Tick Tock

Vicki Breitbart holds an MSW from NYU, an MS from Bank Street, and an EdD from Teachers College, and has been a writer and educator for more than forty years. Throughout her career, she has worked extensively with young children, parents, and other educators. She is the author of The Day Care Book and Open for Children, as well as numerous academic articles on women's issues, and the producer of documentaries Sugar and Spice and Open for Children. She is the parent to a 43-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter, who she adopted when she was 53.Nan Bauer-Maglin worked at City University of New York for almost forty years as a professor and administrator. She is the editor of Widows' Words: Women Write on the Experience of Grief, the First Year, the Long Haul, and Everything in Between. She is the editor of Cut Loose: (Mostly) Older Women Talk about the End of (Mostly) Long-term Relationships and the coeditor of Women and Stepfamilies: Voices of Anger and Love; “Bad Girls/Good Girls”: Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties; Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide; and Final Acts: Death, Dying and the Choices We Make. In 1977, she adopted a baby when she was 35 (which was considered old then).

Engaging, thoughtful, and provocative. —LA Review of BooksFor anyone considering parenthood at a later age, scholars Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin have put together an expansive collection of stories from 30 writers on the beauty and difficulty of being a 40-plus parent. —Bitch magazineTick Tock reads like a wide-ranging chat with friends who ask 'What’s your story?' These are human, lived tales that describe life-changing and interconnected issues—political, social, and personal. What a gift. —JUDY NORSIGIAN and JANE PINCUS, OUR BODIES OURSELVESTick Tock is a document, a community, a manual, a help line, a chorus of voices expressing the gamut of complicated emotions that accompany a person of a certain age contemplating the leap into parenthood. I wish this important book existed when I was at that crossroads, and am grateful for it today. —MICHELLE TEA, AGAINST MEMOIRTick Tock challenges readers to rethink what parenting means in this time in America from a wide variety of vantage points and through voices that are, in all their great diversity, eloquent, sharp, and deeply engaging...Brilliantly framed and beautifully written. —ROSALIND PETCHESKY, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, City University of New YorkHonest, personal, and often downright funny, these brave parents provide insight, solidarity, and hope for any over 40 who are ready to love a child…and laugh and cry and wonder upon the universe every day for the rest of their lives. May it always be so. —JESS P. SHATKIN, professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Pediatrics, NYU School of MedicineAs an over-40 mother myself, I appreciate how this groundbreaking collection marks momentous changes in gender roles, child-rearing patterns, and family composition. —JOYCE ANTLER, Professor Emerita of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University and author of YOU NEVER CALL! YOU NEVER WRITE! A HISTORY OF THE JEWISH MOTHERTick Tock is an exquisite, understanding, and inclusive examination of the unique challenges and joys faced by older parents. An unforgettable book—undeniably important and a pleasure to read. —BEVERLY GOLOGORSKY, CAN YOU SEE THE WIND?Brave, honest and moving...most important are the truths, both personal and political, that will resonate, no matter your age or parental status. —MARLENE FRIED, faculty director of Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP)

• IntroductionPART I. Why Did It Take So Long?We Can Wait, But Are We Paying Too High a Price? by Salma Abdelnour GilmanOut of the Closet and Out of Time by Laura DavisOTM (Old, Tired Mommy): Not What I Planned by Linda Wright MoorePART II. Pregnancy and Birth After 40My Road Trip to Fertility by Martine GuayOld Mom by Sarah DougherThe Terrible Math by Elline LipkinMourning the Loss of Fertility by Linda CormanA Phantasmagoria of Pregnancy and Birth beyond Forty by Julia HendersonGiving Birth after Fifty by Phyllis CoxPART III. Does Age Matter If I Adopt?Growing Roots by Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser“La Llapa”: A Father Again at Forty-Five by Jim ShultzStates of Mind by Judith Ugelow Blak25% Pure Gold by Barbara HerelToo Old for Cartwheels: Reflections from an At-Risk Family by Julie Buckner ArmstrongFrom Grief to Joy by Vicki BreitbartTwins? Are You Crazy? by Pamela Pitman BrownLife in Balance by Laura BroadwellPART IV. Parenting After FortyNever Too Old to Be a Father—Again by Robert Bence“Who Is That?” Becoming a Bonus Mom at Age 45 by Paige AverettOld Life, New Life, and Parenting in the In-Between by Erik MalewskiMy Grandmother, My Mother, Myself, and My Son by Jean Y. LeungHis Old Man by Adam BerlinIf I Don’t Laugh, I’ll Cry by Elizabeth NewmanWhat Is Hard? by Catherine ArnstBeing All the Things by Katherine C. RandBetter Late Than Never by Daniel E. HoodTwo Poems by Elizabeth AcevedoOpening Up by Oliver Ardill-YoungPART V. Building Community and Changing the NarrativeFinding Our Way Together by Sara Elinoff AckerThe Single, Most Important Community by Alia R. Tyner-MullingsReparation by Susan ArdillLate-Onset Motherhood: Many Stories, One Radical Plot Change by Elizabeth GregoryAcknowledgmentsAbout the ContributorsNotes