"The trouble is with men's sperm" - NYTimes headline

[Anonymous]

I met my husband at 34. We weren’t even in the same places ever before that! I wanted to be married at 23 with 3 kids. Well life didn’t work out that way…. Sure encourage marriage and kids earlier but it legit doesn’t happen for some of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

https://www.brides.com/average-age-of-marriage-in-the-us-11709847

Right now the Average is 28 for women and 30 for men. In the 1950s it was 22 for men and 20 for women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

This happens to a lot of women unfortunately. Wasting child bearing years on what turns out to be duds and by they get out of it all of the “marriage minded” guys are already gone.

[Anonymous]

Gen Z Women will do anything to have a baby except have sex with a man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

I agree with this. My dh is a super awesome guy and was a perfect boyfriend. We started dating at 20. At 24 I asked him about marriage and he said he hadn't thought about it but didn't want to get married until 30. He had no reason "why" he didn't want to marry, just an age he "thought" he should marry at. He assured me that I was the one though. Oh hell no. I wasn't going to be strung along. I gave him 3 months and said I'd move onto greener pastures where they didn't have an arbitrary age in mind.

He even now talks about how irrational he was being. I think there's just a stigma against men marrying younger.

I've known lots of guys like yours pp who dumped the perfect girlfriend and then quickly married the next one that came along. And they aren't happier than they would have been with the first girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

This happens to a lot of women unfortunately. Wasting child bearing years on what turns out to be duds and by they get out of it all of the “marriage minded” guys are already gone.

Those guys are married to women though.

27 isn't over the hill for finding a partner. Women are putting off pregnancy until 40+!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

I agree with this. My dh is a super awesome guy and was a perfect boyfriend. We started dating at 20. At 24 I asked him about marriage and he said he hadn't thought about it but didn't want to get married until 30. He had no reason "why" he didn't want to marry, just an age he "thought" he should marry at. He assured me that I was the one though. Oh hell no. I wasn't going to be strung along. I gave him 3 months and said I'd move onto greener pastures where they didn't have an arbitrary age in mind.

He even now talks about how irrational he was being. I think there's just a stigma against men marrying younger.

I've known lots of guys like yours pp who dumped the perfect girlfriend and then quickly married the next one that came along. And they aren't happier than they would have been with the first girl.

Similar. My DH (then BF) was planning to go to law school and wanted me to move out of state with him. We had already been dating 3 years. I said not without a ring. He agreed.

[Anonymous]

“Just find a spouse and get on it” = will be divorced by 45. Worst advice ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

I was dying to get married even in college. I wasted my whole college time chasing men who said "I'll never get married" and then starting over. I should have been making girl friends, which i missed out on. (None of those men ever did marry, either).
My SIL started dating a guy at 23. At 31 he said he was moving to California with or without her and she dutifully followed him. At 36 they got married "for the health insurance". Very romantic. Now 40 and no kids but she doesn't work and cooks, cleans and knits all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good luck finding young men who want to get married at 25. They are few and far between.

THIS!!! I was desperate to get married at 24-25. The serious boyfriend I had at the time said he wanted to get married and made me believe we were working towards a future together once he was more financially stable so I stuck around til he dumped me when we were both 27. If I could go back and do it again I would have broken up with him when we werent engaged within two years. I know soo many women that end up with these guys that make them believe marriage is coming but they need to wait for whatever reason and waste yearrsss of their lives.

I agree with this. My dh is a super awesome guy and was a perfect boyfriend. We started dating at 20. At 24 I asked him about marriage and he said he hadn't thought about it but didn't want to get married until 30. He had no reason "why" he didn't want to marry, just an age he "thought" he should marry at. He assured me that I was the one though. Oh hell no. I wasn't going to be strung along. I gave him 3 months and said I'd move onto greener pastures where they didn't have an arbitrary age in mind.

He even now talks about how irrational he was being. I think there's just a stigma against men marrying younger.

I've known lots of guys like yours pp who dumped the perfect girlfriend and then quickly married the next one that came along. And they aren't happier than they would have been with the first girl.

He DID marry the next girl!

[Anonymous]

The 20 year old Mexican who got pregnant and moved in with the father's family while his mom took care of their child probably had a quasi mother -in -law who was 45 or younger. In the typical UMC family today, the grandparents are 65 plus. It's a lot easier to care for young kids when you are 45. It's a different story in your mid 60s or 70s, especially after the child can walk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want people to have babies in their twenties, make college and daycare free and get the housing market sorted out so that most young people can spend less than 50% of their income just on shelter within commuting distance. Until then, having a baby while young is something for the very poor and very wealthy outside of very conservative religious backgrounds.

+1, right now only three groups of people have kids early:

1) Poor people who don't know better or don't feel like they have anything better to look forward to so they have kids as teens or in their early 20s, and then those kids are also poor because they have poor parents who lack education and therefore can't get out of poverty. We should be actively discouraging this to give these folks a chance to at least finish high school and enter job training programs so that when they have kids, they can create stable homes and offer those kids something other than a repeat of their own childhoods.

