How old were your parents when you were born?

*eye to eye. I must have been thinking of vis-à-vis.

18 and 21.

Both were 23. It was a while ago when people got married and had kids too young.

Mother 30 / Father 31

Mom was 30 and Dad was 37..

My father was 40, my mother a year younger. They had had an earlier generation of two children already, the younger of them 15 years earlier. The fact that it was a surprise second round of parenthood was probably more important than a difference in age as you describe, OP.

My parents were more relaxed with me than with their starter children, with a few simple rules: don't make a lot of noise, don't cause trouble, stay out from underfoot, and don't embarrass anyone. If I successfully navigated those things I was left to do as I pleased. By the time I was scarcely more than an infant my siblings were off other places and eventually starting their own lives and families. School events and places where I saw the parents of my peers were odd because you saw the gamut of age and time on the parents: some were almost the age of my siblings, others my parents' age looked old and worn down by the world, like grandparents were supposed to look. My grandparents all looked ancient and they were, born before the close of the19thC. Even to my young eyes; all of them were dead well before I was 10, so my own memories are more visual impressions of old people from another time; my paternal grandfather was the one affectionate one, the rest were shuffling off into the world of the dead or at least not a world with much use for young children.

My parents had few friends of more than a casual nature, and extended family were few and rarely seen, and neither were there close neighbors nor much exposure to kids near my age until I was in school. It was these other peculiarities, I suppose, that affected me and my relationship with my parents much less than generational differences in views on social and other matters.

Mom was 34, dad was 36. I was born in 1965.

Impact? The generation gap was huge between us. Their mindset was pre-1960, and they tried to raise me with attitudes that were no longer realistic for the 1970s and early 80s. They never adjusted to how permissive society had become. My dad, for example, was horrified by cultural diversity and gay rights. He believed in assimilation and homosexual suppression.

On the other hand, they enjoyed the movies and music of their youth, so I grew up fully exposed to old Hollywood films, and great blues, jazz, and big band music. This makes it easy to relate to the many eldergay topics discussed here on Datalounge.

My mother was 39 and my father was 50. I remember my father dropping something off at school for me one day and one of the secretaries said your grandfather came by today. I was really embarrassed.

Both were 28 in 1971.

27 and 38

When I was born my dad was 52, mom was 40. 16 years passed between their first child (born a couple months after their marriage) and me. I'm pretty sure my dad wanted to leave, so my birth prevented that from happening. They argued a lot.

Mom 22, Dad 23. I was born within the first 6 Months of 1988.

Mom was 35, I was her fifth child.

Dad was 28, I was his first child.

Mother was 31, father was 32

They were Boomers. Not much of a generation gap.

None of the weirdness many Boomers report with their parents about inflexible rules, absent fathers drunk mothers and all that.

Mom was 20 and dad was 19.

35 and 31

They were 32.

R6, R7 Why do you think we care? We’re not reading bio of David Sedaris or something. What’s relevant for us?

23 and 25. Born in 1955.

I was zero days old when I was born to my parents. What kind of a question!

16 & 17. I was raised by my grandparents and have had severe anxiety (separation anxiety?) all my life, in addition to the feeling that my mother resents me, but always guilt-trips me.

Mom was 25. Dad, 27. They were such a cute couple in the photographs we have, Dad beaming and Mom smiling through exhaustion (I was a long labour). My sister followed three years later and that was that. Dad died in his 40s, so I'm glad they hadn't waited longer for children. I got a solid nineteen years with him, and that makes me happy when I look back.

My Dad was 37 and my Mom was 31. I have two older brothers, and my younger brother came along two years later.

Father: 28

Mother: 27

My mum had several miscarriages. Probably from my father the abusive fuck beating her. I'm an only child, the sole survivor.

I had an odd situation where my dad was a lot older than my mom and married late. When I was born, he was almost 49 and my mother was 29. He was a WWII vet (served in the last months of the war at age 19), loved to tell war stories, and dressed in a more formal 'Greatest Generation' style -- didn't own a pair of jeans, wore wingtip shoes, etc.

We had a HUGE generational gap growing up and I really didn't feel close to him. He hated all of my 80's music, for example (except for the time when David Lee Roth started covering Louis Prima songs!), and when he'd pick me up at school some people assumed he was my grandfather. I got a lot of teasing for that. To further complicate matters, he was the youngest of his many siblings, so I had a lot of Aunts & Uncles who were positively ancient. Some of my first cousins were in their 40s and 50s. The whole family dynamic on that side was very odd, so I much preferred spending time with family from my mother's side where the ages were normal.

Now that I'm 49, I appreciate WWII stories, big band, and wingtips myself.

Mother 39. Father 43. He M.IT. ‘28. She Radcliffe ‘31. I grew up hearing about the 20’s and 30’s. Dad actually remembered the sinking of the “Titanic.” Dads of my school buddies were WWII vets.

I felt out of time.

Mother 27 dad 30.

My mother was 39 and my father was 38.

Nowadays the average age of becoming a parent in the USA is now 31 years old.

