Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you say more about being "emotionally ready" to have kids?

I have always thought having a healthy marriage, a home to call our own, and being financially sound to have children is the responsible thing to do.

This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time!

If you are over 30, happily married and know you want to have kids, start now. Fertility issues are no joke. Spend some time on the infertility boards if you want to know the cons of waiting or believing it's easy to get pregnant in your late thirties or later. Yes, infertility can happen at any age, but bigger issue after 35. If you want more than one kid, you don't have much of a window. You can always rent a house or have kids share a room. Once your fertility is gone,,it isn't' coming back.

I am on the path of engagement, wedding, and home buying. We know what we want but we have a budget to work with and everything here costs a lot. Renting longer instead of buying now is something we have been actively considering. But if we move out of state, while keeping the same jobs with the same DC pay in a lower cost of living area would allow us to buy a forever home that would meet all our family needs. Being on the spectrum where both extremes are so large and open ended makes decision making very difficult to nail down what is the best option for us. We intend to be married by next winter, but that is still my bio clock ticking away. As a guy, I don't think he understands the pressing need of fertility and age being a huge disadvantage because he had shown me recent studies that claimed women in their 40s having healthy bouncing bundle of joys. :-/

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I also had mine at 36 and 39. What I notice are the friends who had theirs younger and are now in a position to retire. Meanwhile, I have 12 years to go until the little one is out of college. I feel like I would like to do something different, but I can't. I make a really good living, but it is a high stress life. I am also going through a divorce (STBXH also does well, so we share custody and expenses). The divorce may color my view of things and the feeling of exhaustion. If your marriage is really solid and you are set financially, you may have a different experience. Sometimes I think, with the very analytical part of my brain, that it would have been easier (though it wouldn't have saved the marriage) if we stopped at one as planned. #2 was an oops, although I have to tell you she has brought more joy than I could have imagined to my life. That observation comes from a different part of my brain and from my heart.

+1 to all of this minus the divorce part. I am 55 and DH is 60 and we have two kids, 18 and 15. The15yo, a freshman in high school, will be dependent on us for 8 more years. DH will work for as long as he can, as will I, but I am tired of what I do and would love to dabble in something fun. With college on the horizon, that is not an option.

This is defenetly something that people don't consider when they choose to wait. I am 46 and my child graduated from the law school and been working and fully supporting himself for a year now. I am so glad that all the money I make now, all the free time I have I can spend the way I want.

PP here. It is all about tradeoffs. An empty nest at 50 is certainly appealing, but OTOH I spent my 20s and early 30s living abroad and having all kinds of adventures and experiences, and would not trade that for the world.

It is a drag sometimes not to be able to live for myself now. But I lived for myself for a very long time in young adulthood, which people who became parents at a young age did not.

Let's get real here. Traveling at 46 is wayyyy better than traveling at 28. You have more money and you spend your time more wisely.

I'm not the poster you are responding to, but preschoolers at 46? That sounds like a hellish way to spend middle age. Collecting social security and paying college? Yea. No.

Are you joking? Also who has an empty nest at 46? Only if you're white trash and then your idea of fun is probably going to Walmart. And you probably have great grandkidS.

But really the reason I'd rather be in my 20s or 30s and having fun is because there are a lot of other people doing it. Good luck finding a group of friends at 46 who want to go long trips to Europe, dine out at top restaurants and stay out late. You better hope you like spending time with your spouse because that's who you'll be hanging out with. Most other educated couples will have already done all of those things and will be focused on kids and maybe second homes. Not going to Ibiza.

Lol! I also have a second home, I'm at it right now sitting on the toilet.. Just because we had kids in our early 20s doesn't mean we're busted broke. I grew up in McLean and attended Sidwell. I've been to a Walmart maybe 3 times in my life.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, considering the kind of people I grew up with and the affluence I was surrounded with, it's not hard to find travel partners. Maybe that is the case for your circle, but not mine. #middleclassproblems #nobodytotravelwirh #cantrelate

Pp here. Curious but will your girlfriends travel with you? My friends won't go anywhere without their husbands. It seems hard to plan vacations around so many work schedules. Are you and your spouse wealthy enough that you don't have to work and you run around in the jet setting crowd? If so....why do you live in DC?!

