Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

s 22 (2008) 65–73www.elsevier.com/locate/jaging

Journal of Aging Studie

Older motherhood and the changing life course in the era of assistedreproductive technologies

Carrie Friese a,⁎, Gay Becker b,✠, Robert D. Nachtigall b,c,1

a Center for Society and Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Box 957221, 1323 Rolfe Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7221, United Statesb Institute for Health and Aging, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 340, San Francisco,

CA 94143, United Statesc Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science, University of California, San Francisco, United States

Received 6 August 2006; received in revised form 30 April 2007; accepted 30 May 2007

Abstract

Midlife, once a focus of particular interest to gerontologists because of its implications for later life, has recently received littleattention. But as new reproductive technologies have expanded in the United States, motherhood is occurring at older ages. Whileolder motherhood is not a new social practice, what is unique is that an increasing number of women are becoming pregnantthrough technological means, often for the first time, at the end of their reproductive cycle. These women can be understood as partof a new middle age, engaging in new life course possibilities that respond to changing social, cultural, physical, and economicrealities, and potentially extending much later in the life course. Drawing on interviews with 79 couples, we utilize symbolicinteractionist conceptualizations of identity and stigma to consider how women negotiate the shifting social identities associatedwith older motherhood. We conclude that older motherhood will be one phenomenon contributing to an enduring change in viewsof what constitutes old age, and that it will be seen as occurring much later in the life course.© 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The original emphasis in social gerontology thatencompassed the entire life course as well as old ageappears to have been forgotten in recent years despiteconsiderable attention by the media to differences be-tween baby-boomers, who will be the next cohort to

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 310 825 5502.E-mail addresses: cfriese@ucla.edu (C. Friese),

Robert.Nachtigall@ucsf.edu (R.D. Nachtigall).1 Tel.: +1 415 476 3786.✠ Deceased.

0890-4065/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2007.05.009

enter old age, and current cohorts of old people. Midlife,once a focus of particular interest to gerontologists be-cause of its implications for later life (Fiske, 1979;Meyer, 1986), has received little attention, in particular.This shift in emphasis, from studying various phases ofthe adult life course to studying old age almost exclu-sively, has a potentially negative effect on advances insocial gerontology: it means that we may be ill-preparedto address the differences in new cohorts of old peopleas they make the transition from mid-life to old age.Indeed, these cohort differences raise questions aboutwhether old age itself is going to begin at a differenttime of life, as the question increasingly arises as to whatconstitutes “old” in a time of changing age norms.

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One arena inwhich to investigate these questions is latemotherhood, which has been facilitated by the burgeoningof new reproductive technologies globally. As assistedreproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization anddonor egg have expanded in the United States, mother-hood is occurring at older ages, as women bear children intheir forties, fifties, and even sixties. While older mother-hood is not a new social practice, what is unique about thecurrent socio-historical moment is that an increasingnumber of women are becoming pregnant through tech-nological means, often for the first time at the very end oftheir reproductive cycle and beyond. Julia Berry (1991)notes that older motherhood is a relatively recent socialconstruction in Euro-American culture. During the 1920sin the United States, the average age at which a womanwould have her last child was 42, an age that was increas-ingly deemed “too old” across the twentieth century and inthe context of medical discourses on risks associated witholder women's pregnancies (Neugarten, 1972 in Berry,1991). Across the twentieth century, older motherhoodcame to increasingly be defined as a medical problemthrough the argument that older maternal age poses risksto unborn fetuses (Berry, 1991; Hanson, 2003; Phoenix &Woollett, 1991).

