I wish society didn't encourage people to put off having kids.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I hope you support paid family leave and universal affordable childcare, and candidates that push for those policies.

This!

And I had my oldest when I was 21

NP. I do not support paid family leave or universal childcare. If you can't afford children, stop having them ..your kids are not the tax payer's financial responsibility.

Why not? All tax payers need younger generations. Who is going to care for you in your nursing home?

I paid for my kids, you pay for yours. Also, I do not expect my children to take care of me in my old age. I have paid into Medicare since my first job. Stop living above your means and you can stay home and take care of your own kids.

Everyone I’ve ever heard say this drives on public-funded roads, buys gas at far less than the true cost (ie the cost of our war in Iraq is not priced in), hires people who went to public schools, and lives safely because of publicly funded fire and police and military’s

Hey- I am proud to pay for the roads I drive in by paying taxes. If you don’t want to pay into society, stop driving.

Yep, and we won’t have any sympathy for her kids once they have kids and can’t afford childcare and can’t afford to stay home, much less take care of her. Then once she runs out of money and can’t afford being in a nursing home, let’s not give her Medicaid either.

She figures robots are going to change her depends and feed her the puree

I find that Americans tend to be very fatalistic about living well in old age. Maybe it's why they gorge themselves until they're obese and immobile?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Very glad I live in a society where women have the choice (and methods) to never have children. We still have a lot of work to do to get the point where it's not just assumed that every woman will or wants to be a broodmare.

+1000! I'm a 30yo woman who is doing my PhD and I have long decided that I am childfree by choice. My grandmother didn't have the same choices I have- she was illiterate and coerced into marriage and bore 7 children- with no pain meds. Her life sucked and I wish more people can realize just how recent it has been in human history for a woman to exercise her reproductive choices. Unless of course you're in Alabama.

I have an Ivy League PhD and 3 kids. You sound clueless.

Why does PP sound clueless? Women having control over their reproductive choices is a very recent development, even in the West. It's good that women can choose for themselves if and when they want children.

she sounds clueless because she is only 30 and “has long decided to be childless. how long can that be?
also she is clueless for using her grandma as relevant alternative to pursing a PhD. plenty of women have kids, careers and advanced degrees.

I'm the PP with the illiterate grandmother. I have never desired a child of my own and resent it when people question me about it. One Trumpster relative of my husband told me that it's my duty as a woman to reproduce. That's nuts. I'm happy for women who want to and get to be mothers but I also hope that they respect my being childfree. I would never question a mother and ask why she chose to have kids, but somehow that respect isn't mutual.

you are thirty and you have kids. so just shut up on the topic.
oh, and nobody cares if you have children. if you think they do you are not clueless but stupid.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am one of those women who put my education and career first and kept putting off kids because I thought I had plenty of time. Unfortunately, I started trying too late. I was 35 and had a horrible time conceiving. After a lot of money and treatments, I had my DD at 38. I am now 49 and so tired. I wish I had the energy my mom had when I was growing up. We are 20 years apart and best friends. I may have a PhD, a great career, and lots of money, but looking back, I wish I would have put more emphasis on life and not my career.

Yes, but consider the counterfactual. Not being able to have lots of money - not being able to afford a house, or one in a good school district, enrichment activities for children, savings for your own retirement, none of that if you have a kid at 20, like your mom did (and mine too). And then once the kids went to college - your own dimmer prospects without a good degree in an increasingly competitive job market.

Wow, what a generalization that is. I had my first child at 20, was a SAHM until my second child was 10, bought and sold five different houses while raising our kids, went to college and got a BS between 35 and 40, lived in literally the best school district in NoVa (I know, debatable, but I researched it before we moved there), and both my husband and I will enjoy a nice retirement without depending on our kids to provide it. My husband supported us first in the military and then later as a self-employed contractor. Don't assume how others manage their lives despite what your parents may or may not have done.

And BTW, I am more than thrilled to have had my kids young, now that they are adults and I have grandchildren I do not envy others my age still raising kids, no thanks!

So you didn't go to college until you were 35? I'd say you missed out on a lot then. Glad you're happy now, but I doubt that's a path many people want to take.

Having kids at 20 and then going to college or starting career at 30 is actually a well-trodden path by a lot of women who became very successful ... who are now in their 70s-80s. The judge I clerked for did exactly that -- 3 kids close together by late 20s, then started practicing law in her mid-30s. (She had actually finished law school prior to kids.) Alternatively, sometimes pregnant/parenting young women back then were fired from their jobs because of it, so their only option was to enroll in college or graduate school (that's what Ruth Bader Ginsburg did). All told, it doesn't seem like a terrible way to organize one's life, back then. But these days, I think we've well established that getting married in your very early 20s and having kids right away is not generally something that MEN want to do, or have the money to support given wages, housing costs, and student loan debt. Also, student loan debt means that most families won't be able to send a parent to college or graduate school once they've entered the thick of childrearing.

