Introduction

In most western societies, the age at which mothers and fathers first enter parenthood is on the rise, with successive births only increasing the average age of parenthood [1, 2]. This general trend has been framed in the literature as ‘late parenthood’, ‘postponed parenthood’, or ‘delayed parenthood’ although it must be noted that there is a general lack of consensus about what constitutes ‘older’ parenthood. Researchers have been using varying age cut-offs [3], where it is typical to refer to women between the ages of 30 and 40 as ‘older’ [4–6], and older men are categorised as such in their 40’s and 50’s [7]. Multiple factors are cited as influencing the postponement of motherhood, which include: the couple’s health, financial stability, home environment, structural factors like a longer average period spent in education and a difficulty to balance a time-intensive profession with family life, being single or relationship uncertainty and breakdown, and individual emotional preparedness [8, 9]. Similar factors have been found to be associated with the postponement of fatherhood [10]. In addition, the lack of supportive family policies seems to contribute to this ‘postponing’ trend [11].

Advanced age parenthood (AAPd) seemingly raises several concerns for future children. These concerns, although intuitively appealing, often lack the attendant empirical findings to support the degree of attention they receive in scholarly publications. First, the literature mentions strictly medical concerns, such as an increased risk of miscarriage and chromosomal aneuploidy for children born to ‘older’ women. The risks are not exclusive to older women, as children born to older men are at an increased risk for neuropsychiatric disorders and certain chromosomal abnormalities [12]. In addition, several scholars point out the poor psychosocial outcomes for the offspring of advanced age parents (AAPs). A potential source of such poor psychosocial outcomes is a lack of adequate parenting skills of older parents who would not be able to fulfil their parental duties [13]. Another critical concern for the children of AAPs is the increased risk of losing a parent at a young age which brings severe grief, stress and loss of material and emotional support [14, 15]. Moreover, the increased risk of degenerative illness in the parents is often stated as a source of poor psychosocial outcomes for these children [16]. The underlying concern is that the children will be younger as their parents start experiencing more serious health problems, forcing them to “face the burden of caring for their parents” [17] earlier in life.

The above concerns, however, have no clear evidence base. Overall, a number of quantitative studies indicate that children born to older mothers show similar or better cognitive, behavioural and psychosocial outcomes compared to children born to younger mothers. Barclay and Myrskylä [18] found that Swedish persons born to older mothers performed better on standardised tests and had a higher degree of educational attainment than their peers who were birthed by younger mothers. Boivin and colleagues [5] found similar correlations when measuring wellbeing (among 4–11 years old children) across British families of younger and older mothers. One research team found slightly more negative cognitive and behavioural outcomes for children of advanced age mothers compared to children of younger mothers but later concluded that this trend reversed since the beginning of this century [19, 20]. This was explained by the fact that more recent cohorts with children of older parents are often situated within socioeconomically advantaged families. All studies listed here exclusively examined the outcomes of children born to older mothers, and not to older fathers. Moreover, they focused almost entirely on minors, whereas adult children born to older parents have rarely been studied. We were only able to find two studies of qualitative accounts of (adult) children born to older parents [21, 22]. Their main findings included that (adult) children born to older parents (i) felt different from peers with younger parents, (ii) regretted to be part of a small (extended) family, having no siblings or living grandparents, or feeling estranged from much older (half)siblings, (iii) feared premature parental death, (iv) reported having more caregiving responsibilities than their peers, and (v) identified both advantages (e.g., greater wisdom, patience and financial resources compared to younger parents) and disadvantages (e.g., less affinity to the young child’s or teenager’s social and emotional reality compared to younger parents) to their parents engaging in late parenting. However, both studies date back a quarter of a century and are more journalistic in nature. With this study we aim to provide an updated explorative analysis of the experiences of (young) adults born to AAPs and to foster societal understanding of what it means to these people to be a caregiver for their parents at a relatively young age.

