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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just pointing out that having women start having children in their 30s in not uncharted territory. My mom, like OP's, was in her early 20s when she had her first, but my Grandmother was 31, because she was too busy working through the Depression and defeating Hitler and all that to settle down. There were a lot of women who didn't have kids until after the war, and if that meant they were older, then they were older. I'm not sure what my point is, other than that we shouldn't think all the women of the past had babies young.

Also, if you wanted to settle down in your 20s and have kids, you could have probably accomplished that. You got to choose to wait for the right partner, the right career/educational path, etc. Don't forget the stifling effect that pressure to settle down and have kids can have on society.

My family has always had kids late. It's been at least 3 generations since any of the women on either my father or my mother's side has had kids in their 20s. My grandmother was 42 and her husband 52 when they had my father (40 with her first).

[Anonymous]

I think we all just do the best we can with what we have.

I was pregnant unexpectedly at 25 (was engaged to DH) so we became parents A LOT earlier than we planned to. Did we have financial support - yes, a little from my parents when we needed it early on and we are grateful for that. Did my career suffer? Yep. But it also led me to a slower-paced, passion-fueled career that I would certainly not have landed in had I dove headfirst into work at that age. We're very happy, and now that we're parents of an older child we are looking very much forward to being in our mid/late 40s when we're empty nesters. It's weird to know what we'll have peers raising toddlers at that time, but we are happy for how it's worked out for us.

Our neighbors who are 50 with elementary aged children are also mostly happy-seeming. And I'm sure their 20s/early 30s were much more fun and carefree and financially flush than ours were!

It's all a giant trade off, and we have far less control than we believe we do with these things.

[Anonymous]

LOL at the idea that 20+ year old people are not mature enough for marriage and children. They are, but they need to be in a society and a family that supports them. White American society unfortunately does not have that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I am 42. My daughter is 16 and was an accident. I was absolutely NOT mature enough to have her when I did. I wish I could have waited until around 38 or so. That's when I felt like I really had a handle on being an adult I felt good about, not just faking it by doing adult things. Never mind that I was on welfare and food stamps and DD has food insecurity."

Sorry, I don't intend to pick on you, just want to clarify something that occurred to me.

If you didn't have your daughter at 26, I don't think you would have felt like you had a handle on being an adult at 38.

It took 12 years of life experience with your daughter to figure things out and get your handle. It may never have happened without her.

To generalize, kids change everything and so seeing the other side is almost impossible. That is one of the problems with this type of debate.

I don't feel picked on at all, PP - we're cool. I am not saying it took me 12 years to get into a good groove parenting. I'm GREAT with my daughter. And I was from the moment she was born. I mean being an adult in terms of getting and keeping a good job, identifying and unlearning bad habits my parents taught me, learning to be comfortable setting boundaries, making good friends, etc. But I have always rocked parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The statistics for the longevity of early marriages are not good. I saw lots of classmates and family members marry young, have kids young, divorce and struggle to have the careers that they hoped for. Having kids outside of marriage is no better. Some people make it work, and that’s great, but not the norm.

As a woman, I chose to take my chances with future fertility in exchange for a solid, mature marriage/child raising partnership and and well established careers with good, reliable incomes.

When I think about what my life would be like if I had kids early I feel like I dodged a bullet.

+1 And those calling out the Midwest and South for having children younger, are neglecting to also say by 30 many of those couples who had babies in their early 20s are now divorced. Divorce is much more devasting to children and causes a much larger societal impact than having children in your late 30s.

[Anonymous]

My parents were 32 and 37 when they had me. My dad’s parents were mid 30s when they had him (first child) and my mom’s parents were 40 and 45 when they had her (4th child after a long break)

So, my grandparents all died when I was in my 20s except for maternal grandfathers who died when I was 3. It is too bad I didn’t know him, but my life wasn’t bad without young grandparents - just different.

My problem is my dad was a parent in his law firm and my parents owned a 6 bedroom Victorian by the time they had kids in their late 20s / early 30s. They are still in that home. By contrast we were finishing degrees and living in a studio (that I owned) when our first was born and now rent a two bedroom apartment in a different city and feel unsure about where we want to raise our kids long term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the idea that 20+ year old people are not mature enough for marriage and children. They are, but they need to be in a society and a family that supports them. White American society unfortunately does not have that.

This is not a white problem or an American problem. It’s global. And humanae vitae predicted it all 50 years ago.

