Do you wish you had your children younger

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too old and you'll never see grandkids

This is not and never has been important to me. Much more important to have a lot of money in the bank and career well underway before I had kids.

Being rich is more important to you than meeting your grandkids?

It's DCUM. Pay attention! 8)

[Anonymous]

I had my kids at 32 and 24, so neither old nor young. Naturally, I think we picked the right balance between being a young or old parent but the reality is, a lot of luck is involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I knew a woman who had 3 kids, each 10 years apart.
One at 18, another at 28, and the last at 38

Yes, they all had the same dad

So she got to be one of the chosen few who was also the young mother, and the old mother

As a 48 year old mother, 38 doesn't sound so old.

but did you give birth at 48?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:/

+1

[Anonymous]

Life happens. We do not always have a choice, and need to make the best of our circumstances. As for me, I am single, and TTC via IVF/ donor sperm. I am also AMA. Did I plan it this way? No. But it is what it is. I am enjoying life in the meantime, and hoping for the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was 26 and still single. X and I almost married, but realized we would not have a good marriage and now co-parent between 2 households. We are def paycheck to paycheck but still solidly middle class. I will start graduate school later. Travelled the world after DC was born (with and without DC) and still doing so. Daycare bill ends this Fall! I had DC at the perfect time for me. I might end up an younger and older mom, since I am single and looking for a marriage-minded guy. I am from the area, so I have lots of family support and "me" time. I save for emergencies, retirement, and college, have my own home, and make well under 100K. Even if I had been married, I wouldnt have waited until I had $$$ to have kids. I come from a working class background and never felt deprived.

I feel fortunate that DC and my parents (late 40s) are extremely close (she's with my mom now), that my grandparents are still around to see DC regularly, and that I was able to have a child.

Blaming women for waiting is just useless. Life happens. More men are opting to marry later. What are women supposed to do, marry themselves? Many of us wont meet the right guy til later. If X and I had married, we'd no doubt have two kids already and be done by 30. But it would be a dysfunctional marriage. I'm just thankful we've both turned out to be good parents. In an ideal world, I'd have married at 25, first kid at 26, second at 29, and another at 32. I'm happy with my life today.

This is me too (only without the house). I'm 27, and divorced with a 3yo. Sometimes I wish I would have waited, since I picked a loser to marry and reproduce with and financially it's been extremely difficult. I don't have the experience or credentials to make more than $50K and don't have the time or money to go to grad school right now. We're going to be living paycheck to paycheck for quite a while. Having an established career and more money would definitely make my life easier.
On the other hand, having DC early kind of woke me up. Being a mother gave me the strength to leave his abusive father (who was just one in a string of losers), get my act together, get out of debt and start planning for the future instead of just floating along. I've never had overwhelming professional ambition, so clawing up a career ladder has never appealed to me. DC doesn't lack for anything, he has all the necessities and plenty of frivolous things. Money would make my life easier, but we're happy without it too.

My life doesn't look like I thought it would at 27 and it doesn't look like what I imagined when I thought about motherhood. But that's okay, because while it's harder than I ever dreamed, it's also much more fulfilling.

[RantingAtheist]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too old and you'll never see grandkids

This is not and never has been important to me. Much more important to have a lot of money in the bank and career well underway before I had kids.

Being rich is more important to you than meeting your grandkids?

It's DCUM. Pay attention! 8)

Who says DD is going to necessarily have grandkids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"What is important before having kids is a stable home, where the child/children will be healthy, happy and receive lots of love. A 45 year old mother can provide that just as well as a 25 year old mother. "

Actually, I'd say the 45 year old mother is usually in a better position.

Yup, 45 year old mothers are sooooo much more capable of loving and taking care of their kids than the 25 year old mothers. Give me a fucking break. Pat yourself on the back because you can afford to put them in private school from pre-K through college, or because you already have $1 million cash set aside. Don't denigrate younger mothers by saying you are more capable of loving your kids at 45 than they are of loving theirs at 25.

It's not a matter of "loving". My DD loves her pet fish. There are plenty of 14 year olds who are probably capable of loving their kids more at 14 than I am at my age. But it all depends on Mom's individual circumstance. Obviously there are super-together women in their 20s who would make great mothers. I and 99% of the twenty year olds I have known are narcissistic fuck-ups. I eventually grew out of it (somewhat).

[Anonymous]

had twins at 32 and another at 34.
I wish we had started a few years earlier. 30 and 32 would have been great. We were in the same place career wise and financially at that point.
My kids are now all in elementary school and I've just started to look forward to the years after they're out of the home. I love having the kids around but I also look forward to (hopefully) to the next (kids in college phase) of life when I'm in my early 50s.

[Anonymous]

"I'm 27, and divorced with a 3yo. Sometimes I wish I would have waited, since I picked a loser to marry and reproduce with and financially it's been extremely difficult. I don't have the experience or credentials to make more than $50K and don't have the time or money to go to grad school right now. We're going to be living paycheck to paycheck for quite a while. Having an established career and more money would definitely make my life easier."

This, in a nutshell, is why I used birth control every single time I had sex until I was in my 30s, married and ready to conceive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I'm 27, and divorced with a 3yo. Sometimes I wish I would have waited, since I picked a loser to marry and reproduce with and financially it's been extremely difficult. I don't have the experience or credentials to make more than $50K and don't have the time or money to go to grad school right now. We're going to be living paycheck to paycheck for quite a while. Having an established career and more money would definitely make my life easier."