Yes, we do a week girls trip at least once a year and then long weekends here and there. I will say though, most of my friends don't work normal 9-5 jobs if they even work.

We live in DC because we grew up here and we have friends and family here. A big network. Additionally we own a business together and this is where the money is at. The business will always keep us here. Owning our own business is what gives us a ton of flexibility to travel.

Though we live in DC (and like it here very much) we escape to our second home whenever we can when the weather gets cold and nasty.

So you run with an extremely wealthy crowd of educated people who don't work (or possibly own their own businesses that can be closed whenever to go on vacation...the very definition of a successful business) and had their kids early so everyone is ready to let loose in their 40s. That's a real unicorn! Never met one person like that, but you've found a whole crowd to hang with. Well done.

That's the life of people born into wealth for you.

There are very few people in DC with this kind of wealth. Even Arab friends I have who went to Swiss boarding schools have jobs. This person is a troll because there simply aren't page groups of socialites in dc who don't work. Even wealthy women I've met through events and such have a job or their husband works.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I also had mine at 36 and 39. What I notice are the friends who had theirs younger and are now in a position to retire. Meanwhile, I have 12 years to go until the little one is out of college. I feel like I would like to do something different, but I can't. I make a really good living, but it is a high stress life. I am also going through a divorce (STBXH also does well, so we share custody and expenses). The divorce may color my view of things and the feeling of exhaustion. If your marriage is really solid and you are set financially, you may have a different experience. Sometimes I think, with the very analytical part of my brain, that it would have been easier (though it wouldn't have saved the marriage) if we stopped at one as planned. #2 was an oops, although I have to tell you she has brought more joy than I could have imagined to my life. That observation comes from a different part of my brain and from my heart.

+1 to all of this minus the divorce part. I am 55 and DH is 60 and we have two kids, 18 and 15. The15yo, a freshman in high school, will be dependent on us for 8 more years. DH will work for as long as he can, as will I, but I am tired of what I do and would love to dabble in something fun. With college on the horizon, that is not an option.

This is defenetly something that people don't consider when they choose to wait. I am 46 and my child graduated from the law school and been working and fully supporting himself for a year now. I am so glad that all the money I make now, all the free time I have I can spend the way I want.

PP here. It is all about tradeoffs. An empty nest at 50 is certainly appealing, but OTOH I spent my 20s and early 30s living abroad and having all kinds of adventures and experiences, and would not trade that for the world.

It is a drag sometimes not to be able to live for myself now. But I lived for myself for a very long time in young adulthood, which people who became parents at a young age did not.

Let's get real here. Traveling at 46 is wayyyy better than traveling at 28. You have more money and you spend your time more wisely.

I'm not the poster you are responding to, but preschoolers at 46? That sounds like a hellish way to spend middle age. Collecting social security and paying college? Yea. No.

Are you joking? Also who has an empty nest at 46? Only if you're white trash and then your idea of fun is probably going to Walmart. And you probably have great grandkidS.

But really the reason I'd rather be in my 20s or 30s and having fun is because there are a lot of other people doing it. Good luck finding a group of friends at 46 who want to go long trips to Europe, dine out at top restaurants and stay out late. You better hope you like spending time with your spouse because that's who you'll be hanging out with. Most other educated couples will have already done all of those things and will be focused on kids and maybe second homes. Not going to Ibiza.

Lol! I also have a second home, I'm at it right now sitting on the toilet.. Just because we had kids in our early 20s doesn't mean we're busted broke. I grew up in McLean and attended Sidwell. I've been to a Walmart maybe 3 times in my life.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, considering the kind of people I grew up with and the affluence I was surrounded with, it's not hard to find travel partners. Maybe that is the case for your circle, but not mine. #middleclassproblems #nobodytotravelwirh #cantrelate

Pp here. Curious but will your girlfriends travel with you? My friends won't go anywhere without their husbands. It seems hard to plan vacations around so many work schedules. Are you and your spouse wealthy enough that you don't have to work and you run around in the jet setting crowd? If so....why do you live in DC?!

