20’s and the other 10 or more years old. That works fine for me if the characters are well written. But I’ve also really enjoyed Foxed by Jay Hogan and Beautifully Unexpected by Lily Morton with older protagonists dealing with different issues.
Maybe the older I get the less likely I’m going to find characters in my age bracket, or even close. :-) So I’ll settle for well written characters and engaging plots whatever the age of the protagonists.
In the books I gravitate to, I’m not seeing older female characters (40s-50s) who want to be moms (unless the children are already born and in their lives at the beginning of the book), and I’m seeing fewer partners even talking about having kids (unless it is a plot point that supports the idea that these two people probably don’t belong together). I love stories about older characters and find it entirely believable that they have passed through the “ticking biological clock” part of their lives.
I’m glad IVF is there for people who want it. But I’m also a fan of stories that accept as normal that it is more than okay – it’s even interesting – not to be a biological parent. People live terrific lives without aspiring to raise a biological child, and we see too few of those in romances IMO.
I am firmly in the camp of “ less children”, in general, in romance. I am very tired of all these stories where the children/ pregnancy are central to a HEA.
I never felt that children were necessary to complete a love, or a woman. This is in no way a stance based on moral or judgment reasons, it is my personal feeling, just like I do not enjoy the taste of vanilla ice cream.
So, I like reading books about older people because, often, they will not have a central focus on procreation.
And I would definitely not want to read romances where the quest for motherhood is one of the the woman’s important motivations- I respect this reality, irl, but I avoid such stories in romance, I cannot identify with them. I know too much about the anxiety and stress of late motherhood to want them in romance- either in a realistic way, or glossed over.
So, such plots would not be for me. Always with the exception that an author I trust can take me on pretty much any journey and I will try it.
“I never felt that children were necessary to complete a love, or a woman.” Amen to that!
Yes to all of this. I love my kids to bits – but I don’t necessarily want to read about children in romances, regardless of what age the progagonists are! Also, there’s that whole question of having the physical – and mental – endurance to be able to parent very young children in your 50s. They can be exhausting at any age, but while we’re generally fitter and living longer, our joints and our patience are likely wearing thin by that point!
It’s like anything else, if done really well, kids in romance are a good time. I love the children in many of Loretta Chase’s early classics, for example.
That’s true and, like you, I could point to books where the kids are well written. But I am.unlikely to want to read a book where children are a big plot point unless it’s by an author whose work I already enjoy and I like the sound of the whole story.
I had my first child just before I turned 30 and my last at 41, no fertility issues, so I guess I qualify as an older mom. Like DDD I’m not generally drawn towards stories with children in them, and routinely skip them unless the book has come with a recommendation. That said, if the protagonists are getting older, it seems reasonable that we’d see these couples wanting and having children. It’s also a thing in some m/m book with protagonists in their 30’s and 40’s, or at least it’s mentioned as something the couple wants in the future (generally adopting kids).
I think my own experience (first child at 35, twins at 40–no fertility struggles, just didn’t get married until my thirties) tends to color my thinking about older motherhood—I don’t think of women who have babies in their late-thirties and early-forties as being “older mothers” although demographically speaking they are. I never thought of myself as an older mother, but I would take my kids to “Mommy and Me” playtime and the other moms would ask me if I had custody of my grandkids. Lol! While I’ve noticed the age of heroines in romance novels inching up, I haven’t seen a similar trend with older motherhood in same. On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of “plot muppets” or baby-filled epilogues in romances, so it’s possible I’m just not reading the books where this would be noticeable.
I, too, felt the age difference (I was 41.5 when my youngest was born) with other moms when we’d all get together. And I was asked on more than one occasion if my youngest was my grandchild. The truth is, my mom was a grandmother at 42, so it wasn’t a stretch! I guess it didn’t help that I never covered my grey hair. :-) I was never asked that when I had all or most of the kids, since then it was pretty obvious they were all mine.
My favorite story was when I was in a store at the checkout with my youngest on my hip when the sweet young lady behind the counter asked me about my “grandbaby.” I chuckled and was about to answer when the lady behind me stepped out of line looked at the cashier and said, “Did you just ask if this was her grandchild! Lawd, child! You should know better than to ask that!” The young lady looked confused, and then apologetic, saying she didn’t mean to offend. I told her she didn’t offend me and I thought it was a reasonable assumption. The lady behind me kept “tut, tutting.” I left, and have always wondered if the woman in line knew the cashier, because their interactions seemed to convey some familiarity. :-)