This, in a nutshell, is why I used birth control every single time I had sex until I was in my 30s, married and ready to conceive.

I was also married and thought I was ready to conceive when I had my son. I'd been out of college for 4yrs already and we both had steady jobs. I also lived in a different area of the country, where COL was much, much lower and people started families much earlier. I was on the older end of the spectrum when I gave birth at 24. $50K where we were living is the equivalent of $85K here.

I don't regret any of my choices, but do admit some were stupid. However, I wouldn't be who I am now if I hadn't had to deal with all of that and I'm pretty happy with who and what I am right now. I don't have an impressive resume or travel stories or wardrobe, but that's okay. I've got time to do that later if I want. Having my son when I did was the best thing that could have happened to me. More money would be icing, I have enough to provide what we really need right now.

[Anonymous]

I've only read the first few and the last few pages, but I'm offended that a lot of posters seem to think anyone who has children in their 20s is immature and unable to handle parenting. Sure there are some who are, and sure there are people in this age group who had kids before they were ready or who didn't pick the fathers well or whatever. There are others of us for whom it's worked out great. I graduated from college, got a master's degree while working full-time and then I got married and bought our first house at 24, had my first a little over a year later at 25. Bought a second house at 27 (we kept the first and rent it out) and had our second when I was 28. We both still work full-time (had au pairs and my mom's help when the kids were young) and make over $200,000 now (which yes, I'm not bragging that this is fantastic for this area, but I feel like at 30 with two kids, we do pretty well).

The kids are both great, well-behaved kids (of course, you can choose not to believe that). DH and I have had our struggles of course with two young kids, but now that they are both out of diapers, etc, our relationship is back to being great. We travelled and did fun things before we had kids, took a break when the kids were babies and then started traveling and exploring with the kids. Our social lives of course have been scaled back, but we still go to concerts once a month or so (which was something we used to really like) and now have made friends with other families with kids, so we tend to do all the fun stuff we used to do with them and the kids.

We purposely bought in a good school district through high school, so no need for private school money. We do all those financially responsible things like maxing out our 401ks and saving for college. We got a 15-year mortgage with our second house, so it will be paid off when the oldest is a junior in high school. We live within our means but we don't have money worries.

I think the main reason I love being a young mom is that the kid's grandparents are still young - both young 50s. We're fortunate that we have lots of date nights and even weekends off every few months because they have the energy to take the kids. If we'd waited 10-15 years, maybe we wouldn't (or maybe we would - I get that everyone's situations are different).

The main thing I regret about not waiting is more time to get to know my husband and do things with just him. Presumably though, we'll get to do that when the kids go off to college - we'll be mid-40s.

So maybe I'm in the 1% of 20-something moms who aren't narcisstic fuck-ups (thanks PP!). It hurts my feelings to think that when people see me and my kids and figure out that I'm 30 that they might be immediately dismissing me in this way. Please remember that it's life situation and not age that necessarily determine how much of a fuck-up you are.

[Anonymous]

PP - I guess you think that neither you or your DH will be having a mid life crisis in your mid 40s when you are empty nesters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've only read the first few and the last few pages, but I'm offended that a lot of posters seem to think anyone who has children in their 20s is immature and unable to handle parenting. Sure there are some who are, and sure there are people in this age group who had kids before they were ready or who didn't pick the fathers well or whatever. There are others of us for whom it's worked out great. I graduated from college, got a master's degree while working full-time and then I got married and bought our first house at 24, had my first a little over a year later at 25. Bought a second house at 27 (we kept the first and rent it out) and had our second when I was 28. We both still work full-time (had au pairs and my mom's help when the kids were young) and make over $200,000 now (which yes, I'm not bragging that this is fantastic for this area, but I feel like at 30 with two kids, we do pretty well).

The kids are both great, well-behaved kids (of course, you can choose not to believe that). DH and I have had our struggles of course with two young kids, but now that they are both out of diapers, etc, our relationship is back to being great. We travelled and did fun things before we had kids, took a break when the kids were babies and then started traveling and exploring with the kids. Our social lives of course have been scaled back, but we still go to concerts once a month or so (which was something we used to really like) and now have made friends with other families with kids, so we tend to do all the fun stuff we used to do with them and the kids.

We purposely bought in a good school district through high school, so no need for private school money. We do all those financially responsible things like maxing out our 401ks and saving for college. We got a 15-year mortgage with our second house, so it will be paid off when the oldest is a junior in high school. We live within our means but we don't have money worries.

I think the main reason I love being a young mom is that the kid's grandparents are still young - both young 50s. We're fortunate that we have lots of date nights and even weekends off every few months because they have the energy to take the kids. If we'd waited 10-15 years, maybe we wouldn't (or maybe we would - I get that everyone's situations are different).

The main thing I regret about not waiting is more time to get to know my husband and do things with just him. Presumably though, we'll get to do that when the kids go off to college - we'll be mid-40s.

So maybe I'm in the 1% of 20-something moms who aren't narcisstic fuck-ups (thanks PP!). It hurts my feelings to think that when people see me and my kids and figure out that I'm 30 that they might be immediately dismissing me in this way. Please remember that it's life situation and not age that necessarily determine how much of a fuck-up you are.

Yes its always weird when you go to a school and you meet someone and think they are grand parents. This area stresses you out and the older working moms don't have time to do their hair, don't care, etc... and you think they are the grand parent.

[Anonymous]

I don't wish I had kids younger. I just wish I had the same energy as when I was younger. Now that would be sweet.