Reminders- age but different life choices

[lph]

I'm curious as to why several of you mention being surprised that co-workers have parents your age. I'm 43, and some of my youngest co-workers are in the early twenties, young enough for me technically to be their mother. Though I'll admit that I would be surprised too if they had parents my age, since the average age for a first birth is late twenties. But I'd pretty much expect that to be the case if I were ten years older.

Maybe it is the case that having kids (in my case kid) make you more aware of the passing of time. My son is very obviously a tall, lanky, moustachioed young man now, not a child, and I can visualize him having kids of his own even though I'm not expecting them anytime soon (dear god, no :-0). But I guess the awareness that I'm approaching grandmotherable age is kinda there, no matter how fit or active I am physically. And since I have grey hair too now people have stopped nagging me about having "another one" But I have close friends my own age or just a few years younger who want and are trying to have kids, so the very clear-cut generation divides aren't really there anymore.

But as to whether kids change an active lifestyle - it surely is harder to keep up a very active lifestyle once you have a child in the equation too, especially two, and school holidays are unfortunately limiting. I seriously missed not being able to travel when I wanted to, once I had a schoolchild. But I got a lot better at including physical activity in my everyday life, because that's where it had to be. Ok, so I didn't go to Antarctica, but I got pretty good at rock climbing, and biking everywhere, and I took up kayaking. And Antarctica is still there. I've met people who've said to us as young parents, as a compliment, "it's so nice to see that "life doesn't end" once you become a parent". And I thought "well, who told you it did in the first place?"

[indysteel]

Generally speaking, my friends that were physically active prior to having kids, continue to be active even though it can be challenging. Those that weren't active prior to having kids continue to be inactive. They'd like to fault the kids for this, but I would assume that in their more honest moments, they would admit that it's perhaps not that simple. That's not to suggest that I don't understand the challenges. Heck, even without children, it can be hard.

[lph]

Generally speaking, my friends that were physically active prior to having kids, continue to be active even though it can be challenging. Those that weren't active prior to having kids continue to be inactive. They'd like to fault the kids for this, but I would assume that in their more honest moments, they would admit that it's perhaps not that simple. That's not to suggest that I don't understand the challenges. Heck, even without children, it can be hard.

Yup, I think children are just one thing that can make it more of a challenge to stay physically active, but there are many other things too, a stressful or challenging job, a long commute, sick or elderly parents or any number of things can be just as much a drain on your resources and time. Ack, I don't mean a drain. Just that life can be more or less full of things to do or handle, and a day is only so long. Physical activity is important to my mental wellbeing even more than my physical, so I find it relatively easy to give it high priority. If I'd felt it was a huge struggle I'd probably be among the ones who let it go as soon as I had a kid to blame

[shootingstar]

If it weren't for me in menopause and my partner's age, I would be more oblivious to the passage of the years.

LPH alot of people do mention about their kids, as a barrier to becoming more fit/healthier. And some of these folks are parents with adult children...living at home.

[emily_in_nc]

We are 51 (me) and 58 (DH) and are childless, not by choice, but it's ended up being somewhat of a blessing in disguise as we've been able to retire early and travel -- something we couldn't have done so easily if we'd had children. One thing I've noticed, especially recently, is that we seem to have a lot more in common with younger married-without-children couples than with couples our own age. Partly because younger couples without kids don't talk about their kids (obviously), and partly because we still do active, adventurous, "young" activities -- like cycling, hiking, kayaking, etc. while most people we meet who are our age don't. Even though their kids are out of the nest, so in theory we'd have a lot in common with them, in many cases they are into entirely different pursuits than us -- like playing golf, taking cruises, and other things that just aren't "us". Not so many into hiking or cycling. And certainly very few into our type of traveling. Here in Belize we've been traveling in the country as the locals do -- on local buses and carrying backpacks. Sure don't see many 50-something Americans doing that, but we've run into quite a few 20- and 30-somethings who do.

Anyway, it's all very interesting to me and sometimes makes us feel really different. But really, age is just a number, and it's more about finding interesting, like-minded friends no matter what their ages. One thing we've found as we've gotten older is that we're much more open-minded about having friends of all different ages, if we are like-minded and share some interests.

[Serendipity]

I'm curious as to why several of you mention being surprised that co-workers have parents your age. I'm 43, and some of my youngest co-workers are in the early twenties, young enough for me technically to be their mother. Though I'll admit that I would be surprised too if they had parents my age, since the average age for a first birth is late twenties. But I'd pretty much expect that to be the case if I were ten years older.

lph, my take on this is that it isn't so much being surprised that co-workers have parents my age, it's more a sense of realization that I am the same age as my co-workers' parents. As in - 'how did that happen?' or 'where did all those years go?'. Conversely, what often startles me is to realize that some of my co-workers are the same age (or younger) than my children!!! Yikes! Again, it's an in-your-face realization that I've forgotten how old I actually am (54).

Hope that makes sense.