At 64, Dame Julia Peyton-Jones has just had her first baby. But don't call her 'selfish'.

Last year, at the age of 64, Dame Julia Peyton-Jones retired as director of one of Britain’s top art galleries. She told people she was going to go on a holiday to Australia, and then focus on her own art. Instead, she has just announced that she has become a mother for the first time, with the birth of a baby girl, Pia.

Currently in the US, Peyton-Jones says she doesn’t want to share any further details about the baby’s arrival. Nothing is known about the baby’s father, or whether she’s currently in a relationship.

Peyton-Jones spent 25 years as director of the Serpentine Galleries, which hosted works by the likes of Yoko Ono, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Last year, she was awarded a damehood for services to the arts.

Her friends have welcomed the news of her baby.

“This is the most exciting news!” financier Robin Saunders told The Evening Standard. “Julia will be a wonderful mother and role model for her daughter. I wish her happiness with Pia.”

But read the online comments section of articles about Peyton-Jones’s baby news, and it’s a different story. “Selfish” is the one word that comes up, over and over — echoing the negative response Australia’s oldest mum received after the news broke in August last year she gave birth at age 63.

Is that really a fair criticism? Don’t most people have babies for selfish reasons?

I don’t think we can judge what kind of a childhood little Pia will have, or how happy she will be. But she’s got some things going for her:

• She’s been born to a mother who really wants her and has planned her birth. (It seems highly unlikely the conception was a drunken mistake.)
• She’ll grow up in a well-off household, where she’ll have lots of opportunities. As The Evening Standard points out, with all Peyton-Jones’s friends in the art world, “just imagine the Wendy house”.
• Her mother doesn’t need to work, for either financial or professional reasons. That means she can spend as much one-on-one time with her daughter as she wants (and hire help to do the boring stuff like housework).

The standard criticism of older parents is that they won’t have the energy to run around with their kids. As an older mother myself, I don’t accept that. You can be an unfit 20-something, who sits at the park on Facebook while your kids amuse themselves, or you can be a fit 40-something, sliding down slippery dips, or an active 60-something, playing hide-and-seek.

If you’re an older mum, you’re likely to make a real effort with your health and fitness, for your child’s sake. Looking after young kids keeps you young, anyway, as a recent study involving grandparents showed.

Who knows? Pia may have an absolutely charmed childhood.

It is possible, though, that Peyton-Jones may start to have a few regrets, over time. She may find herself feeling sad that she may not see her daughter get married and have children. She’ll miss out on decades of knowing her as an adult. At a certain age, she won’t be there to give Pia help and advice, to be that supportive voice on the phone. That’s the kind of thing you don’t think about when you’re focused on having a baby, but it creeps up on you later.

Again, who knows? Right now, let’s feel some happiness for Peyton-Jones and save our sympathy for the children born to parents who don’t want them.