Yes, we do a week girls trip at least once a year and then long weekends here and there. I will say though, most of my friends don't work normal 9-5 jobs if they even work.

We live in DC because we grew up here and we have friends and family here. A big network. Additionally we own a business together and this is where the money is at. The business will always keep us here. Owning our own business is what gives us a ton of flexibility to travel.

Though we live in DC (and like it here very much) we escape to our second home whenever we can when the weather gets cold and nasty.

So you run with an extremely wealthy crowd of educated people who don't work (or possibly own their own businesses that can be closed whenever to go on vacation...the very definition of a successful business) and had their kids early so everyone is ready to let loose in their 40s. That's a real unicorn! Never met one person like that, but you've found a whole crowd to hang with. Well done.

That's the life of people born into wealth for you.

There are very few people in DC with this kind of wealth. Even Arab friends I have who went to Swiss boarding schools have jobs. This person is a troll because there simply aren't page groups of socialites in dc who don't work. Even wealthy women I've met through events and such have a job or their husband works.

You are delusional.

Poster and her DH own a business ( and I bet it's not selling Mary kay) probably a woman owned gov contacting shop. Guaranteed her DH does most of the work and I bet her parents bankrolled it or she took it over from them.

You really don't know many wealthy people.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I also had mine at 36 and 39. What I notice are the friends who had theirs younger and are now in a position to retire. Meanwhile, I have 12 years to go until the little one is out of college. I feel like I would like to do something different, but I can't. I make a really good living, but it is a high stress life. I am also going through a divorce (STBXH also does well, so we share custody and expenses). The divorce may color my view of things and the feeling of exhaustion. If your marriage is really solid and you are set financially, you may have a different experience. Sometimes I think, with the very analytical part of my brain, that it would have been easier (though it wouldn't have saved the marriage) if we stopped at one as planned. #2 was an oops, although I have to tell you she has brought more joy than I could have imagined to my life. That observation comes from a different part of my brain and from my heart.

+1 to all of this minus the divorce part. I am 55 and DH is 60 and we have two kids, 18 and 15. The15yo, a freshman in high school, will be dependent on us for 8 more years. DH will work for as long as he can, as will I, but I am tired of what I do and would love to dabble in something fun. With college on the horizon, that is not an option.

This is defenetly something that people don't consider when they choose to wait. I am 46 and my child graduated from the law school and been working and fully supporting himself for a year now. I am so glad that all the money I make now, all the free time I have I can spend the way I want.

PP here. It is all about tradeoffs. An empty nest at 50 is certainly appealing, but OTOH I spent my 20s and early 30s living abroad and having all kinds of adventures and experiences, and would not trade that for the world.

It is a drag sometimes not to be able to live for myself now. But I lived for myself for a very long time in young adulthood, which people who became parents at a young age did not.

Let's get real here. Traveling at 46 is wayyyy better than traveling at 28. You have more money and you spend your time more wisely.

I'm not the poster you are responding to, but preschoolers at 46? That sounds like a hellish way to spend middle age. Collecting social security and paying college? Yea. No.

Are you joking? Also who has an empty nest at 46? Only if you're white trash and then your idea of fun is probably going to Walmart. And you probably have great grandkidS.

But really the reason I'd rather be in my 20s or 30s and having fun is because there are a lot of other people doing it. Good luck finding a group of friends at 46 who want to go long trips to Europe, dine out at top restaurants and stay out late. You better hope you like spending time with your spouse because that's who you'll be hanging out with. Most other educated couples will have already done all of those things and will be focused on kids and maybe second homes. Not going to Ibiza.

Lol! I also have a second home, I'm at it right now sitting on the toilet.. Just because we had kids in our early 20s doesn't mean we're busted broke. I grew up in McLean and attended Sidwell. I've been to a Walmart maybe 3 times in my life.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, considering the kind of people I grew up with and the affluence I was surrounded with, it's not hard to find travel partners. Maybe that is the case for your circle, but not mine. #middleclassproblems #nobodytotravelwirh #cantrelate

Pp here. Curious but will your girlfriends travel with you? My friends won't go anywhere without their husbands. It seems hard to plan vacations around so many work schedules. Are you and your spouse wealthy enough that you don't have to work and you run around in the jet setting crowd? If so....why do you live in DC?!