As it has become increasingly common to discuss parenting and parenthood in general on social media platforms, internet forums, and comment sections on other types of websites (e.g., blogs, online newspaper articles) over the last few decades [23], so have discussions of AAPs on these mediums. Online newspaper articles often spark personal responses providing a rich source of data. In this paper, we examine what experiences are offered by (adult) children with AAPs in the comment section of newspaper articles published in The Guardian (TG) and The Daily Mail Online (DMO). We studied data stemming from people with first-hand experiences with AAPs, and who expressed their experiences in an unsolicited way. In doing so, we aimed to identify what they consider relevant for the debate on AAPd, and we hope to give voice to these people and initiate further research.

Materials and methods

Results

Overall, there was a comparable number of comments using more positive (N = 74) and more negative (N = 77) wording in describing their experiences with AAPd. Whereas the positive experiences were usually articulated in more compact and general terms, the more negative comments were often lengthy, detailed, and emotionally loaded, possibly indicating a need to be heard and understood. In what follows, we discuss three themes. The first one (“Addressing prejudice by pointing out the positive”) relates to the experiences presented by the commenters as counterexamples to prevalent prejudices about parenting later in life. In these comments, the commenters were pointing out the positive in their experiences with AAPs. The second (“Being a child of visibly older parents”) and third (“Doing the caring in an invisible sort of way”) theme describe the experiences presented by commenters as a way of raising concerns and warning others in relation to AAPd. Apart from experiences of being visible to the outside world as a child of AAPs, these comments also highlighted the invisibility of taking up an untimely caregiver role for AAPs.

Discussion

The comments we studied displayed a wide variety of experiences with AAPs ranging from exclusively positive to extremely negative. Commenters often cited their parents’ life experience, availability and commitment to parenting as important advantages of being raised by AAPs, which was consistent with the journalistic reports of Morris [21] and Yarrow [22]. Not all commenters, however, attributed their positive upbringing experiences to their parents’ older age but instead, attributed their salutary upbringing to their parents’ personal characteristics and qualities. Such comments reflect the idea that age in itself has little to do with someone’s competence to raise a child. More negatively articulated childhood memories related to feeling different from peers and feeling embarrassed about having AAPs. Nevertheless, some commenters considered their childhood confrontation with social judgements about their parents as becoming increasingly irrelevant as they grew older, and one commenter even described how it taught them to disvalue the opinions of others. These findings show great resemblance with those of Morris [21] and Yarrow [22], suggesting that the challenges and/or benefits experienced and identified by (adult) children born to AAPs have not necessarily changed over the past few decades. Noteworthy in our dataset, however, is that a considerable number of commenters specifically (and exclusively) addressed the hardship of caring for their older parents. Commenters described their caregiving experiences in great detail, often using highly emotional and descriptive language, demonstrating a need to be heard and understood.

The majority of the negative experiences with AAP were attributed to the burdensome caregiver responsibilities associated with caring for older parents. The parents of these particular commenters became ill or disabled when the commenters were minors or young adults. Most commenters framed their caretaker role as a matter of filial responsibility, a self-evident duty they were under an obligation to fulfil. In western societies, however, the norm to provide care for parents is embedded in the expectation that such caregiving takes place during middle adulthood, usually defined as a life stage lasting from about age 40 to 65 [38]. Being a caregiver during early adulthood or even before, as a minor, is not expected. Therefore, society is maladjusted to the everyday life of these caregivers. Hence, we could argue that this assumed filial duty to provide care for one’s elderly parents has become anything but obvious in current western societies which strongly endorse independence and individual responsibility.

As illustrated in the results, the commenters mentioned undertaking a range of caregiving activities, including both activities of daily living as well as providing emotional support and keeping the parents company. Interestingly, however, previous research has shown that parents’ and children’s ideas and attitudes towards caregiving within the family have changed over the last decades. Both parties do not expect adult children to take on personal care activities [39, 40]. Hence, the filial care duty nowadays is seen to primarily consist of providing emotional support and companionship for the parents [41]. Based on such a contemporary interpretation of the filial care duty, it seems plausible that many of the commenters in our dataset might have performed care activities which exceed what can be morally expected of them. However, given the lack of normalisation of young caregivers and a lack of accessible and affordable care services, it is likely that young caregivers, like the ones in our dataset, continue their care work alone and behind closed doors.