[Anonymous]

My parents had me when they were 30, even though they got married at 21. They both lost their fathers when they were 26 and 27 years old. So nothing is guaranteed.

You're lamenting for a time when most women stopped working when they had kids, which made it easier to have kids at a younger age. They weren't thinking about developing a career first. So I guess you want to go back to a world where women are largely absent from the workplace?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I am 42. My daughter is 16 and was an accident. I was absolutely NOT mature enough to have her when I did. I wish I could have waited until around 38 or so. That's when I felt like I really had a handle on being an adult I felt good about, not just faking it by doing adult things. Never mind that I was on welfare and food stamps and DD has food insecurity."

I am 43 and my oldest will be 19 next week, so I was even younger than you when i started having kids.

We were not on welfare, food stamps, or food insecure. I was not "faking" doing adult things. The fact that you were is indicative of YOUR skills and abilities, and nothing to do with age.

[Anonymous]

I am 45 (almost 46!) and have an 11yo and a 6.5yo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the idea that 20+ year old people are not mature enough for marriage and children. They are, but they need to be in a society and a family that supports them. White American society unfortunately does not have that.

This is not a white problem or an American problem. It’s global. And humanae vitae predicted it all 50 years ago.

Not where my parents came from. The umc and mc women married in their 20s, have children, and have family support, even during graduate school, medical school, residency,etc. and that’s that. No drama, no waiting, fewer divorces, fewer fertility problems. Just an understanding that this is a family and no one does things on their own and you don’t leave when you are bored of your spouse.

[Anonymous]

My parents had me when they were both 19. Shotgun wedding and lots of problems, because essentially they were still like children themselves. Extended family stepped in when they could, but it didn't make for a loving stable family environment. They divorced after multiple years of bitter fighting which also involved us, the kids, because they never got a chance to mature and experience life as independent adults. Broken family and lots of therapy bills for me and a sibling. No, this is not a good way to be, no matter what your wet fantasies of how the "years past" were so much better and more harmonious family wise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, why do you assume everyone is married by 22 but then just chooses to goof off for the next 10 years and not have kids? Are you so ignornant to not understand that most people in metropolitan areas do not get married until they are late 20s/30s? Why do you think women are the only ones in control of when they get married?

OP here? How in the hell did you get from my post that I though everyone was getting married at 22? Quite the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like there has always been a progression based on the technology/invention/economics - in colonial times people had kids at like, what, 16 yrs old, then with the introduction of "modern" conveniences it was more like 18 yrs iat the turn of the century, and then by the 20th it was in the early 20s.
Here we are into the 21st century and people are having their first kids at 40 yrs old.

That's not true. In 1890, the average age of a first marriage for men was 26 years, and the average age of marriage for women was 22 years. That wasn't far off from what it was in colonial America. People assume that teens were routinely having babies in the past, but men had to be able to support a wife before they could marry. Probably more men and women never married at all because they couldn't afford to. Also, effective birth control wasn't widely available, so women had little control over how early and how many kids they had. And since life expectancy was shorter, people didn't necessarily know their grandparents for any longer.

Now, a high school degree is the bare minimum to be able to get a job, and college or professional training is almost always required to get a job that pays decently. When people need more education, they delay marriage. When raising kids is more expensive (people tend to frown on making your kids work, and child labor is mostly prohibited), people delay having kids and have fewer of them.

If people really cared about encouraging couples to have children, they'd support a stronger safety net, affordable quality child care, universal health care, free college, etc. Mostly, the people lamenting that women aren't having enough babies don't support those things. And listen to anyone crying about how they shouldn't have to pay for someone else's choice to have kids, or bitching about welfare for teen mothers. You want to treat it like a purely individual choice that you are responsible for, but then the rational choice is to have fewer children later. Want different outcomes? Create different incentives.

This is true. People mistakenly think it was normal for teens to get married in the past. The females generally were in their early 20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I do, but in the past, everyone started having kids in their early 20's and none of these things existed.

But then a family could live on one salary and women weren't suppose to have careers outside their homes. We can't live on one salary anymore.

You could, you just don’t want to.

Sure, we could. Buy an inexpensive house in a neighborhood with poorly rated schools, pinch pennies, have all the basic needs met (food, shelter) but not be able to save for things like trips and college. And then our kids would be at a disadvantage when trying to find their way in this increasingly competitive society. Everyone wants to give their family the best possible start in life and for most, it's not possible on one income.

If everyone started living on one income, prices would adjust and it would be possible for families to live comfortably.