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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Most people are done with undergrad by 22 and by 25, at least one of the spouse is working in a professional full time job with health insurance etc.

I want you to go look at the entry level job market and see just how hard it is to get a job right now

Yeah you have no idea what the job market is like for 25-year-olds these days

DP - I’m not pushing for people to have a baby at 24-25 (unless they want to!) But I do think younger people, both men and women, need to start dating with intent to be in a committed relationship that will hopefully lead to marriage, while they are, yes, still in college. If they don’t find someone, at least they’ve had actual relationship experience, not just dating and hookups. That is important too.

I think the goal really should be marriage in your mid 20s and a first baby before you turn 30. I didn’t quite make this personally, I was married at 25 but didn’t have my first kid until 31 due to … unexplained infertility. Now imagine if I had married at 30, we spent 2-3 years doing whatever, then started getting serious about having kids at 33, and found out about infertility then. Now you’re getting close to the age of decreased fertility at 35. Now you might not be able to wait it out or do less invasive/less expensive things like progesterone supplementation or traditional IUI. Everything that doesn’t work takes months, and you lose time, and maybe don’t have the family size that you want, or it costs much more money than it might have 5 years earlier and affects your health and wellness too.

And yet some other people don't have that same goal. Crazy how that works.

Sure, don’t have kids at all and live a child free life, or just have 1, or do whatever you want. But you can’t be surprised and upset if you have to go down the route of expensive and invasive fertility treatments in your mid-late 30s or if you end up with a smaller family size than you originally imagined.

And it’s not just a family size issue, earlier marriage sets you up for more financial security early on, regardless of if/when kids come into the picture. This focus on casual dating and you have to be financially secure before marriage is hurting middle class people in their 20s.

None of the people you're criticizing are surprised or upset. It only seems to be OTHER women (and way too many men) that are upset about women waiting to have children. It's none of your business.

MYOFB

[Anonymous]

^^^ that was a +1

[Anonymous]

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.

Social media isn’t helping this. 28 year olds think they are owed a farm kitchen and a pool, not a 30 year old townhouse.

Nah, I think most 28 year olds just want a decent place to live. Your idea that they have champagne tastes is also fueled by social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Daycare is optional if one parent makes a good (enough) salary and has health insurance. The other parent can stay home.

Buying a house is optional. Rent an apartment (we lived in a one-bedroom until our first was one) instead of buying a house. Only have one car. Don't buy all the fancy baby stuff.

If you don't want to do this, don't. Roll the dice and wait until you are older.

But don't complain that you can't afford to have a child. You just don't want to live cheaply or slightly uncomfortably.

I don't know any men in their 20s that make enough money to provide for a sahm and kids, plus saving to buy a house. DH and I made great salaries by our 30s, but in our 20s we both made like 75k. It was good when combined at 150k, but we couldn't have lived off of 75k total.

Of course you could. Many people live on much less. Is it desirable? That’s debatable. But of course it’s possible.

[Anonymous]

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.

Social media isn’t helping this. 28 year olds think they are owed a farm kitchen and a pool, not a 30 year old townhouse.

Nah, I think most 28 year olds just want a decent place to live. Your idea that they have champagne tastes is also fueled by social media.

Disagree. My good friend is a realtor. All the 20 somethings want fully updated houses. No honey oak cabinets and bright brass fixtures for them- even if it were very affordable. They’d rather shell out $$$$ for the (cheaply) flipped updated house

[Anonymous]

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.

Social media isn’t helping this. 28 year olds think they are owed a farm kitchen and a pool, not a 30 year old townhouse.

Nah, I think most 28 year olds just want a decent place to live. Your idea that they have champagne tastes is also fueled by social media.

Disagree. My good friend is a realtor. All the 20 somethings want fully updated houses. No honey oak cabinets and bright brass fixtures for them- even if it were very affordable. They’d rather shell out $$$$ for the (cheaply) flipped updated house

I have a coworker who chose a flipped house in a high-crime neighborhood over a larger house in a nice neighborhood because of the icky 90s kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Most people are done with undergrad by 22 and by 25, at least one of the spouse is working in a professional full time job with health insurance etc.

I want you to go look at the entry level job market and see just how hard it is to get a job right now

Yeah you have no idea what the job market is like for 25-year-olds these days

DP - I’m not pushing for people to have a baby at 24-25 (unless they want to!) But I do think younger people, both men and women, need to start dating with intent to be in a committed relationship that will hopefully lead to marriage, while they are, yes, still in college. If they don’t find someone, at least they’ve had actual relationship experience, not just dating and hookups. That is important too.

I think the goal really should be marriage in your mid 20s and a first baby before you turn 30. I didn’t quite make this personally, I was married at 25 but didn’t have my first kid until 31 due to … unexplained infertility. Now imagine if I had married at 30, we spent 2-3 years doing whatever, then started getting serious about having kids at 33, and found out about infertility then. Now you’re getting close to the age of decreased fertility at 35. Now you might not be able to wait it out or do less invasive/less expensive things like progesterone supplementation or traditional IUI. Everything that doesn’t work takes months, and you lose time, and maybe don’t have the family size that you want, or it costs much more money than it might have 5 years earlier and affects your health and wellness too.

