In my family the men tend to have children quite late in life. I'm nearing 40 and my grandfather was a Victorian (born 1897).
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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I know plenty of people who are grandparents in their 30s today.
I knew both of my Great Grandmothers, our family had a habit of starting early so to speak. One of them died when I was a teen from Alzheimer's and the one I was super close with and took for donuts and beer runs died the year I turned 21 just a couple of days after we went out for dinner, it was a soul crushing reality in how things can change without warning.
'A lot younger' was usually still in their twenties, unless they were nobility getting married off for political reasons.
Still very common in the American South and probably other third world countries. Hasidic communities as well marry young and have lots of children.
Oh hell yes and they wasn’t that long ago. When I was 16 (1980s) I was friends with a girl also 16, whose mother was 31 and her grandmother was mid 40s. Both the mom and grandmom gave birth at 15/16.
As an aside They were cool as can be and most of my circle of friends would hangout at her house
I had a friend in hs with a pretty identical family situation (in the early 2000s) She was in her 20s for her first kid.
When I was a kid I had great great grandparents I visited. There were old people that talked about up to 4 generations of great, so great great great great grandparents were still alive. Yes, I'm originally from Alabama.
Life expectancy tended to be a lot lower, too. Once you lost your teeth, it was only matter of time. With no antibiotics, any injury that broke skin could be a death sentance, and over 30, 40 years, the odds stack up.
Childbirth was a pretty dangerous thing for women, too.
That's a bit of a misconception. Life expectancy doesn't measure the age at which most people die, but the average life expectancy.
That means, a bunch of different values contribute to the life expectancy and they do so to a wildly different degree.
Let's say that without any adverse effects everyone dies of old age at around age 90.
Someone dieing of pulmonia at age 80 only scratches off 10 years, but someone dieing at age 0 due some childhood illness, bad hygiene, malnutrition or other complications scratches off 90 years.
In fact, by far the strongest contributor to the average life expectancy is child mortality. In 1800 in the USA, child mortality was at 46.2%.
If you discount child mortality, most people actually died aged 65-90.
Yea human lifespan hasn't really changed over time but as you say infant mortality, pandemics, war and a complete lack of industrial safety for over a century have skewed the average over the years.
I know a man who became a grandfather at 34. He had a daughter at 16 and she had a kid at 18.
I had Great-Great Grandparents in my life until I was in my late teens because of this.