By Monica Radu
When actress Claire Danes recently talked about becoming a mom again in her mid-40s, she described a mix of joy, shame, and the subtle shock people express when they hear she has a newborn at 44. It struck a chord with me because the reactions she described felt familiar. I’m 41, and the other day someone casually asked if I was my toddler’s grandmother.
The moment that question landed, I experienced what sociologists call the looking-glass self—the idea that we form our sense of ourselves by imagining how others see us and then reacting to that imagined judgment. In that moment, I wasn’t just thinking about my own age; I was picturing what they must have been thinking about me. I laughed it off, but internally I went into a spiral: Do I look that old? Why did that bother me so much? And why do other people’s assumptions have so much power over how we see ourselves?
It was a perfect example of how shame and stigma are not formed in isolation but are produced through our social environments and interactions.
The life course perspective is especially useful here. It’s the idea that we all carry an internalized “social clock” that tells us when major milestones should happen: earning a college degree, landing a career, getting married, and having kids. These expectations are both cultural and structural. They grow out of the norms we absorb from our families and communities, the images and narratives we see in media, and the policies and institutions that make certain life paths easier or harder to follow. Over time, those influences create the sense that there is a “right” order and timing for major life events, even though people’s actual lives often unfold in far more varied and complex ways.
For example, a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report shows that the U.S. birth rate grew slightly in 2024—and the biggest increases were among women in their late 30s and early 40s. Births among teens and people in their early 20s, meanwhile, continued to decline. In other words: the timeline people assume is “normal” is not the one people are actually living.
There’s another layer here. Some women become mothers later in life after years of navigating infertility or experiencing pregnancy loss. These experiences are deeply personal, and yet they unfold within structural constraints: unequal access to fertility care, insurance limitations, medical bias, and the emotional toll of delayed or complicated conception. In many cases, becoming a parent later isn’t necessarily a deviation from the social clock at all; it’s the result of a long, difficult journey that others never see.
Another useful lens is labeling theory. The moment someone labels you, “older mom,” “late mom,” or in my case, “GRANDMA” that label carries meaning. It might not necessarily an intentionally hurtful meaning, but it is a socially powerful meaning. The label itself implies deviation from a norm. So, even if I’m comfortable with my age, the question made me feel momentarily “out of place.” That’s the kind of stigma that’s easy to overlook because it’s often subtle and unintentional.
Sociologist Erving Goffman would call this stigma, where assumptions about age spill over into assumptions about competence, energy, fertility, or belonging. And older fathers rarely get this same scrutiny, which shows that the stigma is also gendered. Men become fathers at 45, 50, even 60, and people say things like, “Wow, good for him!” or “He’s still got it!” But for women, the same timeline is framed as risky, selfish, or biologically precarious. That double standard shapes not only how others see us but also how we see ourselves.
Motherhood is deeply emotional and personal. Many of us carry years of cultural messages about what motherhood should look like, feel like, and be timed like. So, when someone unintentionally signals, “You don’t look like the kind of person who’s supposed to have a toddler,” it activates that stored cultural script.
Age at motherhood is often the outcome of lived realities that rarely fit a neat timeline. More and more women are having children in their 30s and 40s. Not because they “waited too long,” but because they (myself included) were living their lives: finishing school, building careers, finding the right partners, surviving economic insecurity, pursuing personal goals, or simply growing into themselves.