BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids WTH: Advice to have kids for your longevity??

Did anyone see this article in Sunday's Parade magazine (in our Sun. paper), written by a doctor?:

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

I'd type a reasonable answer, but the look of WTF-ery (which I've had for the past 5 minutes) on my face is keeping me from doing any such thing...

Glad I'm not the only one!!!

The article is very generic with no specifics. I thought of a few of them while I was reading it, but I don't have time to quote the places right now. WIll be back later.

Hmmm....let's see here.....

To have kids and live to be 100.....

or

To not have kids and only live to be 99.....

But...hey, wait a minute....one of my dear friends lived to be 104 and she never had kids. So....since some people who do not have kids live to be over 100 it would seem like that particular theory doesn't really hold much water.

Re: those who have children over the age of 40:

Only the healthiest of women would (in a thinking world) be attempting to have children at such an age. So.... if that is the case, then people who are not in such good shape are willfully not having children because of they are heavy, don't have a genetic disease, etc.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Yes, I know I am trying to apply logic when it comes to the desire and technical ability for women to bear children at that age. So sue me.

Women over 40 are at higher risks for complications for pregnancy and delivery...so I guess those that don't make it through childbirth don't live to 100....

I wonder if those numbers will skew, with more and more women over 40 having kids through IVF....I know before IVF women over 40 could have kids (one of my friends was a "surprise" to her parents when her mom was 45!) but it's wasn't as common, I'm sure.

Cindy

I have a feeling that this statistic, without the facts behind it (more detailed sample sizes, etc) could be easily categorized as one of the 81.56% of statistics that are just made up.

I think you might be onto something, Duane - perhaps it's like that pro-life claim that abortions cause breast cancer.*

(* Since pregnancy may offer some protection against breast cancer, having an abortion apparently equals causing cancer... This sort of 'argument' makes me want to punch pro-lifers on the nose.)

That sort of statistic must be right up there with "100% of people who have ever eaten carrots will die". Or perhaps, it's just that if you have kids when you're forty, you spend most of your life afterwards feeling like you're 100!!

Email the author and ask him for his source. I call BS ...

Natch, Llyn - I'd rather live to be 99 with no kids than live to 100 with 'em...