Women who had their romantic life sorted out early...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I wouldn't trade my life for anything, I would *love* to have had my kids 5 years earlier. I had them at almost-36 and just-turned-39. Being an empty nester by my early 50's would be incredibly.

Further, I'm totally envious of my SIL, who had her first at 18, and two more by age 24. Now, at 39, she has one in college and two in high school. Obviously, the teen mom part is not ideal, but... it certainly has its benefits!

I agree. I am a poster above and I forgot to mention that because of the age difference with my kids we are very close. I think it makes a huge difference in parent-child relations if you are 20 years or 40 years apart with your child.

I agree. My mom is 20years older than me. I'm 40, she's 60 and my kids are tweens. She's been a huge part of our lives and is incredibly physically fit. I would not be a bit suprised if she lives to meet her great grandkids. She takes my kids to her summer house in Maine from mid July to the mid August and they get to have the quintessential summers in coastal Maine hiking in Acadia, eating lobster rolls and digging up clams. Since she's only 60 and fit she has a lot of energy to keep up.

At this point, my mom is like a great friend. We travel together, meet for happy hour and talk on the phone almost every day. We dont have a big generational gap.

So the women in your family are not highly formally educated and don't tend to have careers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Married at 21, three kids by early 30s, happily married 15 years later. Both DH and I have professional degrees and work FT outside of the house. It was hard to go through grad school and early career with little kids but I wouldn't change a thing. I feel very lucky to have found the right partner in college. There are certainly advantages to having kids later as well, so I think you have to accept the hand you are dealt. Our friends who are just starting out with having their first in their early 30s had a lot more fun in their 20s. We missed out on that but hope to get to travel once the kids are older.

Not the same. Plus you have been sleeping with the same guy since you were 21.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow so basically marrying early and having children young is a great thing!

Not necessarily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I started dating DH at 22. Married at 25 when I graduated from law school. Had kid at 27 & 29. I just had my 18th wedding anniversary. Kids are now 13 & 15.

Getting married was 100% the right thing for me to do, and I have never seriously regretted it or questioned the decision. I wasn't trying to get married young, or thinking of marriage when I met DH. It just happened when it happened.

Having kids before 30 was 80% the right decision. Looking back, I wish I had taken more time to travel and be carefree with less responsibility. I was pretty young, and I should have had plenty of time to enjoy being in my 20s before the responsibility of kids. But, as it turned out, I had very complicated pregnancies and both babies were premies, plus a couple of miscarriages. If I had delayed having kids, I might not have been able to carry to term. In fact, I wanted a 3rd, but was strongly advised by my OB to stop while I was ahead. So, I'm thankful I went ahead when aid did.

The nice thing is that I am in my early 40s now, and have reached a place where DH and I can go spur of the moment dinners, and date nights and movies without worrying about childcare. My younger DC will head to college before I turn 50, with most of my children's college education save for. So DH and I will still be young enough, and have the money available to travel and enjoy our freedom. Down the road, we will also hopefully be young enough to really be involved with grandkids.

The other nice thing was that I quickly realized that motherhood and biglaw did not mesh well for me, and went Fed. I ended up doing something I love, low stress and with great work-life balance. I probably could have been richer or more high powered if I had delayed kids, but I doubt I would be happier.

So, it worked for me. But, like a lot of things in life, it is largely about choosing to be thankful for what you have, and not playing the grass is greener game.

Yeah, it was great to spend 9 years practicing law before having kids. Set up the rest of my professional life. And traveling in your 50s is absolutely nothing like travelling in your 20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprised by all these positive anecdotes. Every man i know who married young cheats.

It's because these posts are all by the wives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I got married at 24 in the middle of our PhD program and are now 29. I think we are absolutely a great match for one another personality-wise and temperament-wise, but the downside to getting married so young has been dealing with a lot of career "two body" problem issues that perhaps we were not mature enough to handle well. We have done long distance for stints of time on and off for the past few years, and he recently took a faculty job in an area that has very limited job prospects for me, which has led to a lot of resentment. If I get lucky, I might be able to find employment in the city he is relocating to in the next year or two (there is only one employer outside of the university in the area that fits my expertise), but if not, I'm not sure how we are going to resolve this. Basically, I can give up or entirely change my career, he can give up his incredibly competitive dream job, or we can move on from one another.

