My lovely Swedish teacher decided to give us extra homework half way through this week in the form of preparing a discussion of an article about women having babies at 60 years old. The fact that we were barely able to talk in basic sentences about ourselves last week without resorting to English is presumably besides the point.
Naturally I decided to work out my discussion points in English first, but this proved to be more difficult than I expected. Obviously a simple statement against it was not going to be enough, but for every reason behind my stance I found I could think of a fairly legitimate counter-point. Things that would have seemed clear-cut to me 10 years ago, now were much fuzzier. Which did make me question whether what I was thinking was actually right. I was originally going to write a post detailing all these points and opposing arguments in the hopes that it would clarify things for me, but unfortunately it didn't and I ended up tying myself in knots.
I admit my opinions are influenced by my own life - whilst my mother was not incredibly old when I was born by today's standards, in the 1970's she was. Maybe I was just an unpleasant child, but I will always remember being horribly embarrassed when I was young by my white haired mum and dad and hated being constantly asked if they were my grandparents. And though I loved them dearly, the generation gap was immense and despite trying, my mother often struggled with relating to the way things were for me as a teenager. She grew up in the second world war, left school at 13 to work in t'mill, and was married with a child by the time she was 20 - all perfectly normal for her generation, and worlds apart from mine. Although as I got older the generation gap did diminish quite a lot and I relied on and valued her knowledge and experience a tremendous amount, especially when I had a family of my own.
So my final answer to the discussion point ready for tomorrow? Jag tycker att det är inte bra för kvinnor att bli mammor 60 år gammal, men det är ett personligt val.
If you disagree, then that's fine. I can probably tell you all your arguments anyway.
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Funnily enough, both Angus and I have comparatively elderly parents. He, like you, was desperately embarassed by his. I, on the other hand, was utterly oblivious to the age gap. I guess maybe it depends also how your peer group react to your parents being white haired while theirs are in their 30s-40s?
ReplyDeleteHope the discussion group goes well!