I was 35 years old when I found out I was having a baby – which, scientifically speaking, means that I was considered to be a mother of advanced maternal age. (At the time, my gestation was also referred to in numerous prenatal appointments as a “geriatric pregnancy.”)
Statistically speaking, this did mean that my child was at a slightly higher risk of developing a congenital disorder (for which we tested), and that I was at a higher risk for miscarriage. But my pregnancy, like that of most moms above age 35, was a mundane affair, save all the vomiting.
It’s also an increasingly frequent occurrence, thanks to a mix of factors such as medical advancements, shifting societal attitudes toward parenthood, increased scholastic and professional opportunities for women, and the economic realities of birthing and caring for kids in the U.S. As of 2023, more women in their 40s were getting pregnant than teenagers.
Well, try telling any of that to the Women Police.
Last week, actress Anne Hathaway shared, by way of a cheeky Instagram post, that she is expecting her third child at the age of 43. While many celebrated the news (and many others simply ignored it), some took a different approach – namely, accusing her of “normalizing” having kids over 40.
One X user in particular, YouTuber “slxthkween,” who deals in offensive, inflammatory remarks by trade, also had this to say: “Women should stay home and the men should provide. If we deport tens of millions of illegals and get women out of the workforce, the economy will balance out to a single provider system.”
Beyond the off-color terminology, her attitude represents a broader shift in thought around what women, especially older women, should and should not do. To that point: As of Monday, her initial post about Hathaway had been shared thousands of times, and “liked” by tens of thousands of X users.
It’s worth noting that there is a significant double standard at play here – male actors, from Robert De Niro and Richard Gere to Al Pacino and Steve Martin, are becoming fathers to newborn children in their 60s, 70s and even 80s, without the general public condemning them for siring kids they likely won’t live to parent into their adulthood. (Also, Hathaway’s husband, Adam Shulman, is 45 – no one seems concerned about that, either.)
But the far bigger problem is that, no matter which way we go, the path we women choose will involve some form of condemnation. And the older we get, the greater the ire.
Hathaway’s backlash is one of several recent examples of people coming together to critique a woman’s family-planning choices. Actress Aubrey Plaza, upon announcing her own pregnancy, was accused en masse of not waiting long enough after the death of her former husband, from whom she’d been separated, to have a child with a new partner.
Of course, women who opt not to have children at all – especially those who speak proudly on the topic – are subjected to even worse treatment. President Donald Trump’s administration, and fellow members of the Republican party, have been actively working against this particular group for years, especially in regards to eradicating safe, legal abortion access, but also in terms of creating a culture war around the choice by repeatedly warning women against becoming a “childless cat lady” who will die alone.
There are those among us who want to see the world as it was imagined to be in yesteryear, including women who stand to profit from such a shift, from “tradwife” influencers to Republican women in office who speak out against women’s rights. They, and the men they prop up, don’t want women to explore the possibilities, especially as we age.
There are no choices we can make, no paths we can take, that will save us women from this manufactured scorn – because the point is to push us into increasingly smaller boxes, so that we are more easily contained.
If older women keep breaking from the script – the one that narratively ties fertility to youth, and to the meaning of life itself – then more women will grow aware of the number of doors that are open to them, just by the sight. More women will create lives that suit them as individuals. But if, instead, we are pushed back into a life of confinement, if we are shamed out of dreaming and fighting and starting over any time and just… living as we age – if we are cornered into thinking that we are “geriatric” by age 35 – then we won’t be a challenge.
As renowned feminist Gloria Steinem once noted, “Women may be the one social group that grows more radical with age” – and there are studies to back that notion up. For some, the prospect simply must be shut down.
Which is why we should persist with doing whatever we want with our bodies, and our lives – and why we should never stop shouting for every woman to have the same. Even those of us of advanced ages. ◼️
