Contemporary Issues in Childhood - Late Motherhood - Essay Example

In almost all the parts of the world this issue has been discussed and debated upon amongst both the medical and non- medical people. Motherhood has been portrayed by the society and various exponents of literary genre as the noblest feeling that a woman experiences in her entire lifetime. It is true that it is a great feeling to be a mother, to rear a child with all her affection, doting on the child and bringing him/her up, but is the picture so simple and easy on either sides of the coin of motherhood?

The complicated and multi faceted lifestyle of today’s women have raised the issues of late motherhood with more relevance than any other time, “Women’s physical and emotional experiences in childbirth are being drastically altered” (Woliver, 1991, p.482) in the last few decades. Many critics of late motherhood, including several medical personalities opine that it is the skyscraping ambitions of the modern woman that is pushing her to have a late conception, around the age of 40 years and sometimes may be above.

The impact of late motherhood on children cannot be ignored. Hence Campbell (2008) has rightly raised the question about the identity of these late mothers. In order to identify and address the complications that late motherhood brings to the lives of both the mother and the child, it is important to understand who these late mothers are. In UK, the late motherhood instances are running high. Prevalent growth in the employments of women, fall in reproductive standards or fertility rates and contemporary standard of living in Europe lead to the incidence of childbearing amongst the mothers in the age group of 35 – 49 years.

The fertility rates of the women have been going through a drastic change in Europe that could be shown by a chart: These huge transformations in fertility rates and motherhood make at least one fact