The current potential for women to bear children be-yond menopause indicates that cultural ideas about agingand the course of lifewill inevitably change (Becker, 2000).The course of life has been theorized as a cultural unit and apowerful collective symbol (Fry &Keith, 1982; Fry, 1990;Meyer, 1986; Rubinstein, 1990). Over the past 30 yearsexpectations for the course of adult life have become lessfixed at the same time that notions about a normative lifecourse have increasingly been challenged (Hanson, 2003;Featherstone & Hepworth, 1991; Hepworth & Feather-stone, 1982). Although the contemporaryWestern concep-tion of the life course as predictable, knowable, andcontinuous is a relatively recent phenomenon, during thelate twentieth century the course of life became increas-ingly characterized by considerable shifts, primarily ex-tensions and overlaps of various phases of life (Becker,1997). Featherstone andHepworth (1991) have argued thatin post-modernity the life course is de-institutionalized andde-differentiated, resulting in a blurring of what had pre-viously been considered clearly differentiated life stages.They have argued that the baby boom generation is forginga “newmiddle age,” rejoicing in the fragmentation of socialexpectations associated with aging (Hepworth & Feath-erstone, 1982; Beyene et. al., in preparation).

Older mothers can be understood as part of this newmiddle age, engaging in new life course possibilities thatrespond to changing social, cultural, physical, and eco-nomic realities. The donor egg technology alters women's

potential in concreteways. Even if only a small proportionof women use a reproductive option such as donor egg,societal awareness of such options will likely affectwomen's roles in later life, extending the period ofmidlifeand deferring what people think of as old age into theeighties and beyond, potentially refashioning adulthoodand tearing down stereotypes about women and age in theprocess (Becker, 2000).

Delayed childbearing is part of the profile of a newmiddle age. More and more people in the United Stateshave been delaying parenthood (Morgan, 1996; Wu &MacNeill, 2002). While delayed parenthood is a vastdemographic trend that both women and men participatein due to social pressures, women are often deemed thesource for this social change. Specifically, it is assumedthat women’s increasing role in paid labor, increasededucational attainments, and increased ability to controlwhen they will become pregnant all underpin this socialchange (Wu & MacNeill, 2002). The current trend to-ward delayed childbearing in the United States appearsto represent an enduring shift in the predominant patternof white, middle-class, adult life; moreover, the long-term effects of delayed childbearing are potentially far-reaching because of increasing childlessness, changes insocial and economic conditions in U.S. society, andadvances in reproductive technologies that extend thechildbearing years potentially into the sixties and thechild-rearing years beyond that (Becker, 2000).

Fully 10% of recent IVF cycles have been performedusing eggs donated by younger to older women in aneffort to circumvent the decline in fertility experiencedby women as they age (Wright et. al., 2003). Discussionsabout the use of reproductive technologies by olderwomen have become a site for reiterating the risks asso-ciated with maternal aging and pregnancy (e.g. Caplan,2005) as well as the notion that a biological a priorinecessitates that women have children earlier in life (e.g.State of Connecticut General Assembly, 2005). However,research regarding the health outcomes of children born toolder women who used donor eggs also represents afissure in some long-standing beliefs about older mother-hood. For example, one study recently found that rates ofinfant morbidity and mortality associated with maternalage increased in the sample only among the women whoused their own eggs and not among those who used adonor egg (Porreco et. al., 2005).

In this article we draw on symbolic interactionist con-ceptualizations of identity and stigma to consider oldermotherhood as a social and personal identity. Symbolicinteractionist perspectives emphasize the multiple, ever-changing, and emergent facets of identity. Here, identity isconstantly being created in and through social interactions,

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providing important insights into the ways in whichidentities change over time (Mead, 1934; Strauss, [1959]1969 ). Drawing on interactionist developments, in thispaper we distinguish between personal identities– or howone identifies oneself – and social identities. With socialidentity we refer to those identities that one does notnecessarily take up oneself, but rather experiences as im-puted by others on the basis of appearance and/or behavior(Snow & Anderson, 1994). Social identities are multiplyexperienced as sources of pride, shame or ambivalence.Nonetheless, social identities, as they are experienced inand through social interaction, are in turn productive forcesin constituting personal identities (Snow and Anderson,1994; Goffman, 1963).

Importantly, symbolic interactionism has simulta-neously also drawn analytic attention to the contingenciesof identities by linking the interactional to organizational,institutional, and historical processes (Goffman, 1963;Strauss, [1959] 1969). We examine how age, social class,and gender intersect in the social identities of oldermothers who used donor eggs and in vitro fertilization toachieve pregnancy. We explore how women experienceand negotiate this social identity in the context of un-evenly shifting meanings about gender, family, work, anda normative life course. What we find is that womenexperience the social identities of older mothers at thecrossroads of changing socio-cultural landscapes thatbring together delayed parenting, infertility, and oldermotherhood into particularly kinds of relations in thisparticular socio-historical moment. All of these identitiescan be experienced as stigmatized and/or stigmatizing,disqualifyingwomen from social acceptance as a “mother”(Goffman, 1963).

