All hail the high-flying midlife Super Mothers
Dame Natalie Massenet, 52, founder of fashion retailer Net A Porter, has joined the growing league of Super Mothers – high-flying over-50s with a pram – by announcing the arrival of her third child, Jet Everest, with her Swedish photographer partner, Erik Torstensson, 38, a brother for Ava, 11, and Isabella 17.
“Erik and I are so proud and happy to welcome to the world our much longed for addition to our family and our first son,” she wrote on social media, adding that he came into their lives “with the most generous help from our surrogate”.
Massenet, who received a reported £100 million for her stake when she sold Net A Porter in 2015, is by no means the oldest Super Mother on the block. Earlier this year, the former Serpentine boss, Julia Peyton Jones, became a mother for the first time aged 65, just as she was tipped to be replacing Sir Nicholas Serota as director of the Tate. Former M&S executive Laura Wade-Gery is another Super Mother in her fifties, while Elle Macpherson, 53, is rumoured to be keen for a baby with her husband Jeffrey Soffer, 45.
There are no risk factors to your health at this stage [of life] as you’re not carrying the baby yourself
Dr Paul Rainsbury
So long as you don’t mind looking a little older than the average playground mum, surrogacy, according to fertility expert Dr Paul Rainsbury, is one way that allows women to beat their biological clocks and have it all – albeit at different stages in their lives.
In some respects, Super Motherhood is simply motherhood remodeled to suit a masculine workplace, but what is the harm if it allows women to have the same as men? The savviest career girls start planning for their mid-life families in their early twenties, paying up to £5,000 to freeze their eggs – a procedure that some employers such as Facebook or Apple are now offering their staff for free.
They’ll then be free to spend the next two decades climbing the career ladder, future-proofed against their diminishing fertility – by the age of 37, as few as 4,000 of the two million eggs a woman is born with remain – only turning their minds to motherhood once their other life goals have been achieved. “There are no risk factors to your health at this stage as you’re not carrying the baby yourself,” explains Rainsbury, whose fertility patients are increasingly women in their fifties and sixties.
He can even determine the gender of a baby to ensure you have a boy if you’ve only got girls, or satisfy your penchant for pink Jacadi baby clothes. “We can select the gender of the embryo before it is implanted, as well as perform a full biopsy to check for abnormalities,” he confirms.
Whether Jet was conceived using a donor egg or one of Massenet’s own is unknown, although, according to Rainsbury, it’s highly unlikely that a woman of her age would still be producing. In cases were women haven’t got round to freezing their eggs in their twenties or thirties, a donor egg can be used, he explains, which will be matched to their physical characteristics such as height, weight and hair colour. “Even if you have frozen your eggs, the success rate as it stands is incredibly low – less than 10 per cent,” he explains.
While it’s not unheard of for Super Mothers to give birth naturally – if they’re in good health, this is perfectly possible, Rainsbury says – most will opt for a “take-home baby”, using a younger surrogate mother, usually in the States, to carry it for them. This way they will avoid pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia that are common in older mothers and, crucially, preserve their sculpted waistlines.
The midlife Super Mothers have been seeing their nutritionists and personal trainers for longer than their husbands, and are in immaculate shape
“You have to make sure you’ve got the red-tape sorted out before they give birth, as if the baby is awarded a different nationality, it is very difficult to bring them into this country or to prove that you are the parent,” he warns.
Aren’t these career girls a bit long in the tooth to be seen pushing a Bugaboo? Massenet might look 30, but there is no escaping the fact that at Jet’s 21st birthday party, she will be 73. According to natural fertility expert and author Emma Cannon, there is no reason why a woman in her fifties can’t be as healthy as a 30-year-old, if she cares for herself properly. The likes of Massenet have been seeing their nutritionists and personal trainers for longer than their husbands, and are in immaculate shape. “By this age, they know how to look after themselves and have the resources to do it,” she explains.
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In the past, having a second family with a younger spouse has been a male privilege – Mick Jagger recently became a father aged 72 – but now women like Massenet are leading an ageless generation. “It’s great that women too can help a younger partner to have children. How can anyone judge them for that?”
Yes, these women might have a few more wrinkles than the other mums at school, but they will also have more time to enjoy motherhood for the miracle that it is. Financially flush from a glowing career, they can outsource the grittiest parts of parenting – sleepless nights, exploding nappies, colic – to an army of maternity nurses, sleep trainers and nannies, leaving her to focus on enjoying quality time with her new baby and partner.
According to Cannon, an older mother is also likely to have more emotional resources than a sleep-deprived younger mum fretting about money. “Your age is not what makes a good mother, it’s your willingness to mother and you can experience this at any age,” she says.
The catch? Only the menopause – which the average woman is goes through aged 51. According to Maryon Stewart, author of Beat Menopause Naturally, who has supported thousands of women through menopause, there is a reason why nature leaves a buffer zone between new motherhood and the onset of the menopause.
Your age is not what makes a good mother, it’s your willingness to mother - and you can experience this at any age
“If a woman is going through the menopause, she may be up at night with night sweats and experiencing mood swings by day,” she explains. “For most women of that age, it’s not the right time to be a mother. You’ve simply got more energy in your thirties.”
Carole Hobson, one of Britain’s oldest mothers, having had three children in her late fifties, including twins, will vouch for this. “I don’t think people sit you down and spell out the drawbacks of motherhood,” she revealed in a newspaper interview. “If they said ‘You will get two hours sleep that night and the next night and the night after,’ you’d think: ‘Oh my God.’”
Still, the likes of Massenet and 51-year-old US singer Janet Jackson – who gave birth to her son Eissa in January – have minions to do the nightshift for them. Maryon Stewart concedes that if you can afford childcare and seek the right treatment to help you through menopause, there is really no reason why an older woman cannot be a great mother to her children. “If you’ve got everything else covered, you can just indulge yourself and your baby,” she says.
And when your child’s teacher mistakes you for granny? A true Super Mother will take it with good grace in the knowledge that a few wrinkles are a small price to pay for “having it all”.