That's a lot of words that don't add up to much. College can be for a lot of things, not just the academics. I don't know how you could go to college at an older age and experience the social aspects of it. So while some people take that path and end up being successful, that doesn't mean it's a desirable path to take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had my first at 21. Unplanned. Financially it wasn’t easy, but it clearly wasn’t flat out impossible since I now have two advanced degrees. I was aggressive about seizing any supports and opportunities I could. I’m finally at income level DCUM thinks you need to be to have a child. I finished having kids over a decade ago. They are doing very well. I’m glad I didn’t miss out on them.

A cousin not much younger than me waited. And waited. And waited. She didn’t want to struggle like I did. Sadly, she struggled anyway. She’s no better off financially than I am and she doesn’t have the kids she planned to have someday. We’ve encouraged her to look at foster to adopt, but she is pretty despondent right now.

You realize that these two examples are meaningless? Anecdotes don't equal data. And for every one of your cousins, I have at least three dozen friends who waited to have kids until their 30's and are now financially better off and way happier.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Very glad I live in a society where women have the choice (and methods) to never have children. We still have a lot of work to do to get the point where it's not just assumed that every woman will or wants to be a broodmare.

+1000! I'm a 30yo woman who is doing my PhD and I have long decided that I am childfree by choice. My grandmother didn't have the same choices I have- she was illiterate and coerced into marriage and bore 7 children- with no pain meds. Her life sucked and I wish more people can realize just how recent it has been in human history for a woman to exercise her reproductive choices. Unless of course you're in Alabama.

I have an Ivy League PhD and 3 kids. You sound clueless.

Why does PP sound clueless? Women having control over their reproductive choices is a very recent development, even in the West. It's good that women can choose for themselves if and when they want children.

she sounds clueless because she is only 30 and “has long decided to be childless. how long can that be?
also she is clueless for using her grandma as relevant alternative to pursing a PhD. plenty of women have kids, careers and advanced degrees.

I'm the PP with the illiterate grandmother. I have never desired a child of my own and resent it when people question me about it. One Trumpster relative of my husband told me that it's my duty as a woman to reproduce. That's nuts. I'm happy for women who want to and get to be mothers but I also hope that they respect my being childfree. I would never question a mother and ask why she chose to have kids, but somehow that respect isn't mutual.

You will have better luck finding people who ‘respect’ your being childfree if you don’t troll parenting forums. It seems like you need lots of validation for your choice not to have kids from those who have. Nobody cares if you have kids or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think about this too. My mom was 25 when she had me; I was 30 when I had my first. It's only a difference of 5 years but when I think about where she was at 45 and where I'll be, it feels like a huge gap.

But - my parents struggled a lot when they were younger. Now they are happy and it all worked out, but when they were in their late 20s with three small kids, my mom didn't work at all and my dad had a mediocre job. They lived paycheck to paycheck for a long time and rented until I was 6 years old. Compare that to me and H, who waited a few years, got graduate degrees and work experience - we have a SERIOUSLY different life and financial situation than they did. We can afford good childcare, we own our house, we travel. It's hard not to look at my parents now, retired in their 60s with grandkids and plenty of disposable income, and not feel like they did it right; but I'd still probably rather do it my way in the scheme of things.

I agree that we encourage people to wait too much though. When I got pregnant at 29 people acted like I was a teen mom. But I'm very happy that when I'm 50 years old my kids will be out of the house and I can start thinking about my next phase of life (living wherever I want, retiring, traveling, etc.) whereas some of my friends' kids will just be starting middle school D:

Same here. I know some 50 year olds with elementary aged kids. I understand that sometimes these things are out of our control, but I’m so tired at 40 with an 8 and 10yo, I can’t imagine having a new born at this age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very glad I live in a society where women have the choice (and methods) to never have children. We still have a lot of work to do to get the point where it's not just assumed that every woman will or wants to be a broodmare.

+1000! I'm a 30yo woman who is doing my PhD and I have long decided that I am childfree by choice. My grandmother didn't have the same choices I have- she was illiterate and coerced into marriage and bore 7 children- with no pain meds. Her life sucked and I wish more people can realize just how recent it has been in human history for a woman to exercise her reproductive choices. Unless of course you're in Alabama.

I have an Ivy League PhD and 3 kids. You sound clueless.