We have spent the past year fighting about how his dream (to be a tenure track research professor) has been extremely disruptive to our lives due to the fact that a serious academic job search is a national one. He was adamant about wanting to be a professor, and I harbored a lot of resentment about how he was unwilling to at least apply for and seriously consider jobs outside of academia (such as in industry or government) where we might both be able to find jobs in our respective subfields in the same geographic area more easily. Aside from the aspect of personal professional fulfillment, I also don't want to raise a family on one faculty salary, even in a lower COL area. We had considered trying to start a family earlier, but there was a series of setbacks and opportunities that have made it challenging to be in the same city for long stretches of time without sacrificing a lot of career opportunities. It started when we were not able to coordinate our graduation dates, because his PhD advisor moved universities and department put pressure on my husband to graduate early. I realize that prioritizing our career aspirations is a choice. But at this point, despite getting married young, it doesn't mean we are having kids any earlier than those who got married later.

If I had more perspective and didn't get married so young, I would have better appreciated how challenging balancing professional ambitions of two spouses can be, especially when you have very specialized training. Of course, you can't help who you fall in love with, and perhaps if I hadn't married my husband, I would have met someone who I had to work out these issues with anyway.

I'm sorry to hear this. This is why I didn't get serious about anyone in college or grad school, didn't want the conflicting career issues.

[Anonymous]

I married DH at 24. He was 27. I have a master's degree in history and worked at a museum before leaving to SAHM, which is what I always wanted to do. I plan to go back later when our children are older. DH works in finance and makes enough so that money is not an issue.

We had our three children by the time I was 30. I am in my late thirties now and we are sort of idly debating having one more baby while we still can. It's nice to have that extra time and not feel any pressure.

We've been married for 13 years. Everything has worked out wonderfully for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find both men and women, but especially women (probably since they do the majority of child care) look soooooo much older if they had kids young. Not just compared to their childless peers- but when they get older and things have equalized, the ones who had kids young just look more haggard to my eye. Generalizing, of course.

Yikes lady. Feeling insecure and trying to justify your own choices much? This is objectively not true

Shrug. It's what I've seen, time and time again. But... to each their own.

You are clueless. As a woman who became a parent in my 30s, having kids older wrecks absolute HAVOC on an older person. There is no comparison. My niece recently had a baby at 23 (5 months ago) and we just got back from the beach where she was parading around in her bikini, but cheeks barely covered. Not a single inch of lose skin or flab. Young bodies bounce. Young bodies are biologically designed to bear children.

You will not find a single older mother who will tell you that having kids at an older age will perserve your looks. It's the absolute down fall into rapid middle age.

But it's not the kids that age you, it's the actual age. Your niece has nice buttcheeks because she's 23, no baby will change that assuming her bum looked great to begin with. By 40, buttcheeks are going, whether you've had kids or not. It's not like a pregnant 40-year old had a perfect body before she got pregnant. Your body will be aged by the number of years it spent walking the earth, not by pregnancies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find both men and women, but especially women (probably since they do the majority of child care) look soooooo much older if they had kids young. Not just compared to their childless peers- but when they get older and things have equalized, the ones who had kids young just look more haggard to my eye. Generalizing, of course.

Yikes lady. Feeling insecure and trying to justify your own choices much? This is objectively not true

Shrug. It's what I've seen, time and time again. But... to each their own.

You are clueless. As a woman who became a parent in my 30s, having kids older wrecks absolute HAVOC on an older person. There is no comparison. My niece recently had a baby at 23 (5 months ago) and we just got back from the beach where she was parading around in her bikini, but cheeks barely covered. Not a single inch of lose skin or flab. Young bodies bounce. Young bodies are biologically designed to bear children.

You will not find a single older mother who will tell you that having kids at an older age will perserve your looks. It's the absolute down fall into rapid middle age.

But it's not the kids that age you, it's the actual age. Your niece has nice buttcheeks because she's 23, no baby will change that assuming her bum looked great to begin with. By 40, buttcheeks are going, whether you've had kids or not. It's not like a pregnant 40-year old had a perfect body before she got pregnant. Your body will be aged by the number of years it spent walking the earth, not by pregnancies.

No compare women who have never had babies to ones who have. Even when you lose all the weight, your hips and even ribs often spread wider to accommodate your uterus and they never go back. Women who have never had babies are usually narrower, giving them a leaner, much chicer look.

[Anonymous]

I met DH when I was 22 and he was 30. We lived together after dating for 3 months but did not get married until we decided to have a child when I was turning 40. No issues getting pregnant and our kid is 10 now.

