Time ages people. I don’t think people with kids look older.

Anonymous wrote:Does having a baby actually age someone?

From what I notice with my friends, neighbors, community, etc. I actually think that having teenagers ages someone.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a latina and almost 40 but I constantly get told by doctors they thought I was in my 20's when they first met me. I see constant posts on here about people over 40 who say they feel old and slow. I also notice some races look much older after having kids even when they are actually younger than me. Does having a baby actually age someone?

Another poster already mentioned this but I think there a lot of people who have no idea what 40 looks like. I’m a ww but I get this kind of thing a lot. In my opinion, I look close to my age. I do take care of my skin and my kids are older and fairly self sufficient so they aren’t big stressors and don’t impede my sleep. Nowadays, fitness, skincare, etc are so accepted and accessible, I think some people just aren’t aware and think 40 looks much older than it actually does.

Darker skin is more resistant to sun damage than very fair skin. That said, there is so much you can do now to maintain skin health that I imagine this is not so much an issue anymore.

Young kids can be tiring and make you look tired if you have a busy schedule and/or don’t get enough sleep but this is time limited.

Under normal circumstances, most women won’t look like haggard old ladies at 30 just because they had a baby.

Not everyone's sleep just goes back to normal after your kid starts sleeping through the night. My DS started sleeping through the night, all night every night at around 3-4 months old. I haven't slept through the night except for a few times per year in the last 17 years. After having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night during my pregnancy plus 3-4 months of not sleeping more than a few hrs at a time, my sleep has been permanently ruined.

Only if you don’t sleep train them.

I look just like my friends who didn’t have kids. I will say that I think having kids keeps you younger in spirit because you’re always playing with them, singing songs and reading kids books. My aunts and uncles that don’t have kids really have trouble relating to people under 60.

I had 3 kids in my 20s and now, in my 30s, look my age. I looked tired for a while when I had 3 under 5, though. I am in good shape, my face looks like most people around my age but I take care of my skin and make an effort. I think it’s largely genetic but sunscreen makes a huge difference, especially for white women, and retinol is good for skin texture.
I have friends from many racial backgrounds with and without kids and we all look the same age, no one looks alarmingly old or young.

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Anonymous wrote:Of course. You have to worry about and provide for a defenseless child you brought into the world.

If that responsibility doesn't age you, you probably aren't doing it right.

You do the same for pets though! You bring defenseless pets home and have to feed, train, exercise them, etc.

A pet is not a child. Raise a child and you will admit the difference. Promise.

+100. I love my dogs. But there is no comparison. None.

If there is no comparison, you aren’t doing it right. I feel sorry for your pets.

That is crazy. And I have cats that I love dearly - but I wasn’t pregnant with them - no going through „morning“ sickness, pregnancy fatigue and depression, no major abdominal surgery to birth then, no constant sleep deprivation for months, no triple feeding them - almost all day nursing/pumping/feeding, etc. No not having the hands free/time to make healthy food and not being able to leave them alone to go exercise. There are just so many ways that having a kid ages you in a way that having pets doesn’t.
I have a newborn so I’m not listing the later stresses but truly there is no comparison.

And I am someone who slept on the floor in a closet for the sake of my first cat and in the final days of his life also slept on the floor and carried him to the bathroom in the middle of the night when he was paralyzed and couldn’t go himself. (It was only a couple days between sudden paralysis and death…)

That being said I do know a number of people who think having kids keeps them active and young (but they are well beyond the newborn stage). I definitely have grayed more since giving birth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course. You have to worry about and provide for a defenseless child you brought into the world.

If that responsibility doesn't age you, you probably aren't doing it right.

You do the same for pets though! You bring defenseless pets home and have to feed, train, exercise them, etc.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had one at age 30 and am still a size 4 without exercising or anything. But I am exhausted which probably has to do more with being a single parent than a parent.

Nah. But I only had one at 29. Got my body back fast and was very happy with my size 2 - 4 body and how I looked straight through DCs teenage years.

Anonymous wrote:It was being PTA president that really put the gray hairs on me.

+1, kind of. Having kids didn't age me; being back around other adults I had a wonderful adult life constructed to avoid has been a serious buzzkill.

It was being PTA president that really put the gray hairs on me.

Anonymous wrote:First, it is not at all unusual to pass for being in your 20s at 40. I’m white and this happened to be all the time. I think part can be explained by the fact that people don’t know what 40 looks like. In my experience some time after 49!you can still look good but you start to sort of look your age.

As for kids, isn’t the saying “they keep you young but they make you old”?

This. It's because a generation ago, most 40 year old women had kids who were adults or nearing adulthood. Some were grandmothers. And the generation before that, most were grandmothers. 40 was old back then because people (but especially women) didn't have these long periods of young adulthood where they established careers, socialized a lot, maybe went to grad school or traveled, etc. You had kids young and then your life is pretty much over by 45 or 50. If you were lucky you looked forward to some travel in retirement, maybe old lady hobbies like gardening and knitting, tennis or walking if you were active.

I'm 41. I have a 5 yr old child, recently took up running, am mid-career and contemplating getting a second graduate degree, and have an active social life both with my DH and without him. I look remarkably similar to my mom at this age, but she looked old back then and I don't look old now. Because my life is in a totally different place. Her life at 41 is more similar to what mine will be at 61.

I don't think my kids have aged me any more than the normal passage of time would have. I had my first kid 4 years ago and probably look 4 years older because 4 years have passed. My aging hasn't sped up. I'm mid-30s fwiw.