July 8, 2006

Today's baby is tomorrow's teenager

BABY JJ may be only a few days old, but the poor boy faces a life with so many obstacles already stacked up against him by his 62-year-old mother Patricia Rashbrook

Although she seems in good health now, Dr Rashbrook will be getting steadily older as young JJ becomes more active. That's one reason not biding well for him. I know.

My father was 42 when I was born. Ten years later, he was slowing down, giving up refereeing rugby matches at a time when I should have been increasingly active. Inactivity and overweight have been a battle for 40 years. Why? Because my parents were not there to get me into the exercise habit at the crucial time.

JJ's father John Farrant is 60.

There are the spritely 80-year-olds, but even those who gallivant around the world like 50-year-olds admit they are more fragile, that they have to take care of themselves and that they need their sleep.

Health assumptions
Dr Rashbrook told reporters that she and her husband are both in good health. But, health can never, and should never, be taken for granted.

A very good friend, who is about the same age as Dr Rashbrook, went to a chiropractor in Italy 10 days ago, suspecting muscle pain in her lower back. Within 72 hours, she had been medically evacuated to the UK, in horrendous pain.

Within another day, she was diagnosed as having advanced cancer of the pancreas, with secondary tumours in her liver.

With her pain under control, I would never have known she was ill. She looked as well as the day she left, a few weeks earlier.

Now, she said she expected to have months, if not weeks, of a reasonable quality of life.

A month ago, this friend could have raised a baby. Now, she can't.

Whose choice?
JJ may become a novelty for his contemporaries at school. Maintaining media privacy has he grows older will be impossible.

And, like many women who want to be mothers when they're older, or when they have HIV, Dr Rashbrook will probably have other family members who she thinks 'will look after' young JJ if anything happens to her or her husband.

Such arrangements are all very well, but what happens if the child doesn't like his aunt or step-mother? What happens then?

The death of a parent when a child is young is never easy. Again, I know. My mother died - from cancer - in the early 1960s, when I was just five.

My step-mother and I got on reasonably well for a few years, but as adolescence set in, the relationship started to deteriorate, and over another 20 years, it never improved. Indeed, there were periods when we didn't speak from one year to the next.

Is this what Dr Rashbrook wants for JJ?

Counting the cost
When he's 20, JJ could well be encountering the expense of university, at the same time as his parents are finding just how expensive it is to get old.

Care for the elderly is frighteningly costly. Homes have to be sold to pay for residential care in many parts of the UK.

As well as the emotional cost of seeing his parents ageing - and quite probably dying - before he stars working, JJ may find himself hit financially too.

Dr Rashbrook has said she thinks she can meet his needs, but the question remains: for how long?

Yes, JJ was wanted. Dr Rashbrook and her husband have a baby. But JJ has already started his journey towards manhood. He won't be a baby for long.

Caring for a dependent infant at 60 is very, very different from trying to manage a teenager when you're 75.

The family may be happy today, but does anyone really envy their future?

Briton becomes mother at 62; BBC News

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