My youngest turns 4 today. I'm 50.

Thoughts from the "old mom."

Me at 23 with my firstborn in 1997.

I was a month shy of my 23rd birthday when I became a mother. I’d been married 15 months, and my new name— even calling myself someone’s “wife”— still felt stiff. I remember, in the long night after I had pushed my baby girl out into the world, saying, “I have a daughter,” over and over, trying on for size yet another new relationship in the slippery sand of my now-adult life. As my husband stood over the little plastic bassinet beaming at the little girl who had already become his whole world, I realized that whatever happened next, I had been redefined. I was a mother.

Fast forward another 23 years, and there I was again, having just birthed yet another baby girl. But this time, after the rush of the birth had settled, my husband stepped away and returned home to parent the children at home, leaving me in capable hands: the hands of our firstborn daughter, now herself the same age I had been when she had occupied an almost identical plastic bassinet.

My firstborn and her newborn sister in 2021.

At the hospital, the nurses rounding on our floor kept popping in, wanting to take a peek that the unusual threesome occupying room 317. A mother and her daughters, set apart in increments of 23 years. I don’t know what we looked like to them, but I know what it felt like to me: normal.

See, after I took on motherhood, I knew I was changed. And I was. God had entrusted me to walk alongside a man who I love and respect, and together we decided to remain open to whatever children the Lord might have for our family. As such, I have given birth 7 times in four different states. I have delivered babies in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. (Three of my children came to us via adoption, a whole other kind of birthing with no less labor, I can assure you.) I have been both the young mom, and the elderly grand multipara.

A baby at 46 wasn’t the plan, but that’s because there was no plan. Not one designed by us, anyway.

This past fall, that oldest baby turned 27. I celebrated my 50th birthday a month later. And today marks 4 years since my final baby was born. We are something of an anomaly in the modern world, but we’d fit in just fine plopped down before prescriptions for birth control were commonplace. Yes, I’ve been asked if I’m my daughter’s grandmother. Yes, I have grandchildren. Yes, chasing a toddler in your late 40s is not nearly as it is in your mid 20s.

And no, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I could go on and on about how I’m a better mother now that I’m older, but that just makes sense. The longer we inhabit a role, the more wisdom we gain. It’s really a shame in many ways that so many of us these days have one or two children in quick succession and are done, leaving all that hard-won parenting know how dangling, awaiting someone to ask our opinion on how to handle x, y, or z. We save up what we’ve learned and then pass it on to our children when they begin their parenting journey, only to be shocked that they prefer to figure things out on their own, just as we did. I’ve found that because my own baby is only a step ahead of my grandchildren, I can very naturally and seamlessly offer small bit of encouragement and direction right along with the hand-me-down onesies and bibs. The process is organic. We are in these trenches together; still fresh from colic and teething, still laying the rails for trust and self-discipline.

Naturally, I’m more tired than I was several decades (and children) ago. My 4 year-old can run laps around me— and often does. She gets less physical play from me than her older siblings did. But keeping up with those same siblings is one of her life’s goals, so she’s not suffering. I don’t push myself to do a hundred crafts like I did with my oldest kids, either. Instead, I keep a cupboard full of supplies on hand and give her free reign. At 50, I don’t mind the mess nearly as much as I did 20 years ago. Even glitter can be cleaned up. (Eventually.)

Yes, I’ve read the same classic storybooks for nearly 30 years but no, they haven’t lost their sense of wonder to me. Watching a child’s dawning realization of the gentle tension in Blueberries for Sal, or marvel at the industry in Ox-Cart Man is fresh and life-giving every time. I spend less time enduring the pap that springs from popular kid characters, whether it’s television or movies, than I did once upon a time. I’ve seen enough fads come and go that I know that some books are borrows, and some are buys.

Same goes for parenting trends in general. My oldest got rice cereal mixed into a bottle of expressed breast milk at 6 weeks, because that’s what one did when baby was waking hourly for feeds and momma needed a longer stretch of sleep. That bit of advice— and a hundred others— have come and gone in the length of time that I’ve been a mother. People want to start online fights over bed-sharing being unsafe today. Folks, 27 years ago I was putting a baby to sleep on her belly in a bed down the hall with bars now said to be too far apart, lined with a plush bumper affixed with long ties, and wrapped in blankets. I acknowledge that there’s best practice based on current understanding, but I’ve also seen that that understanding is influenced by changing tides and studies that often get disproven within a decade.

I chose my battles more now that I did early on. I don’t get as worked up over the phases that inevitably settle on kids. The nap strikes at 2. The lying phase at 4. The fear of everything at 5. The crushing independence of 6. The potty humor at 9. It all comes, and it all goes. You can use your energy to fight it, but you won’t dramatically shorten the overall duration. Your best bet is to weather it all firmly, but with a sense of humor and grace that preserves your sanity and their budding sense of autonomy.

Of course, the greatest thing I’ve learned is that each child— be they born when I was little more than a kid myself, or when I was teetering on the edge of middle age— is a unique creature designed by God with a purpose. I’ve watched Free Will play out beautifully, and I’ve felt it break my heart. I’ve marveled at the talents I’ve discovered lurking in my children, and I’ve been paralyzed with fear at the understanding of the power their besetting sins have over them. Trusting the Lord with each individual, knowing that His love for them is perfect and sustaining? That’s been a journey in and of itself. I have not gotten close to getting it right every time, but He has taught me more and more, leading me to the place where the sanctification of parenting is less frightening and more enjoyable.

As I write this, I’m waiting for my newly-minted 4 year-old to come downstairs and start her day. I’ve done this how many times now? So many. But is it any less beautiful? No. Somehow it’s more so—maybe do in part to the fact that I know what lies ahead. God willing, this little girl will, not too far in the future, sit beside me as we drive to some practice or rehearsal or game, and belt Country Roads with me. She will let me come along as she navigates the tricky waters of choosing how, exactly, she’ll enter the adult world. She’ll want my opinion on her wedding dress, the names she’s weighing for her own babies, whether or not what she’s dealing with is perimenopause. A new baby isn’t just a new baby. It’s the promise of a life lived together, walking through good and bad and beautiful and awful.

I wish more people understood that. I know for certain that I wouldn’t have truly grasped it had I not become an “older mom.” I guess that’s part of the wisdom I’ve gained in nearly three decades of babies and toddler and teenagers and grandchildren. It’s part of what I’ve been able to learn as our family has grown. And it’s what I want to live out now that my family has outgrown the shell of my own house, and sent branches spilling out into the world.

In Christ,

Heather