And yet some other people don't have that same goal. Crazy how that works.

Sure, don’t have kids at all and live a child free life, or just have 1, or do whatever you want. But you can’t be surprised and upset if you have to go down the route of expensive and invasive fertility treatments in your mid-late 30s or if you end up with a smaller family size than you originally imagined.

And it’s not just a family size issue, earlier marriage sets you up for more financial security early on, regardless of if/when kids come into the picture. This focus on casual dating and you have to be financially secure before marriage is hurting middle class people in their 20s.

I don't think it's financial security, I think people are too afraid of their fun life stopping when kids come. My cousin got married at 34 and told me she wasn't ready for kids because she still had a lot of travel destinations on her bucket list, and she loved sleeping in and brunch on weekends. As if those things could never happen again! The little kid years go by fast but no one tells people that, they make it sound like a jail sentence.

I think the longer people live independently the more adverse to change they are.

[Anonymous]

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.

Truth. Also give 1 year maternity leave.

[Anonymous]

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.

Social media isn’t helping this. 28 year olds think they are owed a farm kitchen and a pool, not a 30 year old townhouse.

Nah, I think most 28 year olds just want a decent place to live. Your idea that they have champagne tastes is also fueled by social media.

Disagree. My good friend is a realtor. All the 20 somethings want fully updated houses. No honey oak cabinets and bright brass fixtures for them- even if it were very affordable. They’d rather shell out $$$$ for the (cheaply) flipped updated house

Statistics tell a different story—we’re talking about all 20 somethings in the US. Your friend is a realtor for a very small subset of people. Surely you realize this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Most people are done with undergrad by 22 and by 25, at least one of the spouse is working in a professional full time job with health insurance etc.

I want you to go look at the entry level job market and see just how hard it is to get a job right now

Yeah you have no idea what the job market is like for 25-year-olds these days

DP - I’m not pushing for people to have a baby at 24-25 (unless they want to!) But I do think younger people, both men and women, need to start dating with intent to be in a committed relationship that will hopefully lead to marriage, while they are, yes, still in college. If they don’t find someone, at least they’ve had actual relationship experience, not just dating and hookups. That is important too.

I think the goal really should be marriage in your mid 20s and a first baby before you turn 30. I didn’t quite make this personally, I was married at 25 but didn’t have my first kid until 31 due to … unexplained infertility. Now imagine if I had married at 30, we spent 2-3 years doing whatever, then started getting serious about having kids at 33, and found out about infertility then. Now you’re getting close to the age of decreased fertility at 35. Now you might not be able to wait it out or do less invasive/less expensive things like progesterone supplementation or traditional IUI. Everything that doesn’t work takes months, and you lose time, and maybe don’t have the family size that you want, or it costs much more money than it might have 5 years earlier and affects your health and wellness too.

And yet some other people don't have that same goal. Crazy how that works.

Sure, don’t have kids at all and live a child free life, or just have 1, or do whatever you want. But you can’t be surprised and upset if you have to go down the route of expensive and invasive fertility treatments in your mid-late 30s or if you end up with a smaller family size than you originally imagined.

And it’s not just a family size issue, earlier marriage sets you up for more financial security early on, regardless of if/when kids come into the picture. This focus on casual dating and you have to be financially secure before marriage is hurting middle class people in their 20s.

None of the people you're criticizing are surprised or upset. It only seems to be OTHER women (and way too many men) that are upset about women waiting to have children. It's none of your business.

This. I got married at 34. Decided to have a kid at 36. Had said kid at 37. Thought about having another at 39 but decided against it. I sometimes feel a little sad I didn't have a second child, but mostly I'm happy with the one I have and glad we didn't overextend ourselves financially because we can afford to give our one kid a really good life. I've never expressed any surprise or anger over the outcomes of any of my choices, which I made with my eyes open and continue to feel were the right ones for me.

However, if someone says to me "what would it have taken to convince you to get married or have kids earlier, or to have more kids, " I will tell you honestly that I might have been able to do this if there was less of a penalty against women for taking time off to have kids, if childcare wasn't so prohibitively expensive, if I didn't have to save so much for both my own retirement and my kid's college education, and if society was more family and kid friendly so that I could have felt more confident that having a kid in my 20s or early 30s wouldn't have meant becoming isolated socially. That's not me complaining or being surprised, but since people often state that they want people to marry and have kids earlier, that's what I think it would take to make that feasible in the US for more people.

[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.

Social media isn’t helping this. 28 year olds think they are owed a farm kitchen and a pool, not a 30 year old townhouse.

Nah, I think most 28 year olds just want a decent place to live. Your idea that they have champagne tastes is also fueled by social media.