Yes, we do a week girls trip at least once a year and then long weekends here and there. I will say though, most of my friends don't work normal 9-5 jobs if they even work.

We live in DC because we grew up here and we have friends and family here. A big network. Additionally we own a business together and this is where the money is at. The business will always keep us here. Owning our own business is what gives us a ton of flexibility to travel.

Though we live in DC (and like it here very much) we escape to our second home whenever we can when the weather gets cold and nasty.

So you run with an extremely wealthy crowd of educated people who don't work (or possibly own their own businesses that can be closed whenever to go on vacation...the very definition of a successful business) and had their kids early so everyone is ready to let loose in their 40s. That's a real unicorn! Never met one person like that, but you've found a whole crowd to hang with. Well done.

That's the life of people born into wealth for you.

There are very few people in DC with this kind of wealth. Even Arab friends I have who went to Swiss boarding schools have jobs. This person is a troll because there simply aren't page groups of socialites in dc who don't work. Even wealthy women I've met through events and such have a job or their husband works.

You are delusional.

Poster and her DH own a business ( and I bet it's not selling Mary kay) probably a woman owned gov contacting shop. Guaranteed her DH does most of the work and I bet her parents bankrolled it or she took it over from them.

You really don't know many wealthy people.

I am delusional that I don't believe there's a large group of wealthy people in dc who don't work and travel together? I've met many wealthy people and never seen anything like this. Maybe it's because I'm younger? Even my friends who grew up in Manhattan, went to boarding schools and have huge trust funds are married to a man who has a job. Many of the women work as well in fashion or some sort of interior design. One of my friends wrote a design book and her husband works as an investment banker.

Not to mention DC isn't that wealthy of a town. Real wealth is in la jolla, Manhattan etc. not Washington.

So you really think I'm delusional because I think most wealthy households in dc have someone working?

[Anonymous]

I'm a new poster. I was married at 26 and we waited 10 years. We waited because I was ambivalent about having kids and also very anxious about it. I was also terrified of pregnancy, I had an actual pregnancy phobia. I truly believed I would not be able to make it through pregnancy. My husband was ready around age 30, but I kept postponing. I had so many reasons why I was ambivalent, in addition to my fear of pregnancy--I wasn't emotionally ready to be a mother; my husband worked 80 hour weeks and I felt like we had such little time together; I wanted to have some time as a married couple to build our relationship before having kids; I was so anxious about motherhood because I had no experience with kids (none of our friends had kids and we don't have any nieces or nephews), so I was overwhelmed by the idea of motherhood; we had no family support/local family. Basically we had been married 10 years, financially we were good, we owned a home, but I still wasn't emotionally ready. I really wanted to wait a few more years, until my late 30s, to start TTC (but now I'm really glad I didn't).

Finally when I turned 35 my husband insisted that we start TTC, or said he would leave me. I put it off another year and finally agreed to it right before I turned 36. I figured it would take awhile and I'd have time to get used to the idea of pregnancy, but we got pregnant after two months of trying. I had an easy pregnancy and delivery and we have a beautiful toddler.

I am so glad my husband convinced me to have a child. While motherhood has been harder than I anticipated (and I had very realistic expectations), I am very happy that I am a mother and would have really been sad if I hadn't had the chance to experience motherhood. The hardest part for me so far has been having a spouse who works a ton of hours, having little emotional/social support, and having no local family. In other words, we have no village whatsoever, which has been challenging.

Now my husband wants baby #2. We have been TTC for 8 months and we can't get pregnant, I am 38. Fertility really declines after 36/37. I never believed that, but now I'm in the midst of secondary infertility due to decreased ovarian reserve. I did not think this would happen to me, especially since most of my female relatives had babies with their own eggs well into their 40s. I don't know if we will be able to have a second child, and I do regret not TTC earlier with our first child so that we could have a second. I don't know if I'm willing to do infertility treatments or not, I'm leaning towards not being willing to do them. I'm content with having an only, but my husband is not. This is something we'll need to work out if we don't get pregnant naturally (we're going to try naturally for another few months). I've already had my workup with an RE at a fertility clinic, with the diagnosis of decreased ovarian reserve.