More and more, older motherhood is becoming aproxy for the use of infertility treatments due to delayedparenting itself.

2. Methods

Respondents were recruited through 11 medical in-fertility practices and one sperm bank in four counties inNorthern California to participate in a study addressingthe disclosure decision, i.e., how parents of children con-ceived with donor gametes decided whether or not to telltheir children of the true genetic origins. Practitioners sentletters to couples who had conceived using donor gametesalerting their former patients to the study, and those in-terested sent a postcard to the investigators stating theirwillingness to consider participation in the study. Thecriteria for entry into the studywere the presence of one ormore living child(ren) who had been conceived with theuse of a gamete donor, heterosexual, and in a marital

relationship at the time of the child's conception. Datacollection is complete.

Inmost cases initial couple interviewswere followed bysolo interviews with each partner approximately 3 monthslater. The purpose of doing both types of interviews was tocollect data on how couples jointly perceived the processas well as to allow individuals to discuss differences orconflicts without their partners present. Occasionally solointerviews preceded couple interviews. If one but not bothmembers of a couple agreed to be interviewed, thoserespondents were also interviewed. One-to two-hour longinterviews were semi-structured with many open-endedquestions that focused on how the couple decided onwhether or not to tell the child about the use of a donor.Related topics included philosophy of family, familyrelationships, feelings about having used a donor, andapproaches taken to telling children and others. Questionsabout age were not on the interview schedule but ageinevitably arose in the course ofmany couples’ discussionsabout their experiences with infertility, parenthood, anddisclosure. This was particularly true among couples whoused donor egg to conceive their child(ren). Althoughinterviewers did not probe about age systematically, inter-viewers did pursue questions about age when participantsraised related concerns. Interviews were tape recorded andtranscribed verbatim.

Data were divided by whether the child(ren) wereconceived by using donor eggs or donor sperm.A specificprocedure was followed to further develop the data anal-ysis: core categories that repeatedly reappeared in the datawere identified and compared with other emergentcategories, a process that emerges out of ongoing readingand analysis of transcripts by the entire team. Out of thesepreliminary core categories generated from meanings inthe data, an in-depth process of code development wasfollowed. Codes are highly discrete categories. Each codeis a very specific topic that appears in the data. Sections ofinterview text are analyzed using all codes so that themultiple meanings of a portion of text can be considered.Successive phases of trial coding were conducted untilpairs of coders reached a level of agreement of 95% ormore. The entire data set was then coded using QSRNud⁎ist, a data-sorting software program, resulting inover 100 discrete codes, of which age [of parent], was onecode. The definition of the “age” code was broadly con-strued: “discussion of age of wife and/or husband, asfactor in decisions, attitudes.” This article is based on ananalysis of this code in the donor egg sub-group. Age wasa more common feature in the narratives of couples whoused donor egg and was rare in the narratives of coupleswho used donor sperm. As part of the analysis, the codewas cross-checked by reading transcripts from which

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excerpts had been identified to ascertain that excerptswere not misinterpreted by being read out of context. Thisallowed for an assessment of how age figured into thenarratives that women told about infertility and parentingas well as how cultural discourses on age informed theirexperiences. The quotations in the findings section weretaken from this code print-out, which encapsulate com-monly held themes across this particular data set. Thisapproach enabled us to scrutinize all the data on age at thesame time rather than focusing only on certain cases, aswell as to analyze the data within its broader context.

