When De Niro is having a child at 79, it’s time to cut older mothers some slack | Arwa Mahdawi

Meet the (much older) parents

In a world where US birth rates were declining, one man decided to embark on a heroic journey to father as many children as he could. That man is called Robert De Niro and he has just had his seventh child at the grand old age of 79. His new daughter is around half a century younger than his oldest kids.

While he may be on the extreme end of things, it’s not just De Niro who is having kids later in life. American parents, in general, are getting older. A 2017 study by Stanford researchers found that the average age of a new dad in the US rose from 27.4 to 30.1 in the years between 1972 and 2015. The percentage of new dads in their 40s doubled during that time, to almost 9%. And the percentage of new fathers aged 50 and above increased from 0.5% to 0.9%. Germany and England are seeing similar trends in advanced paternal age.

Mothers in rich countries are also getting older. In 2022 the median age of women giving birth in the US rose to 30 for the first time. In recent decades birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and increased for women in their late 30s and early 40s. And women with the resources to use surrogates and reproductive technology are having kids even later: Naomi Campbell recently had her first child at the age of 50.

While both men and women may be waiting longer to have kids, women tend to be judged a lot more harshly for it. There is still a ridiculous amount of stigma attached to “older” mothers. A 2021 study out of Canada analyzed the language in policy documents, guidelines and government reports and found older mothers were represented as “risk-producing subjects, as unnatural mothers, and as irresponsible reproductive citizens”. If you get pregnant past the age of 35 in the US then you’re basically treated like you’re on death’s door. Phrases like “geriatric pregnancy” and “advanced maternal age” are bandied around and your pregnancy is automatically considered high-risk.

The same stigma, the same guilt, doesn’t attach to older fathers: most men in their late 30s aren’t fretting about their biological clocks and wondering whether they ought to freeze their sperm. And yet the risks associated with declining sperm quality are very real: studies show that men over 45 can put their partners at risk for increased pregnancy complications and infants born to older fathers are at greater risk of birth defects.

Having said all that, I should point out that news of De Niro’s new baby hasn’t exactly been greeted with unanimous high fives and cheering for his virility. The Daily Mail, for example, published two op-eds essentially calling him a creepy old man who wasn’t going to live long enough to see his kid grow up. And the Daily Mail, not exactly a bastion of gender equality, even called out the gendered hypocrisy around when it’s acceptable to have a baby. Sexist double standards when it comes to parental age are very real but it seems that when you start having kids over the age of 75 things start to even out.

Linda Yaccarino named CEO of Twitter

Yaccarino is the former chairman of global advertising and partnerships of NBCUniversal and she is very, very good at what she does. If Musk wants to regain trust with marketers and start pulling in ad dollars again, he probably couldn’t have picked a better person. However, this does look suspiciously like a “glass cliff” scenario. Women – and ethnic minorities – are often given leadership positions or promotions when the odds of success are very low and the organisation is facing a crisis. Musk appointing a fall woman is very on-brand.

Spain women’s race apologises for food processor gift

Ángela Rodríguez Pam, Spain’s secretary of state for equality, noted in a tweet that the winner of the seven-kilometer race had received a food processor and other participants were given 0% fat products: “If you win: housewife and if not at least you’ll lose weight.”

A year after Shireen Abu Akleh was killed, there has still been no justice

Thursday marked one year since the trailblazing Palestinian-American journalist was killed by Israeli forces while reporting on a military invasion of a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Since then nobody has been held accountable – although, after initially saying they had nothing to do with it, the Israel Defense Forces have finally said “sorry”. The apology may have been prompted by a recent report from the Committee to Protect Journalists which found no accountability was taken by the Israeli military over its killings of at least 20 journalists, 18 of whom were Palestinian, over the past two decades. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has kept shamefully silent about the killing of an American citizen; Biden didn’t even bother mentioning Abu Akleh while talking about the importance of protecting journalists at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner.

Abortion clinics saw significant increase in violence and threats post-Roe

A new report from the National Abortion Federation (NAF) found that arson at abortion clinics was up 100% in 2022 compared to the year prior. The increase in incidents of stalking of abortion providers, patients and staff in the year since Roe v Wade was overturned is up 229%. “Their ultimate goal is to eliminate abortion facilities across the country, by any means necessary,” a NAF executive said.

In Philly? Come watch me in conversation with feminist thinker Kristen R Ghodsee

Next week I’m going to be talking to Ghodsee about her new book, Everyday Utopia: a series of thought experiments on how to create a more just and equitable society. Ghodsee is also the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism, which examines the myriad ways in which capitalism is bad for women.

The week in paw-triarchy

Happy birthday to Bobi, a purebred Rafeiro from Portugal, who just celebrated his 31st birthday and is officially the oldest dog in the world. No news yet on whether he’s considering fathering any more pups.

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