Overall, I am very happy. My only regret is not starting to TTC earlier so we could have a second.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a new poster. I was married at 26 and we waited 10 years. We waited because I was ambivalent about having kids and also very anxious about it. I was also terrified of pregnancy, I had an actual pregnancy phobia. I truly believed I would not be able to make it through pregnancy. My husband was ready around age 30, but I kept postponing. I had so many reasons why I was ambivalent, in addition to my fear of pregnancy--I wasn't emotionally ready to be a mother; my husband worked 80 hour weeks and I felt like we had such little time together; I wanted to have some time as a married couple to build our relationship before having kids; I was so anxious about motherhood because I had no experience with kids (none of our friends had kids and we don't have any nieces or nephews), so I was overwhelmed by the idea of motherhood; we had no family support/local family. Basically we had been married 10 years, financially we were good, we owned a home, but I still wasn't emotionally ready. I really wanted to wait a few more years, until my late 30s, to start TTC (but now I'm really glad I didn't).

Finally when I turned 35 my husband insisted that we start TTC, or said he would leave me. I put it off another year and finally agreed to it right before I turned 36. I figured it would take awhile and I'd have time to get used to the idea of pregnancy, but we got pregnant after two months of trying. I had an easy pregnancy and delivery and we have a beautiful toddler.

I am so glad my husband convinced me to have a child. While motherhood has been harder than I anticipated (and I had very realistic expectations), I am very happy that I am a mother and would have really been sad if I hadn't had the chance to experience motherhood. The hardest part for me so far has been having a spouse who works a ton of hours, having little emotional/social support, and having no local family. In other words, we have no village whatsoever, which has been challenging.

Now my husband wants baby #2. We have been TTC for 8 months and we can't get pregnant, I am 38. Fertility really declines after 36/37. I never believed that, but now I'm in the midst of secondary infertility due to decreased ovarian reserve. I did not think this would happen to me, especially since most of my female relatives had babies with their own eggs well into their 40s. I don't know if we will be able to have a second child, and I do regret not TTC earlier with our first child so that we could have a second. I don't know if I'm willing to do infertility treatments or not, I'm leaning towards not being willing to do them. I'm content with having an only, but my husband is not. This is something we'll need to work out if we don't get pregnant naturally (we're going to try naturally for another few months). I've already had my workup with an RE at a fertility clinic, with the diagnosis of decreased ovarian reserve.

Overall, I am very happy. My only regret is not starting to TTC earlier so we could have a second.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm the OP from the triple threat response (engage, wed, buy house). In looking back, at what age would you have wanted to TTC?

I'm 32 now. We intend to be married before I am 34, realistically it takes me that long to plan a wedding and sort out everything with 2 huge families to coordinate and accommodate, plus a 6 month pre-marital counseling requirement from our church so I couldn't push up the timeline if I tried. That means I would be having the first child somewhere in my mid to late 35th year. Does that leave me enough time to space out 2 years before TTC for baby #2 at age 37? Or should I aim to have the babies back to back with about 12-16 months apart? That would kill my body, and I struggled as a teen with body image issues, but much better now. I know that's a selfish statement to make but it's something that is important to me and I hope that between having the first child, breastfeeding (ideally) will help take off the baby preg weight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Waiting gives you the maturity, patience, and, generally, a better economic situation, which makes the very difficult process of raising children less difficult.

IME, this is a myth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you say more about being "emotionally ready" to have kids?

I have always thought having a healthy marriage, a home to call our own, and being financially sound to have children is the responsible thing to do.

This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time!

If you are over 30, happily married and know you want to have kids, start now. Fertility issues are no joke. Spend some time on the infertility boards if you want to know the cons of waiting or believing it's easy to get pregnant in your late thirties or later. Yes, infertility can happen at any age, but bigger issue after 35. If you want more than one kid, you don't have much of a window. You can always rent a house or have kids share a room. Once your fertility is gone,,it isn't' coming back.