3. Findings

Findings are based on interviews with 79 coupleswho used a donor egg to conceive at least one livingchild. This is a sub-set of a larger sample of 148 het-erosexual couples who used a donor gamete to conceiveat least one living child. The average age of women atthe time of the first interview was 45.8 (range 35–59)with 89% of the women being age 39 or older at the timeof the first interview. The average age of men was 47.5(range 32–64). The average age of women at birth offirst donor egg child was 42.2 (range 32–54) and theaverage age of men at birth of first donor child was 44.1(range 30–62). The average age of the first child con-ceived through donor egg was 3.5. Of the 79 couples, 29couples (37%) had more than one child conceived bydonor eggs. Thirty-three couples (42%) had one or morechild(ren) conceived without using donor eggs. Averageannual household income for this sub-sample was$185,069, indicating the relatively high socio-economicstatus of in vitro fertilization and donor egg users inmost parts of the United States, where these services areoften not covered by insurance (see Thompson, 2005).

4. Personal and social identities of older mothersand fathers

Both women and men experienced being older par-ents as important personal identities that deeply shapedtheir personal and familial lives. They discussed howtheir physical experiences of an aging body shaped boththeir family planning decision-making as well as theday-to-day dynamics of family life. However, menalmost exclusively discussed older fatherhood as a per-sonal identity, or an identity that was self-ascribed todescribe their sense of self in relationship to their fa-milial lives. Women, alternatively, also talked about theways in which their age, gender and class intersected todisplay a particular kind of social identity that wasascribed upon them by others. This social identity was

often stigmatizing anddistinct from theways inwhich theyconceptualized themselves. Because this social identitywas stigmatizing for both women and their families, theidentity of an “older mother” required management.

Being diagnosedwith infertility and undergoing time-consuming treatment protocols caused all study partici-pants to become parents at an older age than they hadinitially anticipated. One woman stated in the interview:

I don’t know if I would’ve started this process, being 47when I got pregnant. Would I have said: ‘Now I’mgonna get pregnant, this month, and I’m gonna get adonor.’? But I started five years before that and theenergy level changed for me, too. My mom said that’sshe’s seeing a change in me from doing this- that itdefinitely changed my energy and that it took a lot outof me.

Couples discussed how becoming parents at an olderage than they had originally expected caused them torethink certain decisions and make life changes. Forexample, many noted that they would have had morechildren, but they decided that their ages precluded themfrom this option. In addition, couples would use theinterview to talk about what one woman called the “reallife concerns of older parents.” Often, these “real life”concerns centered on feeling responsible to their childrento stay healthy and live at least until their child was inadulthood. Some stated that they regretted that they maymiss important events in their child's life, like marriageor grandchildren. Some study participants were con-cerned that their child(ren) will be embarrassed by havingolder parents during their teenage years.

In addition to discussing experiences with the per-sonal identity of an older parent, women oftendiscussed their experiences of having the social identityof an older mother. Study participants often noted thatthe age of the mother worked to mark the family asbeing different from others. One man in our study stated:“I don’t think that me or my wife think of ourselves ashaving a different kind of family from anybody else[because we used donor egg]. Except in the sense that mywife is older than most of the parents, most of themothers.” This difference was often experienced as a siteof stigmatization and women frequently discussed theways in which theymanaged this social identity to protectthe family as a whole. Onewoman stated: “I don't like, formy children's sake, to be reerred to as their grandparents. Ithink it’s a way to impact my children. I don’t think it’s fairto them to have assumptions made about anything.” Sowhile most women in our study defined themselves asolder mothers, they needed to manage the ways in whichthis personal identity would be taken up in social

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interactions that may work to stigmatize not only thewoman herself, but her family as well.

5. Sites of stigma

Women discussed the social identity of older mothersby recounting what were often experienced as stigmatiz-ing social interactions. These stigmatizing social interac-tions were largely discussed as occurring in parent-childspaces such as the playground or school and public spacessuch as restaurants where they interacted with strangers.Across these sites, physical appearance as an older womanbecame the basis of the interaction through which one'sstatus as an older mother was experienced as stigmatized.At times, the appearance of an older mother createduncomfortable social interactions because expectationsabout the life course were being disrupted. Women ex-perienced their bodies and/or their abilities to parent asbeing called into question by someone else. Women alsodescribed social interactions in which their appearance asan older mother worked to nonverbally disclose that adonor egg was used, something that may be experiencedas stigmatizing for various reasons. Here, older mother-hood was not in and of itself stigmatizing but was rather aphysical marking of the stigma of infertility and the use ofdonor egg.Agemade the invisible characteristic of havingused donor egg perceptible to those who were able torecognize its symbolic value. Hence, women negotiatedvarying kinds of possibly stigmatizing interactionsbecause of the divergent stereotypes that “older mother-hood” has become associated with.

