The eldest of this pack's offspring is 21, she tells me; the youngest two months. One friend was dropped off by a daughter who needed the car, another came with a baby in a backpack. Two couples at the gathering talked wryly about the costs of college tuition; two others about the price of child care.
I list my own friends' statistics. Children that range from 30 to three months. Biorhythms that range from hot flashes to morning sickness. Has our generation produced, or perhaps re-produced, its own gap?
Those of us who have arrived at midlife did not follow neat patterns. We didn't act like what the demographers call a cohort group. Indeed, if there is something that typifies this generation of individualists, it is the instinct to rewrite the rules. And the expectation to be young for longer, if not forever.
While my friend was on vacation, the Census Bureau confirmed what we observe, the trend toward later parenting. Compared with 1970, four times as many current first-time mothers are older than 30.
Those who have their first children at 32 or 35 may have their second at 38 or 40. A gallery of women in the current New York magazine fit the category of ''Mommie Oldest." In their mid- and late-40s they beat the biological clock.
There is no parallel feature on "Daddie Oldest" because it is less of a biological feat. But older dads are far more common now than before.
Bent over the snapshots, my friend and I look for hidden clues to the meaning of this trend. What do we make of the parents and children spread across what used to be three generations?
We know from experience that it was often harder for couples who started children, marriages and careers in one decade. They and their children had to grow up together. Only now do they look relaxed.