DH is retired now and I am a SAHM. DS keeps us young and we have lots of fun together as a family. DH and I had many years of fun as a childless couple, the main reason neither of us had a midlife crisis probably and our marriage strong.

If I had to choose, I wouldn't change a thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find both men and women, but especially women (probably since they do the majority of child care) look soooooo much older if they had kids young. Not just compared to their childless peers- but when they get older and things have equalized, the ones who had kids young just look more haggard to my eye. Generalizing, of course.

Yikes lady. Feeling insecure and trying to justify your own choices much? This is objectively not true

Shrug. It's what I've seen, time and time again. But... to each their own.

You are clueless. As a woman who became a parent in my 30s, having kids older wrecks absolute HAVOC on an older person. There is no comparison. My niece recently had a baby at 23 (5 months ago) and we just got back from the beach where she was parading around in her bikini, but cheeks barely covered. Not a single inch of lose skin or flab. Young bodies bounce. Young bodies are biologically designed to bear children.

You will not find a single older mother who will tell you that having kids at an older age will perserve your looks. It's the absolute down fall into rapid middle age.

But it's not the kids that age you, it's the actual age. Your niece has nice buttcheeks because she's 23, no baby will change that assuming her bum looked great to begin with. By 40, buttcheeks are going, whether you've had kids or not. It's not like a pregnant 40-year old had a perfect body before she got pregnant. Your body will be aged by the number of years it spent walking the earth, not by pregnancies.

No compare women who have never had babies to ones who have. Even when you lose all the weight, your hips and even ribs often spread wider to accommodate your uterus and they never go back. Women who have never had babies are usually narrower, giving them a leaner, much chicer look.

Then this would be equally true of 23-year olds and 40-year olds. The poster above is mentioning loose skin and flab, which indicate age, nothing else. Even a fat young person will be tighter than an old fat person.

[Anonymous]

Take two women with similar builds who were born the same year - one has a baby at age 20, the other has a baby at age 35.

Fast forward to where they are both 45. PP is arguing that, despite being the same age, the woman who had the child at age 20 will look better because her body was more resilient when she went through the stresses of child bearing and birth.

I haven't paid enough attention to know whether it's true, but it's certainly plausible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised by all these positive anecdotes. Every man i know who married young cheats.

It's because these posts are all by the wives.

Interesting, I can share the opposite insight. The men I know who got married younger (generally to their college sweethearts) seem to still be very in love with them. The men who didn't get married until older and had a lot more dating experience are the ones who look back wistfully at that fun hot carefree girl from their youth that "got away", and feel like something in their marriage is missing

[Anonymous]

So far so good for me. DH and I married when I was 23 and he was 26. I was in law school and he was just starting his career. We had our first kid around the time of our 5 year anniversary. Getting married younger was awesome. We were able to enjoy married life without the stress of kids. We worked hard (I was in biglaw and DH was in an equally demanding field where he was able to work his way up) and we played hard (lots of fun international vacations with each other and with our friends). I was 28 when we had kiddo #1, I moved to a well-paying inhouse gig (a unicorn job!) and DH is one of the top executives in his company. We had many friends who were closer to DH's age (early 30s) who were having kids, so we did not feel isolated at all. I just turned 30 and am pregnant with #2. No idea if we want a third yet - but atleast we dont feel at all rushed to decide!

I did not plan to get married young, but it has worked out wonderfully. Those 5 years without kids really solidified our marriage! And while we continue to travel and hang out with friends, it's certainly more kid-focused and we're fine with that and loving this phase of life!!

Your 20s is a great time to travel, pursue hobbies, and spend time partying with friends. But its also the best time to hustle in school/career and start thinking about a family. Finding a partner early allowed me to do both so that when it was time to start a family we could pull the trigger pretty quickly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised by all these positive anecdotes. Every man i know who married young cheats.

It's because these posts are all by the wives.

Interesting, I can share the opposite insight. The men I know who got married younger (generally to their college sweethearts) seem to still be very in love with them. The men who didn't get married until older and had a lot more dating experience are the ones who look back wistfully at that fun hot carefree girl from their youth that "got away", and feel like something in their marriage is missing

I have noticed this too.

The most husbandy guys I know got married early. These are the guys who voluntarily signed up for a lifetime of monogamy during their sexual peak. They seem to thrive within the framework of commitment. It's a lot of the reason that many of these guys go on to accumulate considerable wealth. They do well with delayed gratification, challenges, and hard work.