Why does PP sound clueless? Women having control over their reproductive choices is a very recent development, even in the West. It's good that women can choose for themselves if and when they want children.

she sounds clueless because she is only 30 and “has long decided to be childless. how long can that be?
also she is clueless for using her grandma as relevant alternative to pursing a PhD. plenty of women have kids, careers and advanced degrees.

I'm the PP with the illiterate grandmother. I have never desired a child of my own and resent it when people question me about it. One Trumpster relative of my husband told me that it's my duty as a woman to reproduce. That's nuts. I'm happy for women who want to and get to be mothers but I also hope that they respect my being childfree. I would never question a mother and ask why she chose to have kids, but somehow that respect isn't mutual.

You will have better luck finding people who ‘respect’ your being childfree if you don’t troll parenting forums. It seems like you need lots of validation for your choice not to have kids from those who have. Nobody cares if you have kids or not.

I hope you're not one of those nosy people at parties who grill women on their childbearing intentions then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very glad I live in a society where women have the choice (and methods) to never have children. We still have a lot of work to do to get the point where it's not just assumed that every woman will or wants to be a broodmare.

+1000! I'm a 30yo woman who is doing my PhD and I have long decided that I am childfree by choice. My grandmother didn't have the same choices I have- she was illiterate and coerced into marriage and bore 7 children- with no pain meds. Her life sucked and I wish more people can realize just how recent it has been in human history for a woman to exercise her reproductive choices. Unless of course you're in Alabama.

I have an Ivy League PhD and 3 kids. You sound clueless.

Why does PP sound clueless? Women having control over their reproductive choices is a very recent development, even in the West. It's good that women can choose for themselves if and when they want children.

she sounds clueless because she is only 30 and “has long decided to be childless. how long can that be?
also she is clueless for using her grandma as relevant alternative to pursing a PhD. plenty of women have kids, careers and advanced degrees.

I'm the PP with the illiterate grandmother. I have never desired a child of my own and resent it when people question me about it. One Trumpster relative of my husband told me that it's my duty as a woman to reproduce. That's nuts. I'm happy for women who want to and get to be mothers but I also hope that they respect my being childfree. I would never question a mother and ask why she chose to have kids, but somehow that respect isn't mutual.

you are thirty and you have kids. so just shut up on the topic.
oh, and nobody cares if you have children. if you think they do you are not clueless but stupid.

You're stupid for not processing what I wrote. I'm 30 and childfree, I don't have kids. Wtf have you been smoking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very glad I live in a society where women have the choice (and methods) to never have children. We still have a lot of work to do to get the point where it's not just assumed that every woman will or wants to be a broodmare.

+1000! I'm a 30yo woman who is doing my PhD and I have long decided that I am childfree by choice. My grandmother didn't have the same choices I have- she was illiterate and coerced into marriage and bore 7 children- with no pain meds. Her life sucked and I wish more people can realize just how recent it has been in human history for a woman to exercise her reproductive choices. Unless of course you're in Alabama.

I have an Ivy League PhD and 3 kids. You sound clueless.

Why does PP sound clueless? Women having control over their reproductive choices is a very recent development, even in the West. It's good that women can choose for themselves if and when they want children.

she sounds clueless because she is only 30 and “has long decided to be childless. how long can that be?
also she is clueless for using her grandma as relevant alternative to pursing a PhD. plenty of women have kids, careers and advanced degrees.

I'm the PP with the illiterate grandmother. I have never desired a child of my own and resent it when people question me about it. One Trumpster relative of my husband told me that it's my duty as a woman to reproduce. That's nuts. I'm happy for women who want to and get to be mothers but I also hope that they respect my being childfree. I would never question a mother and ask why she chose to have kids, but somehow that respect isn't mutual.

You will have better luck finding people who ‘respect’ your being childfree if you don’t troll parenting forums. It seems like you need lots of validation for your choice not to have kids from those who have. Nobody cares if you have kids or not.

I hope you're not one of those nosy people at parties who grill women on their childbearing intentions then.

I didn't have a baby until I was 36 and no one ever "grilled" me at a party about having kids.

Maybe stop hanging out with Trumpsters?

[Anonymous]

Living in DC really skewed my idea about the right age to have kids. I saw and worked with so many older women who were pregnant, it seemed very natural to wait until late 30s early 40s to have a baby, and living here very much normalized that for me. What I didn’t see or have any appreciation for as a younger woman was the difficulty many of them must have endured to be pregnant, I.e. the infertility, miscarriages, IVF, etc. Because people rarely talk about that, all you see is the pregnant mom and you go to the baby shower and then you see the cute baby photos/announcement. So we waited to get pregnant and then struggled with infertility, and then I sustained a life altering birth injury that I would probably not have sustained should we have decided to have kids a decade earlier.