Parent–child spaces

Some women reported feeling out of place in socialspaces where mothers interacted with other mothers andtheir children, such as the playground or school functions.By feeling out of place in these social spaces, oldermothers found it difficult to enter the community ofmothers around them and thereby experienced their socialstatus as a mother as marginal. The importance of beingaccepted by other mothers was noted by one woman:

I notice that when I travel home, I’m almost like agrandmother because there everybody has kids at 19.And here, I’m more of the norm. And that’s what – Ialways think it’s cute when somebody asks ‘Are yougonna have another child?’ Cause I'm 43 years old.‘Guys, come on, this is the time to shut the water off.’And yet, it makes me feel really good that people areinclusive in that way.And like I say, you goback to that,being part of the group.

This woman's statement highlights how becoming anew mother is often accompanied by a series of socialencounters. Questions such as, “Are you planning onhaving another child?”, work to include new mothersinto a social group. While this question seemed some-what inappropriate to this woman on a surface level, sheappreciated it when people asked because of the kinds ofsocial relationships the question brought about. Speci-fically, the interaction positioned this woman within agroup of new mothers, despite the ways in which her ageset her apart. This woman noted, like many other women,that it was easier for her to be made a part of the socialgroup of mothers in her current place of residence whereolder parenting was becoming more normal. However,her status risked being called into question when shereturned to her hometown for visits. She pointed to theuneven processes of normalization surrounding oldermotherhood and thereby the importance of geopoliticsin constituting the social meanings that older mother-hood holds.

Somewomen noted that their status as both “older” andas a “new mother” created uneasiness in forging certainkinds of social relationships that, in turn, created self-doubt among women regarding their abilities to parent.One woman noted: “Being 40 can be a very intimidatingexperience because you're doing it with a lot of womenwho are a lot younger than you and who seem so muchmore adept!” This womanwent on to note in the interviewthat working through her uneasiness allowed her to learnfrom younger women. She stated: “The day care centerthat we had our son in until he started kindergartenwas justwonderful. Thewomenwhoworked there collectively hadso many more years of parenting than I did, it could havebeen a very intimidating experience. But, in fact, it was avery nurturing experience. I learned a lot from all of them.”This woman was thereby able to join in with the socialgroups that coalesce around new motherhood, despite herdifficult entry because of her status as older, and in turnwas able to have her abilities as a mother legitimated.

On the other hand, some women discussed how theirphysical appearance as older was a basis for whichpeople would openly ask if donor egg was used. Giventhat they were in a social space defined by motherhoodand that a growing number of parents in their com-munities were becoming aware of assisted reproductivetechnologies, age at times signified the use of donor egg.One woman recounted: “When my kids were probablyfour, someone came up to me in a park and said ‘So, didyou know your donor?’ [I responded] ‘No, but I don'tknow you, either.’ It kind of shocked me because it wassomebody that I hadn't met before. So the assumptionthat I had used a donor was clear.” Here, age became a

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visiblemanifestation of infertility and the ruptured geneticconnection, a “stigma symbol” (Goffman, 1963) for thatwhich some women wished to keep invisible. This wasmade clear in the following woman's statement:

I wonder if they’re gonna learnmy secret [that a donoregg was used]. A lot of people have been really pushyabout it, one or two people. [They ask] ‘Really? Youdidn’t? You didn’t use fertility drugs?’ They’ve askedme two or three times: ‘Really? Are you sure?’ And Ijust say: ‘Honestly, it’s none of your damnedbusiness.’ And if I told them that the first time, theymight ask me two more times.