Both my parents were 29 when I was born, but that's not the lens through which I view my relationship with them. My dad had polio recovered from that in the four years before I was born. He had limited physical mobility but certainly made the best of it. It didn't affect his career, but it did affect his relationship with my mother (think Ordinary People). So, I was the product of that kind of marriage and unfortunately, I've taken after my parents. I'm not completely unemotional, but I think I've actually laughed maybe five times in the last decade. Cried even less, and those times did not include either of their funerals.

God god this thread is for elder gays to sentimentalize their shit and do more of their weird lying and storytelling as if someone cares.

r30 so says the trigendered pyrofox that maintains a headcannon that they were part of the full house family.

My father was 37 and my mother was 42. I was a big surprise.

My father was 45 and my mother 40. My next oldest sibling is 10 years older, so I always suspect I was an accident although they denied it. Truth was, they were both over "the parenting thing" by the time I came on the scene. My older siblings, with my parent's active participation, were in the Scouts, played on various sports teams, and went camping and on plenty of family outings. Me? None of the above. My parents were not involved in any after-school activities. In fact, they started leaving me home alone on weekends by the time I was 11-12 so they could travel with their child-free friends. I envied my friends whose parents were younger and more involved. Whenever I hear of someone having kids in their late 40's or in their 50's, I automatically feel bad for the kids.

42 (F) 35 (M)

My mother was 41 and my father was 43.

I have a sibling who is 10 years older, and I was an “oops” baby.

Both were 26, and I was born a month before they turned 27.

I have an older sibling who's seven years older than I am. While our relationship isn't bad, I do sometimes wish we were closer in age so we'd share a closer bond.

R11 and R33, I'm sorry to read about both of your upbringings. I hope you're both in better places in your lives.

25 & 27, they are now 92 & 94 and still trying for another

They both flunked biology

My parents were both 25 & had been married for 4yrs.

Mom was 38 and dad was 42. Which was LATE for their generation. But they took their time and had a ball as a freewheeling Manhattan couple before they decided to have kids.

My parents were both 31 when I came along, the fifth kid in 8 years. I was a big surprise as my sister was 10 months old when I was born. My mom got her tubes tied after that.

Mom 44 / Dad 50. Instead of having hitchhiked to Woodstock, my folks saw a skinny Sinatra at the Paramount.

Mom 44 Dad 48. I'm the last of nine. Twenty years difference between myself and my eldest sister.

My father was 44, my mother was 40. And she died when I was 9 and my father died when I was 18.

Lots of older parents here. Makes me wonder if there’s a correlation.

Mom 32. Dad 44. I was occasionally embarrassed about having a much older dad than my friends but I was one of the few kids in the neighborhood that had an active father in my life. I’m now grateful to have older parents. They were a lot more together financially and mentally.

My mother was 26 and my father was 23.

My father was 59. He had 3 adult children over the age of 24.

My mother was 23. She had two children under the age of 5.

They met because my father was friends with my grandfather. My father's first wife, the mother of my adult siblings wanted me to call her Grandma, because by the time I was born, I had 2 nieces that were a few months older than I was. My family is confusing from an outside perspective.

Mother and father were both 28 when I was born.

My older brother is 9 years older than I am. Mom and Dad were 19 when he was born. I did ask my brother whether he felt like he had young parents and he said yes. He noticed that our parents looked younger than his classmates' parents.

A guy I dated said: I'm going to tell you (me) a deep, dark secret. His secret was that his parents were "old," early 40s when they had him. It embarrassed him. I thought WTF, but I guess having old-looking parents is embarrassing for kids.

Mom 23, Dad 29

Mom and Dad were both 38 back in 1954. I had a brother 9 years older and sister 6 years older. Apparently, there is a lot of family history that was swept in the closet and I have had to cobble the story together. However, apparently my folks were a mess. Lost a business and had to move from Illinois to Florida when I was six. My brother died in Viet Nam and mom went crazy and died from pills and booze eight years later. I just became a teenager when I found dad's gay novels on the top shelf of his office.

It was a messed up life, but now that I am older and got more perspective, I'm grateful I didn't have it so bad.

Mom was 23, dad 26. Mom turned 24 a week later. I was the second child, they were 20 and 23 when my sister was born.

Dad was fine, mature, funny, and smart. Mom was immature and insecure, trying to be perfect. It was the 1950s when image was important.

She could not control my wildly smart and vocal older sister. It was rough on me, I faded into the background to avoid the chaos. When dad got home from work things got better.

She was too young, would have been a feminist if born later. She really wigged out in our teen years but by our late 20s was a wonderful mother.

Mom was 20. Dad was 21. From what I can deduce, they had both just graduated from college. Then, my horndog father impregnated my mother and left to be an officer in WW2.

He spent the entire war behind the Japanese lines as a spy in the Philippines.

I spent those years living with my mother and grandparents.

Mom was 19 and Dad was 21.

Reminds me of a story

Sometime in the mid 60s my best fried Brian calls me up and says, "You got to come over I found something really important." Ok, so I run over to Brian's house...

Brian, "Look, I found my parent's Marriage License"

Me, "So?"

Brian, "Look at the date"

Me, "4/2/1954, so?"

Brian, "When's my birthday?"

Me, "9/3/1954..."

Me, "...OOOHHHH!"

Believe me, that was a big deal in suburban America in the mid-60s

Mum 19, dad was 42 😮