by Liz Smith | bio

"It's time for all governments to be replaced by a tribunal of grandmothers," Roseanne Barr told Michael Musto, after she referred to the Bush administration as "a bunch of Satan worshippers."

Speaking of grandmothers, some menopausal-aged women seem to have lost their minds. Last year, a Japanese woman, single and in her 60s, came to the United States to have a donated fertilized egg implanted. This was the first such case in Japan, where older women are not clamoring to become mothers.

She would not be the oldest mother, however; that distinction was won in December 2006, when a 67-year-old Spanish woman gave birth to twins.

I'm with Roseanne — let these women be content to be grandmothers or foster mothers or caregivers to abandoned children or something sensible. (And yes, it looks as if maybe a grandmother could do a better job in the White House as well.)

I realize there are a lot of "older" women out there who are yearning to have their own precious baby. I sympathize. I feel the same way, but I have settled for guardianship of an adorable little boy whose godmother I am — and at my age, his 9 years of energetic life force is about all I can tackle.

If you have a baby at 50, say, then your kid will be 20 when you are 70, given the odds. I guess I can live with that philosophically, but it seems there needs to be some kind of reasonable cut-off date. However, in a live-and-let-live freedom-of-choice world, I guess these menopausal but still fertile — or able to be fertile mothers — have a right to take their chances.

It just makes one wonder about the kind of chance they are taking for their impending child.  Isn't it really some kind of ego trip? I'd like to hear from folks out there about this.