Public spaces

The physical appearance of an older mother createdsocial situations in public spaces with strangers that riskeddelegitimizing the familial unit. This occurred whenstrangers would use the name “grandmother” or “grand-child” as a reference, thereby delegitimizing the identity ofolder mothers and calling the familial unity into question.One woman stated: “In my hometown – I was there withmy sister and her girls, my nieces [who] are in their 20s. Soit was myself, my nieces, and my two kids. And everyonejust looked at us and assumed it wasmy grandchildren andher children.” Another woman similarly stated: “I knowI've embarrassed people. Like if they say, ‘Does yourgranddaughter want’ something or other and I say ‘mydaughter.’But I say it tough. I was probablymore sensitiveto that when my kids were younger and more willing toeducate people rather than embarrass them. But I don'tfeel as though I owe explanations in all circumstances.”

6. Managing stigma

Managing stigma around older motherhood was aprominent site of identity work for women, both duringand after pregnancy. Women frequently discussed man-aging stigma surrounding older motherhood in two dif-ferent ways. One the one hand, women would attempt to“normalize” older motherhood at the individual or sociallevel. Drawing on the work of Erving Goffman andMichel Foucault, Charis Thompons (2005: 80) developsthe notion of normalization as a process whereby newelements are incorporated into preexisting procedures.We use normalization to refer to the ways in whichstigma is managed by incorporating the newly possibleolder mother identity into preexisting notions regardingmotherhood. This is done at the individual level by tryingto “pass” (Goffman, 1963) as a younger mother or at thesocial level by trying to link older motherhood up with

longstanding discourses regarding “good” motheringpractices. Alternatively, some women positioned them-selves as not only different, but extraordinary. Here,women transformed potentially stigmatizing interactionsinto valorizing interactions. Rather than normalizingolder motherhood, these women would assert theirexceptional status and thereby transcend stigma. Both ofthese means of stigma management allowed women tomaintain the legitimacy of their identities as “mothers” aswell as that of the familial unit (Becker et al., 2005) bydestigmatizing themselves in constituting an oldermother self (Travers, 1995).

Normalizing older motherhood

Many women countered stigmatizing interactions bydiscussing how older motherhood was being normalizedboth individually and socially. They discussed changingtheir bodies so they looked younger, which can be viewedas a means to “pass” (Goffman, 1963) as a youngermother. Here, the stigma surrounding older motherhood isnot negated but rather the position of particular women inthat category itself. The goal herewas normalization at theindividual level. But women would also point to theincreasing trend in delayed parenting and used the inter-view to note the benefits of older parenting that they feltwere often eclipsed. Here, women would seek to negatethe stigmatization surrounding older motherhood in orderto normalize the social practice of mothering later in life.These can be viewed as strategies for “normalizing” oldermotherhood.

One of the predominant ways in which womenmanaged stigma surrounding older motherhood was bychanging their physical appearance so that they wouldlook like a younger mother. The centrality of appearancein generating and deflecting stigma surrounding oldermotherhood is made evident in one man's statement that:“My wife looks younger than she is, so it isn’t, it doesn’tcome up in the sense of people looking at my wife andsaying, ‘Oh, you’re so old. How could you have children?’But I think some people, when they're forty-six, do looksort of too old to be new mothers.” What this man em-phasized was that the appropriateness of a woman’s statusas a mother in part depended on how young or old shelooked. Put differently, the stigma of being an older mothercould be mitigated by changing one's body to lookyounger. One woman stated: “I started bleaching my hairwhen I was pregnant with the twins. I saw a picture ofmyself and thought: ‘Ohmy God.When I'm holding thesebabies, and they see pictures of me in their infancy, I don’twant to look like their grandmother.” Similarly, othersdiscussed how they kept fit, exercised, ate healthy, and

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dressed well so that they could continue to assert that theylook and act like parents instead of grandparents.

Many women commented that older motherhood andthe use of reproductive technologies were becomingincreasingly normalized, at least in the geographicallocation of the study. On the one hand, this gavewomen asense of community because they saw themselves asfitting in with other parents. In addition, this sense ofcommunity was viewed as diminishing any negativeexperiences their children may have. For example, someparents pointed out that their children might be em-barrassed by them when the child was in high school. Atthe same time, many noted that their child(ren) would beamong many other children who also were conceivedusing donor gametes and had older parents. One womanstated: “I think one of the advantages in growing up in adiverse community such as this is that we're not freaks.We’re not freaks as older parents. We're not freaks ofalternative conception methods.”

