This article examines how older motherhood and older mothers are problematised and represented in key Canadian policy texts on ‘delayed childbearing’ and ‘advanced maternal age’. Drawing on critical disability studies and feminist scholarship on motherhood, we identify three kinds of representations of older mothers in these texts: as risk-producing subjects, as unnatural mothers, and as irresponsible reproductive citizens. We argue that dominant discourses of older motherhood are structured by both ageism and ableism, which undergird policy documents. These discourses frame older women as disabled by the ‘burden’ of late parenthood and cast them as risky subjects who might give birth to ‘abnormal’ offspring. Within this discursive terrain, older women are not only othered: they are held responsible for their infertility and for their reduced propensity to reproduce ‘healthy,’ non-disabled offspring.

本文探讨了年长母亲和年长母亲如何在加拿大有关“延迟生育”和“高龄产妇”的关键政策文本中被问题化和代表。利用批判性残疾研究和关于母性的女权主义学术研究，我们在这些文本中确定了年长母亲的三种表现形式：作为产生风险的主体、作为不自然的母亲以及作为不负责任的生育公民。我们认为，老年母亲的主导话语是由年龄歧视和能力歧视构成的，它们是政策文件的基础。这些论述将年长女性描述为因晚年为人父母的“负担”而残疾，并将她们视为可能生下“异常”后代的危险对象。在这个话语领域中，年长女性不仅被区别对待：