This is what people aren't getting. All that other crap (bigger home, job promotion, increased retirement savings) is ALL negotiable. Your fertility is not.

[Anonymous]

I had two kids later in life. The second one was born with health issues. Both my kids are the love of my life. I wish we had three but it is what it is.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I had my first kid at 37 and my second at 41 (both naturally). Sometimes I do wish I had them younger, but it couldn't really have happened any earlier. I have no regrets. It is exhausting and harder than I thought, has tested me and my marriage, but in the end I'm happy with my kids. You don't really have time to think about it. Just do it. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. If not, it's not. It's not uncommon to have miscarriages too. Try for a year and if it doesn't pan out, then go back to feeling like you're fine without kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you say more about being "emotionally ready" to have kids?

I have always thought having a healthy marriage, a home to call our own, and being financially sound to have children is the responsible thing to do.

This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time!

If you are over 30, happily married and know you want to have kids, start now. Fertility issues are no joke. Spend some time on the infertility boards if you want to know the cons of waiting or believing it's easy to get pregnant in your late thirties or later. Yes, infertility can happen at any age, but bigger issue after 35. If you want more than one kid, you don't have much of a window. You can always rent a house or have kids share a room. Once your fertility is gone,,it isn't' coming back.

This is what people aren't getting. All that other crap (bigger home, job promotion, increased retirement savings) is ALL negotiable. Your fertility is not.

I wish someone had really explained this to me in my early 30s. I'm the poster who waited 10 years to have a baby, and now can't get pregnant with #2 due to secondary infertility.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A DH here, who is 48. DW and I have a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old. DW is 42.

We're so glad to have these wonderful children, but we both wish we had met sooner and had the kids sooner. The forties are a tough decade on the body -- easier to gain weight, less energy in general -- and having young kids during that time only compounds the effect.

Moreover, both of us work full-time and, after spending two decades building our careers, we have found that the demands of raising young children has been a career-staller, if not a career-killer. We're both treading water at work, hoping to make it to a time when the kids are more independent and less labor- and time-intensive. And the careers are stalled despite the realization that I'll be in my 60s when the kids are in college, if all goes according to plan. So retiring early, which I had hoped to do, is going to be tough, if not impossible.

Don't get me wrong. The trade offs are worth it. I'd rather have 2 young kids at 48 than have no kids at all. But both DW and I would prefer to have had them younger.

I would advise my kids to have their own children between age 27 and 35 if they can, and if they have found someone they love and are committed to. I think you want the nest to empty by your mid-50s if you can. That also would make it more likely that they have meaningful relationships with their eventual grandchildren, should they have any. Me, I just hope to be hanging on long enough to see my kids have kids.

Good luck OP!

I didn't read the whole thread, but your comment stuck out to me and I just want to say thank you for sharing the most honest words here. As a 32 year old female in a committed relationship on the brink of engagement, wedding, buying a home, and establishing full time placement at work this was a real eye opening feedback. We know we want kids but we thought we would wait til 35-36 to be more financially stable, but we have been discussing the possibility of having kids sooner and buying a starter home as opposed to a forever home now. This makes a lot more sense to us considering we want 1-2 kids. It really depends how it goes with 1 and if I'm up for #2 within 2 year period. I want to finish having kids by 36.

SORRY - I'm the 11:18 PP, and the immediate PP, and I messed up trying to quote a PP and respond. (Got the text all out of order.) Trying again......

I'm the PP. Thanks for the kind words. Glad you found my feedback helpful.

Regarding starter homes vs. forever homes, DW and I bought a 3BR house when we still had just the one child, and didn't know if we would have another. After no. 2 came along we really regretted not stretching to get a 4BR. We plan to move up to a bigger house eventually, but the transaction costs are not insignificant. Consider renting in the neighborhood you think you'd like to buy in until you know how big a house you'll eventually want to have. That may also allow you to save more as well. For us, it would have made sense to wait and go for the forever home. As it stands, we may not end up in our forever home until I'm in my 50s -- but we probably could have been in one by now if we hadn't bought the starter home (and sunk some money into renovations).

Everybody is different, of course (you all are younger, for one thing), so think about it and do what's right for you. Good luck!

