Older first-time parents

[Okla-homey]

I have a friend who is 40 who became a father for the first time about a month ago.

He hasn't been the same since. I think the baby has really rocked his world.

Would being in a childless marriage for 15 years or so make it more difficult to adjust to the impact of having a child than if the baby had come along early in their marriage...or is he just being wierd?

[85Sooner]

Had my first at 38 and second at 41. I think I just realize its about half over and I never felt old until the kids came along, not to mention how much the world has changed since I was a kid. I think I notice it more now out of neccessity when before I could or did ignore most of it.

[OUinFLA]

Our first ( and only) came at 40.

What was an inconveniece was realizing that all our friends of the same age had their kids earlier, and now the kids were teenagers or older, and our friends had free time and we didn't.

As the first few years went by, the next big hurdle occured. For a number of years, we were arm chair parents/critics to our friends. "If we had a kid, he wouldnt behave like that", "If that was our kid we would do that somewhat differently", "Y'all are too lax with dicipline in our opinion", "You're kids a little bit**/sh**-a** today, is that normal?" , etc, etc.
We spent about 3 years of our lives once our kid reached 3 or so, going around and appoligizing to all our friends for what we had said. :D

Most of them laughed and said "What goes around, comes around, you deserve all that you are experiencing".

[VeeJay]

Mrs. VJ and I are both on our second marriages, and we each brought our own daughter into the marriage. We now have our 3rd, a six year old. It seems all our friends and neighbors are in very similar situations - second families. I dunno - it just seems folks finally get it together later in life.

Your buddy should be fine.

[slickdawg]

We were childless for 10, not a problem for us. I became a daddy at 35,
so it's really no exceptional adjustment, outside the normal taking care
of a newborn, which will whip anyones azz.