2) People with a lot of family support and financial resources. I wouldn't say all of these people are wealthy, and not all wealthy people offer this to their kids. But basically having a kid in your early or mid 20s is a lot more feasible if you feel like you have a community around you who can help, and you feel that community is supportive of you marrying and having kids. But a lot of MC and UMC families actually discourage early marriage or kids, and can withhold support if it happens because they think it's a mistake. It's also common for people in the MC and above to move far from parents and childhood communities for college or work, which makes it harder to create this kind of community support. Once someone has moved hundreds of miles from their support system, it immediately becomes more sensible to wait to have kids until you can afford to create your own support system where you are. And yes, that takes a lot of money. Childcare is expensive, housing is expensive, the services that can take the place of community support (therapists, doulas, paid sitters, cleaners to help during pregnancy or just after childbirth) all cost money. Can you have kids without all that? Sure. But it's more stressful and less pleasant, can be hard on marriages, and can be hard on mental health. Parents of all ages do better with support networks. Sensible people will delay parenthood until they have that support network, which often means waiting until they can buy it.

3) Really religious people, who are a combination of #1 and #2 -- they often don't value education, especially for women, and do value having kids, so they make the same choice a lot of poor people do in opting for early parenthood ever setting themselves up for careers. But also they tend to have strong support networks through their religious groups, so that obstacle to parenthood doesn't exist for them. Even if they move to new cities, if they are active in their church, temple, or mosque, and the community is very conservative and pro-procreation, they will have a lot of community support when they have kids.

This is just how it is. If you don't like it, you have to change the circumstances. You can't just yell at people to have kids earlier, it doesn't make sense within the parameters of our culture most of the time.

4.) Non-reglious or not very religious people who just happen to meet and marry their spouse early and want kids before 30. DH and I moved to an exurb (Loudoun back in 2007) bought a townhouse and got on with it. Our families are kind and caring but don't live locally and don't help financially.

Small group, you need to sell that better because being in your 20s and saddled with kids living in some far flung exurb sounds like it sucks.

You do you. We still happily live in the same area (in a much nicer home) and are on track to retire early if we choose. What sounds so terrible about it? Not everyone desires to live in N. Arlington.

From an older perspective it doesn't sound horrible, but as a twenty something I'd have gnawed off my left foot before accepting that my future was having kids and living in Ashburn. NoVa would have been equally unappealing, frankly. My twenties were living in Hong Kong, Paris, and London and life was full of hope and opportunity. Accepting that my life would be considerably smaller at a young age would have been a rough pill to swallow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I feel like everyone is trying a little too hard to avoid the true answer to the infertility issues. Have children when you are younger. Even the issues highlighted in this article, and thank you to the author for highlighting the misogynistic tenor of infertility (it's NOT always the woman's fault!), many of which can be avoided by not waiting until your junk is ancient.

I get it, it's hugely inconvenient, you aren't as rich as you imagine you may be in your 30s/40s, you want to party and travel, etc.

I fully respect the choice to be child-free. But if you think you want kids, find a spouse and get on it. Don't spend another twenty years dancing around the reasons for infertility or fertility challenges, we know the answer. Have kids when you are younger!


Link for those of you with accounts, I don't know how to gift an article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/opinion/freeze-sperm-infertility-chemicals.html

I had a baby at 32. Sorry I didn’t live a dcum perfect life where I met my soul mate in college, got engaged at 25-26 and then had a baby before 30. I had no issues getting pregnant and I have a healthy child.

+1 "Have children when you are younger"! No thanks, I wanted to be happily married before I had kid. We married at 32 and had two healthy babies without fertility issues at 34 and 38.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I feel like everyone is trying a little too hard to avoid the true answer to the infertility issues. Have children when you are younger. Even the issues highlighted in this article, and thank you to the author for highlighting the misogynistic tenor of infertility (it's NOT always the woman's fault!), many of which can be avoided by not waiting until your junk is ancient.

I get it, it's hugely inconvenient, you aren't as rich as you imagine you may be in your 30s/40s, you want to party and travel, etc.

I fully respect the choice to be child-free. But if you think you want kids, find a spouse and get on it. Don't spend another twenty years dancing around the reasons for infertility or fertility challenges, we know the answer. Have kids when you are younger!


Link for those of you with accounts, I don't know how to gift an article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/opinion/freeze-sperm-infertility-chemicals.html

I had a baby at 32. Sorry I didn’t live a dcum perfect life where I met my soul mate in college, got engaged at 25-26 and then had a baby before 30. I had no issues getting pregnant and I have a healthy child.

+1 "Have children when you are younger"! No thanks, I wanted to be happily married before I had kid. We married at 32 and had two healthy babies without fertility issues at 34 and 38.

Stop with the false dichotomy! It's entirely possible to be happily married in your late twenties and have a baby at 30. It's also possible to be happily married for the first time in your mid thirties and have your first child in your late 30's.

I'm just so sick of the old parents claiming that there is "no way" someone who gets married earlier than they did is happy and thriving.