Many women in our study also used the interview toassert their status as responsible and “good” parents.These women highlighted the aspects of older mother-hood that fit within larger cultural discourses surround-ing good mothers. Women noted that they were married,more financially secure, confident, experienced, andpatient as older mothers. These components of their lifewere not achieved when they were younger and womenthereby argued that they are better mothers now, even ifthey were older. Some constructed this argument bycontrasting their younger self to their current, older self.Others demonstrated these same points by contrastingthemselves to the younger mothers they encountered,often stigmatizing other women's reproductive practicesas they sought to defend the rightness of their own. Onewoman stated:

I go to the playground, and I see these 20- and 30-something moms, and they’re sitting there talkingabout getting their nails done and they'll do theirshopping at Nordstrom's or whatever. And I’musually sitting on the slide or the sandpit with thekids. It's a total difference of priorities. I've livedenough life that I can make my kids my priority andnot think twice about it, where they still need moretime for them. It's more a tug of war. So I think ifmany people in society would actually stop andthink about it, it's not as bad as they think.

The extraordinary older mother

While many of the women managed their identity asolder mothers through normalization, a small but sig-

nificant portion of the sample alternatively positionedthemselves as extraordinary older mothers. These womenexpressed their unique social status as an older mother witha sense of personal pride. Rather than emphasizing theways in which older motherhood was becoming normal-ized, these women contended that their age certainly didwork to set them apart from other mothers. One womanstated: “I may be the oldest woman ever who delivered.”

Despite the ways in which the confluence of thesewomen's ages and lifestyles worked to set them apart fromother mothers of young children as well as their friendswhose children were grown, these women commonlydiscussed their status as “different” with a sense of pride.One woman stated: “I was kind of proud of being his [Ob/Gyn] oldest patient.” Her husband responded: “Yeah, youwere getting strokes for having the uterus of a 30-year-old,right?” Similarly, another woman noted that she felt a senseof pride in her accomplishments as a parent when peoplewould comment to her that they couldn't imagine parentinga young child at her age. In response to her husband’sstatement that most people exclaim that they didn’t knowwomen his wife's age could get pregnant, she stated: “Andthat just feels— it makes me feel so good. And I go, ‘Thisis hard.’You know, this is hard because you're 48 in a lot ofways.”By positioning herself as extraordinary, this womanwas able to negate the stigmatizing component that othersmay have interpreted from this interaction and reformulatethe interaction to imply how extraordinary she was as a 48-year-old-mother to a young child.

7. Discussion

New reproductive technologies have extended thepotential for motherhood much later into the life course,a practice that reshapes ideas and expectations about thelimitations of age for motherhood. Older mothers rep-resent the fallacy of the view of a normative life coursethat has discrete, deeply gendered, age-defined stages oflife. This view was particularly applied historically towhite, middle class populations in the U.S. This nor-mative view of the life course intersects with long-standing and divisive contestations over the roles ofwomen in the paid work place and in the family. Newreproductive technologies have facilitated the ability touncover age stereotypes associated with women. Be-cause donor egg technology makes conception andmotherhood possible at later ages, it contributes to abroader societal process of rethinking women by mak-ing former biological markers such as menopause andage less relevant social markers (Becker, 2000).

Older motherhood can be seen specifically as apersonal and a social identity. Women in our research

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understood themselves as older mothers. However, thispersonal identity was often understood as distinct fromthe social identities of older mothers that women ex-perienced when interacting with others. While thewomen in our study did not necessarily experience thesocial identity of older mother as entirely imputed byothers, they did manage and renegotiate what oldermotherhood meant in interactions with others. Throughthis process, women would seek to mitigate the stigmasurrounding older motherhood through processes ofnormalization or by reconfiguring what it means to be amother.