While I take responsibility for my choices, I, for one, will not continue to remain silent about the sacrifices to I made to become a mom and the challenges of mothering at an older age to younger women who are looking up to me. We owe it to each other to be fully honest about the benefits and drawbacks of being an older FTM. Personally I wish we had not waited so long, and had kids when we were younger and had more energy. It also would have meant we could have had the option of a bigger family.

That said, if DH and I also hadn’t been strapped with nearly 100K of student loan debt and had our careers take a hit with the Great Recession, I also think we would have been able to contemplate kids earlier because we would have had more money to afford childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Living in DC really skewed my idea about the right age to have kids. I saw and worked with so many older women who were pregnant, it seemed very natural to wait until late 30s early 40s to have a baby, and living here very much normalized that for me. What I didn’t see or have any appreciation for as a younger woman was the difficulty many of them must have endured to be pregnant, I.e. the infertility, miscarriages, IVF, etc. Because people rarely talk about that, all you see is the pregnant mom and you go to the baby shower and then you see the cute baby photos/announcement. So we waited to get pregnant and then struggled with infertility, and then I sustained a life altering birth injury that I would probably not have sustained should we have decided to have kids a decade earlier.

While I take responsibility for my choices, I, for one, will not continue to remain silent about the sacrifices to I made to become a mom and the challenges of mothering at an older age to younger women who are looking up to me. We owe it to each other to be fully honest about the benefits and drawbacks of being an older FTM. Personally I wish we had not waited so long, and had kids when we were younger and had more energy. It also would have meant we could have had the option of a bigger family.

That said, if DH and I also hadn’t been strapped with nearly 100K of student loan debt and had our careers take a hit with the Great Recession, I also think we would have been able to contemplate kids earlier because we would have had more money to afford childcare.

Good for you but no woman should think that pregnancy and childbirth will be injury free even in youth. It's a traumatic ordeal regardless of how old or young you are.

[Anonymous]

OP have you never read a friggin book?
At 58, I grew up with the women who had kids young. Then there wasn't enough money for college for them, they could only get crap jobs, and their husband drops them for the trophy wife when they hit their 50s.

That is reality.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who had 3 kids before 30. She has a college degree. She is now in early forties and seems to be experiencing some kind of a midlife crisis. She spends all her time online (insta, FB) flirting if not having an affair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very glad I live in a society where women have the choice (and methods) to never have children. We still have a lot of work to do to get the point where it's not just assumed that every woman will or wants to be a broodmare.

+1000! I'm a 30yo woman who is doing my PhD and I have long decided that I am childfree by choice. My grandmother didn't have the same choices I have- she was illiterate and coerced into marriage and bore 7 children- with no pain meds. Her life sucked and I wish more people can realize just how recent it has been in human history for a woman to exercise her reproductive choices. Unless of course you're in Alabama.

I have an Ivy League PhD and 3 kids. You sound clueless.

Why does PP sound clueless? Women having control over their reproductive choices is a very recent development, even in the West. It's good that women can choose for themselves if and when they want children.

she sounds clueless because she is only 30 and “has long decided to be childless. how long can that be?
also she is clueless for using her grandma as relevant alternative to pursing a PhD. plenty of women have kids, careers and advanced degrees.

I'm the PP with the illiterate grandmother. I have never desired a child of my own and resent it when people question me about it. One Trumpster relative of my husband told me that it's my duty as a woman to reproduce. That's nuts. I'm happy for women who want to and get to be mothers but I also hope that they respect my being childfree. I would never question a mother and ask why she chose to have kids, but somehow that respect isn't mutual.

you are thirty and you have kids. so just shut up on the topic.
oh, and nobody cares if you have children. if you think they do you are not clueless but stupid.

You're stupid for not processing what I wrote. I'm 30 and childfree, I don't have kids. Wtf have you been smoking?

it’s a typo, moron, who hasn’t finished her PhD yet.

[Anonymous]

I am very future-oriented and decided to get pregnant at 27 because I wanted to space my children apart, with time for a third if I wanted, and not feel pressured to work into my 60s to pay for college.

So, I got married at 27, immediately got pregnant, and had a kid 11 months later. People were sort of shocked that I had kids so "young" but they weren't thinking long term, IMO. I was educated, making 6 figures (as was my husband) and knew what I wanted. People really shouldn't try to advise others, either way, about when to have kids because we all have different priorities.