Disagree. My good friend is a realtor. All the 20 somethings want fully updated houses. No honey oak cabinets and bright brass fixtures for them- even if it were very affordable. They’d rather shell out $$$$ for the (cheaply) flipped updated house

I have a coworker who chose a flipped house in a high-crime neighborhood over a larger house in a nice neighborhood because of the icky 90s kitchen.

Was it the icky 90s kitchen or was it dated systems and appliances that would have cost a lot of money to upgrade and replace as they inevitably failed? That's how we ended up in our flipped house. We wanted a fixer upper that we could put sweat equity into over time. The problem was that all the ones we looked at needed major investments within a short time frame -- new roof, hot water heater, kitchen appliances nearing the end of their lives, dated electrical and plumbing, foundation issues. We were first time home buyers and were scraping together money for our down payment. We were very nervous about getting hit with a repair that would cost 5, 10, or 20k within a few years of moving into the house, when buying the house was already stretching our finances thin. So we wound up buying a flipped house in a slightly less desirable but adjacent neighborhood because even though we didn't love the flip, we knew that all systems and appliances (including the roof, HVAC, water heater) were all brand new. And it was the right move because we didn't have to spend almost any money on maintenance for the first 10 years we lived there, which allowed us to save a lot more money.

We weren't freaking out over 90s kitchens or dated tile. We just didn't want to buy a money pit we couldn't afford. I think this is the primary reason a lot of first time buyers avoid fixer uppers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Most people are done with undergrad by 22 and by 25, at least one of the spouse is working in a professional full time job with health insurance etc.

I want you to go look at the entry level job market and see just how hard it is to get a job right now

Yeah you have no idea what the job market is like for 25-year-olds these days

DP - I’m not pushing for people to have a baby at 24-25 (unless they want to!) But I do think younger people, both men and women, need to start dating with intent to be in a committed relationship that will hopefully lead to marriage, while they are, yes, still in college. If they don’t find someone, at least they’ve had actual relationship experience, not just dating and hookups. That is important too.

I think the goal really should be marriage in your mid 20s and a first baby before you turn 30. I didn’t quite make this personally, I was married at 25 but didn’t have my first kid until 31 due to … unexplained infertility. Now imagine if I had married at 30, we spent 2-3 years doing whatever, then started getting serious about having kids at 33, and found out about infertility then. Now you’re getting close to the age of decreased fertility at 35. Now you might not be able to wait it out or do less invasive/less expensive things like progesterone supplementation or traditional IUI. Everything that doesn’t work takes months, and you lose time, and maybe don’t have the family size that you want, or it costs much more money than it might have 5 years earlier and affects your health and wellness too.

And yet some other people don't have that same goal. Crazy how that works.

Sure, don’t have kids at all and live a child free life, or just have 1, or do whatever you want. But you can’t be surprised and upset if you have to go down the route of expensive and invasive fertility treatments in your mid-late 30s or if you end up with a smaller family size than you originally imagined.

And it’s not just a family size issue, earlier marriage sets you up for more financial security early on, regardless of if/when kids come into the picture. This focus on casual dating and you have to be financially secure before marriage is hurting middle class people in their 20s.

So did you have really bad experiences with infertility treatments and that's why you're projecting it on to everybody else?

[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.

Social media isn’t helping this. 28 year olds think they are owed a farm kitchen and a pool, not a 30 year old townhouse.

Nah, I think most 28 year olds just want a decent place to live. Your idea that they have champagne tastes is also fueled by social media.

Disagree. My good friend is a realtor. All the 20 somethings want fully updated houses. No honey oak cabinets and bright brass fixtures for them- even if it were very affordable. They’d rather shell out $$$$ for the (cheaply) flipped updated house

Statistics tell a different story—we’re talking about all 20 somethings in the US. Your friend is a realtor for a very small subset of people. Surely you realize this.

Yeah we are talking about these subset of 20 somethings who have enough money for a down payment, likely due to a combination of generational wealth and working in a very lucrative job.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting, majority of my friends and I had babies in our late 30s and did not need infertility treatments. I think the OP is projecting their negative experiences onto other people.

I'm really grateful for the family that I have in the timeline that I'm currently in I don't think I would have been happier having children at age 26 vs having them at 36.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Daycare is optional if one parent makes a good (enough) salary and has health insurance. The other parent can stay home.

Buying a house is optional. Rent an apartment (we lived in a one-bedroom until our first was one) instead of buying a house. Only have one car. Don't buy all the fancy baby stuff.

If you don't want to do this, don't. Roll the dice and wait until you are older.

But don't complain that you can't afford to have a child. You just don't want to live cheaply or slightly uncomfortably.

Lots of young people already do this. They plan to continue renting, they don't own cars (or even get licenses). They thrift.

But they know their jobs aren't secure. Getting laid off sucks. Getting laid off with a mortgage, a stay at home spouse and a couple kids sucks even more.