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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

And it wasn't that long to begin with

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Yakko
Mar 27, 2024
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The window for great-grandmothers is closing

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A friend and I were talking about our families today when I realized
that my grandmother (this grandmother) became a grandma (not my
grandma) at 45.

She had my aunt when she was reasonably young and my aunt in turn had
her first child at a young age as well.

She then went on to become a great-grandmother at 75, meaning my
cousin already broke the trend a bit, having his first kid at 30.

Thus, even though I never met my great-grandparents, my cousin's
children have, and they should consider themselves quite lucky.

Because the age of great-grandparents is ending, and it didn't last
very long either.

It's slightly paradoxical -- in the past, I've thought about how since
life expectancy is increasing, there probably will be more
great-grandmothers. But on the other hand, people are having children
much later too.

For instance, with the way things are going (i.e. me not being close
to having kids), my parents will likely become grandparents when
they're nearing 70, a couple decades later than my grandmother.

In Brazil, where I'm from, this shift is quite recent. Until just one
or two generations ago people were having multiple kids, and at very
young ages. Now, I don't have a single friend in my mid-to-late
twenties friend group who has already had a kid.

So while the older generations are living longer and giving
themselves a better shot at having great-grandkids, their
descendants' habits aren't really helping.

But even more interesting is that this "age of great-grandmothers" as
I like to call it not only is ending, but it hasn't been here for
long either.

Now, I won't dig too deep into the numbers but this source for
example claims global life expectancy jumped from around 47 to 72
from 1950 to 2022. One can extrapolate it was even lower in the
1900s, and before then too.

What that means is that there probably weren't too many
great-grandmothers before the 1900s either. Indeed, people had
children even earlier, but it was hard to get old enough to have
grandkids even in that case (even though life expectancy at birth as
I've used here isn't the best proxy for this).

So all in all, it seems that the window in history during which there
were probably the most great-grandparents is kind of around now, and
it's seemingly about to end.

Some people believe we can make significant jumps in longevity over
the next century, but provided that doesn't happen, we'll likely see
fewer and fewer great-grandmothers around.

And I can't help but wonder: what will we lose as a society as a
result?

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        Beto
        6 hrs ago

        My understanding is that life expectancy was low in the past
[https] because child mortality was high, but adults who made it past
        these perilous early years often lived into their 60s, 70s.

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2 replies by Yakko and others

         
        AnonymousCoward
        5 hrs ago

        Inflation has caused the rule of thumb for generations to go
        from 30 to 40 and beyond. If we just wait until we are
[https] financially secure and not narcissistic....that will be the
        perfect time to have a child. Never happens. iPhone broke
        society.

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