Horrible advice, never put off having kids if you are otherwise ready for relatively trivial reasons like whether to buy a 3 or 4 bedroom house. Your prime fertility lasts such a short time, if you are emotionally ready to have kids, go ahead.

The advice wasn't to put off having kids (quite the opposite). The advice was think hard about whether a starter home makes sense for the PP's family. In retrospect we should have rented longer and gone for the forever home when we were ready, instead of tying up a lot of money in our starter home, and potentially losing a lot in transaction costs when we eventually move up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time!

This is the male PP. We were in a 2 BR condo with a 1-year-old, and were eager to have more space and a real neighborhood for our kid to grow up in. So we went for a house that ticked most of the boxes -- good schools, decent commute, seemed family-friendly. The only thing we didn't get was the fourth bedroom, since 4 BR houses in our Bethesda neighborhood seemed to command prices at least $200k higher than 3 BR. And if we had only 1 kid, the "starter" house would have worked as a forever house, too, I suppose.

But now, with 2 kids, it's become evident that eventually we'll need more space -- a 4 BR for guests or a home office, since the demands of family have led to each of us working from home more often (when kids are home sick from school, for instance); a usable basement so our increasingly rambunctious and energetic children have a good space in which to hang out, especially when they become tweens and teens (instead of our tiny, finished-but-not-nice basement, good mostly for doing laundry and storing things); space big enough for entertaining family and friends, etc.

I can understand the desire to have your own place. Just consider how long you'll be in it, and whether it's worth losing the transaction costs of buying and selling a starter home and buying a forever home later. And remember that whatever you choose, things will work out! Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you say more about being "emotionally ready" to have kids?

I have always thought having a healthy marriage, a home to call our own, and being financially sound to have children is the responsible thing to do.

This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time!

If you are over 30, happily married and know you want to have kids, start now. Fertility issues are no joke. Spend some time on the infertility boards if you want to know the cons of waiting or believing it's easy to get pregnant in your late thirties or later. Yes, infertility can happen at any age, but bigger issue after 35. If you want more than one kid, you don't have much of a window. You can always rent a house or have kids share a room. Once your fertility is gone,,it isn't' coming back.

I agree with this -- I'm a happily married woman in my early 30s pregnant with baby #1. We would have been happy enough to wait a few more years to save up money, do some additional work on the house, travel a bit more...but we saw friends in their late 30s struggling to conceive and we figured it was better to get on top of any potential fertility issues than to keep waiting. We were lucky and conceived easily and so far I've had an easy, healthy pregnancy. Maybe all of this would have happened for me in my mid-to-late 30s as well, but I'm glad we didn't take the risk.

Also, to weigh in on the starter home conversation, my DH and I are living in the starter home I purchased before we met 5 years ago. Absolutely no regrets. We would like to have 2 kids and it'll be a tight fit with a family of 4 in the future -- to be honest, we'll be packed in as a family of 3. But I'm so glad that I own at this point in my life vs. renting. Everything I do to my house builds value and the prices in my neighborhood are skyrocketing, so we'll make a very good profit when we someday sell this place. Just wanted to give a counterpoint to the advice above about waiting to buy the 4 br vs a 3 br.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you say more about being "emotionally ready" to have kids?

I have always thought having a healthy marriage, a home to call our own, and being financially sound to have children is the responsible thing to do.

This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time!

If you are over 30, happily married and know you want to have kids, start now. Fertility issues are no joke. Spend some time on the infertility boards if you want to know the cons of waiting or believing it's easy to get pregnant in your late thirties or later. Yes, infertility can happen at any age, but bigger issue after 35. If you want more than one kid, you don't have much of a window. You can always rent a house or have kids share a room. Once your fertility is gone,,it isn't' coming back.

This is what people aren't getting. All that other crap (bigger home, job promotion, increased retirement savings) is ALL negotiable. Your fertility is not.

I wish someone had really explained this to me in my early 30s. I'm the poster who waited 10 years to have a baby, and now can't get pregnant with #2 due to secondary infertility.

Why would this be other people's responsibility to explain to you? I waited, had issues -- and knew it was the risk I was taking.