The social identity of older mothers is currentlyshifting. The identity of older mothers continues toincorporate notions about the medical risks of olderwomen's pregnancies as well as notions about thegendered, biologized, and normative life course. Inbecoming older mothers in the age of assisted repro-ductive technologies, women negotiated different kindsof social identities associated with being an oldermother, including putting fetuses at risk through laterlife pregnancies, being too old to fit within the socialstatus of mother, and being a woman who used donoreggs. Each of these social identities can be stigmatizingin certain interactions. In the current socio-historicalmoment, the social identities of older mothers are po-sitioned at the crossroads of various cultural discourses.Women must manage the different social identities ofthe older motherhood in order to sustain the legitimacyof their status as mother as well as the legitimacy oftheir family.

The literature on impression management and stigmahas particularly drawn attention to what happens whensocial identities are experienced as alien from one’s self-definition (Goffman, 1963; Miall & Herman, 1994; Snow& Anderson, 1994). Goffman (1963) defined stigma as asocial process wherein one is discredited due to one'sbody, character, race, nation or religion. Symbolic inter-actionists have argued that because stigma represents akind of discrepancy, individuals try to manage informa-tion so that they may “pass” and thereby avoid beingstigmatized (Goffman, 1963; Miall & Herman, 1994).The stigma of being an older mother is linked to the waysin which this identity is connected to the use of repro-ductive technologies. Here, age is the visible symbol ofthe invisible but stigmatizing characteristic of infertility.An older mother can make the use of donor gametesvisible, which can work to delegitimize the familial uniton the basis of genetic rupture. This kind of non-verbaldisclosure of the use of donor gametes was of concern forparents who both had and had not told their children aboutthe use of donor gametes because it allowed strangers to

make this facet of the child’s personhood meaningful inuncontrollable ways.

Appearance is one sign of social identity that oldermothers must manage to avoid stigmatizing effects.Anselm Strauss ([1959] 1969: 128-29) observes, “Thereis always the potential problem of legitimizing one’sright to enter a phase that is not clearly institutionalized,for the signs adduced them for placement of self can bedebated.” When the legitimacy of their family wascalled into question because of women's appearance,women managed these situations so as to reaffirm theirlegitimacy and that of their family. Women worked tolook like mothers, not grandmothers, but they alsochallenged those who questioned their status.

It should be noted, however, that women andmen alsorefuted stigma associated with being older parents byusing in vitro fertilization and donor egg in order to havea child later in life.While the sociology literature tends toemphasize the social management of stigma, less atten-tion has been given to the ways in which people disavowstigma. By proceeding to use a donor egg at older agesdespite the potential for negative responses from others,women and their partners refute age stereotypes throughtheir actions. Collectively refusing to let the potential forstigma dictate one’s actions is one important enabler ofsocial change (Becker &Arnold, 1986).Womenwho usea donor egg are well aware of age stereotypes about oldermotherhood but that does not stop them from havingchildren. They are bolstered by the knowledge that thenumber of older women who bear children is growingsteadily and the likelihood that older mothers will be-come even more commonplace in the future.

In conclusion, assisted reproductive technologies suchas donor egg are altering the landscape of motherhood,greatly extending this period much later into the lifecourse. In doing so, stereotypes about women and age arebeing dismantled, and the life course is being viewed inmuch more flexible ways. Women who elect to use adonor egg to conceive are at the forefront of this majorshift in how society views women and their roles. Al-though it is currently necessary for these women to exertenergy in the management of their social identities, it islikely that if more women continue to use donor eggs,older mothers may become less conspicuous and that thestigma associated with older motherhood may disappear.Eventually the older mother, as a marker of social changein age norms, is likely to fade from notice as she becomesan everyday phenomenon. We conclude that oldermotherhood will be one phenomenon contributing to anenduring change in views of what constitutes old age, andthat it will be seen as occurring much later in the lifecourse.

73C. Friese et al. / Journal of Aging Studies 22 (2008) 65–73

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from theNational Institutes of Health, National Institute of ChildHealth and Human Development: R01 HD39117, TheDisclosure Decision After the Use of Donor Gametes,Robert D. Nachtigall, M.D., principal investigator; GayBecker, Ph.D., co-investigator.The authors would like toexpress their gratitude to all the respondents who sharedtheir personal stories to contribute to this study. Theworking group on the project was invaluable in creatingthis paper: Anneliese Butler, Julia Duff, JenniferHarrington, Kirstin MacDougall, and Dena Shehab.

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