Only a few commenters shared their past experiences of caring for an older parent while being underage themselves. In the descriptions of these experiences we found multiple indications of what is regularly referred to as ‘parentification’. Parentification as defined by Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark [42] is “the distortion or lack of boundaries between and among family subsystems, such that children take on the roles and responsibilities usually reserved for adults”. Our results reflect instances of both instrumental parentification (e.g., monitoring medical adherence) and emotional parentification (e.g., confiding the child with ‘adult information’, like money problems) [43]. Although we outlined above that providing emotional support might be at the core of a more contemporary interpretation of the filial care duty, research suggests that it is precisely this type of care activity that is potentially the most harmful when provided by minors [44]. However, consideration of the ‘bigger picture’ seems desirable: potential positive outcomes for the parentified child have been identified over the last few decades as well [45]. Hendricks and colleagues [45] point to the “multidimensional nature of parentification”, thus urging us to assess a multitude of potentially relevant factors influencing the parentified child’s experiences. The minor’s perceived fairness of parentification [46] or their perceived control over their own behaviour within the family [47] have indeed been associated with more positive experiences of parentification. Therefore, we ought to be careful not to “overpathologise” [48] individuals who are or have been parentified during childhood and instead, consider their individual experiences and needs.

It must be noted that experiences of caring for parents are not exclusive to individuals born to older parents, and based on our data, it is impossible to judge whether the parents’ health conditions were indeed related to their older age, or whether these were more exceptional cases in which the parents developed health issues relatively early (i.e., earlier than statistically expected). Similar caregiving experiences are found in children with a parent suffering from conditions like HIV/AIDS [49] or early onset dementia [50]. However, it remains a credible concern that reproducing at an older age increases the likelihood that a child will need to adopt the role of caregiver to their parent before they themselves enter middle age. Unlike conditions like dementia, which are often the result of an unlucky draw in the genetic lottery, prospective parents have a great degree of control over their reproductive decisions, raising further questions about parental responsibilities, and the age at which individuals should transition into parenthood.

Strengths and limitations

Our study has several limitations. First, our data and study method do not allow for generalisations. Second, these data offer no background information on the commenters and no opportunity to ask follow-up questions [51] or verify whether the comments were an accurate reflection of the commenters’ lived experiences. Our data could contain instances of erroneous or exaggerated representations of reality. Furthermore, stressing and even overstressing the positive side of a particular (life) story might be a result of people’s tendency to eulogise events that happened in the past or to glorify deceased individuals [52]. Our study design and method also have important strengths. Research has found people to behave more honest and give unfiltered accounts online than in face-to-face set-ups [53]. Moreover, the commenters themselves volunteered their experiences and thoughts unsolicited and in a non-research setting as what they deemed relevant to share in the online discussion.

As a contribution to the literature on the lived experiences of (young) adults born to AAPs, our data exposed a pressing need for more societal understanding of what it means to be a caregiver for one’s parents at a relatively young age. More understanding and normalisation could enable these young caregivers to dare to speak out about their family situation (more often) and to share their experiences, concerns, and potential troubles with others. Caregiving experiences of (young) adults with AAPs should be further examined in terms of their frequency, the age at which a child or (young) adult starts to provide such care, and the impact this has on their wellbeing. In particular, future research needs to address the isolation of minors or young adults who take up caregiver roles for their AAPs.

Our findings call for an increased sensitivity of social policy to anticipate people’s informal care activities. Considering the diversity of people’s life courses and family circumstances, younger and older individuals should be treated alike and be offered the same flexible work arrangements, for example. Moreover, the education system and social services should be organised in such a manner as to facilitate the identification of young caregivers. These adolescents and young adults should be offered accessible and affordable support, while at the same time protecting them against unjustifiable social stigmas. Providing a safe space (whether it be an online platform or a physical place) where they can seek support and talk openly about their caregiving experiences can significantly contribute to their wellbeing, as it can reduce feelings of isolation and more generally, create a sense of community that can lift the burdens placed on individuals by the highly individuated, and self-reliant norms that predominate in western societies.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jesse Gray for his valuable comments on this paper.