Deluded and selfish - world's oldest mum made a mockery of motherhood

By Allison Pearson for the Daily Mail

Updated: 12:29 EDT, 1 September 2009

There is an old saying that I've always loved: 'The death of a mother is the first sorrow in your life that you weep over without her.'

In a practical, no-nonsense way, it sums up the strength and solace that we too often take for granted from our mothers - until they are taken from us.

Sadly, this morning two small boys called Christian and Pau probably won't even be aware that the woman to whom they would instinctively look for that love and support isn't there any more.

Their mum is dead before they even knew her. Maria del Carmen Bousada earned the dubious title of World's Oldest Mother when she gave birth to the twin boys in December 2006, just days before her 67th birthday.

Less than three years later, she has joined the tragic ranks of the World's Short-Lived Mothers.

In a terrible irony, the former shop worker seems to have been killed by a cancer that was accelerated by the IVF treatment she received in the United States.

Frustrated mums down the generations have always yelled at their offspring, 'You'll be the death of me!' In the case of Christian and Pau, that may literally be the case.

What a dreadful thought to leave your children with. It's not the only burden the Bousada boys must carry. Not yet three years old, Christian and Pau are now orphans in the care of an ageing family to whom they have no biological relationship. (Their mother used both egg and sperm donors.)

As they grow up, the twins will inevitably find out that their mother lied about her age to get fertility treatment.

When Miss Bousada was criticised for having children at a time when she was old enough to be a great-grandmother and could not guarantee being around for the boys' teenage years, she boasted that her family was very long-lived.

Did she come to regret saying that, I wonder? After her terminal diagnosis, did the elderly Spanish woman look at the blameless faces of her babies sleeping in their cots and ask herself: What on earth could I have been thinking of?

It is the purest anguish for any mother to contemplate leaving her babies behind. Who will kiss their grazed knees better? Who will make sure they have the right stuff in their bag for school and the right stuff in their souls to lead a decent life?

Left it too late: Britain's oldest mother Elizabeth Adeney when she was pregnant at the age of 66

Look at the heartbreaking story this week of Jemma Oliver. Just 29 years old, Jemma knew she was dying of cancer and so she set about training up her husband Jason to take care of their two small children.

Somehow, poor Jason had to master the myriad mundane tasks that make up being a mum.

Tears jumped into my eyes when I read that Jemma had even brought in a hairdresser to teach Jason how to do a French plait in her daughter Codi's hair.

Yes, men make fantastic hands-on dads these days but, let's face it, we're never going to trust them 100 per cent to get the kids looking tidier than Fungus the Bogeyman, are we?

In that sense, the death of a mother is devastating for a young child on a practical level, as well as an emotional one.

Young mums like Jemma Oliver and Jade Goody, who left her beloved sons Bobby and Freddie behind, were dealt a terrible, cruel hand by fate.

Still, right until the end, they proved they understood the importance of putting their children's happiness and well-being first.

Miss Bousada chose her lousy hand. By electing to have children well into her sixth decade, she displayed a selfishness that is a complete abnegation of what being a mum is all about.

Failing to confront the facts of her own mortality, she has left her children both horribly vulnerable and scarred for life.

She took those babies for a few short years, ignoring her patent unfitness to look after two energetic small boys, and exploited the experience of motherhood to fulfil some fantasy.

There wasn't even a father figure on hand to step in when that fantasy darkened into a nightmare. And what has she given Christian and Pau - except an aching void where their mother should be?

The disturbing thing is that Miss Bousada is not a ghoulish one-off. She is part of an epidemic of older women who think they can get away with defying biological laws that have held good for thousands of years.

As Kypros Nicolaides, Professor of Foetal Medicine at King's College Hospital, points out: 'In 1970, 5 per cent of pregnant women were over 35, but in most European countries the figure is now 20 to 25 per cent.'

Don't get me wrong. I am one of the millions of women who left having kids until their 30s. But I know I was lucky. I fell pregnant easily and both of my babies were healthy, although there were complications at the births that were linked to my being what the medical profession so charmingly calls an 'elderly primagravida' - or an ancient first-time Mum.

It is no coincidence, however, that I have become positively evangelical about women starting their families before they need to enter into a round of Russian roulette with Mother Nature. It's a deadly game.

Deluded: Jenny Brown, 72, has spent £30,000 on IVF treatment in her bid to become the world's oldest mother

Fertility drugs act on cancerous tumours like manure on a rose bed. This is not a fact that money-spinning IVF clinics are eager to spread around.

For many women like Miss Bousada, the dream of new life can spell the end of their own. If anything, the pursuit of motherhood at any price seems to be getting barmier.

This week, pensioner Jenny Brown revealed that she has been having fertility treatment abroad since her 50s. At the age of 72, and preparing for her seventh round of IVF, Jenny says she hopes to become the world's oldest mum, rejecting any fears about her own mortality.

'Any mother can die at any age,' says Jenny. 'Look at Jade Goody - she had boys of four and five and she died at 27. People ask me how a child would feel having a mum of my age. I hope they'll find it special.'

Special? Dear God, is there no end to these women's delusions? There are very good reasons why fertility clinics in the UK have an upper age limit of 50.

Barking mad Jenny Brown is one of them. Not long ago, I wrote about Elizabeth Adeney when she brought her newborn son from the hospital to her Suffolk home.

At 66, company director Elizabeth is Britain's oldest mother. 'It's not physical age that's important - it's how I feel inside,' she trilled.

Such women are so walled up inside a sense of entitlement that small matters like potentially leaving your child without a parent don't seem to register with them.

Part of the problem is that society has become afraid of seeming 'judgmental'. Conceiving a child on your own terms, and at whatever age you choose, has become a right rather than a blessing.

When I wrote an article criticising Elizabeth Adeney for failing to consider her child's feelings - or future - I got some very hostile reaction.

Why shouldn't a woman her age become a mum? Isn't it sexist to insist that women accept the menopause as a cut-off point while men go on having children into their dotage?

Surely, the tragic death of Miss Bousada, and the even more desperate plight of her twin boys, provides the most powerful imaginable riposte to those questions.

She thought she had taken on her own biological limitations and won. But Mother Nature will not be mocked.