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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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!

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

It's this but at the same time I think OP is right that there is this message out there that if you're smart you won't have kids young because kids ruin your life take all your time etc.  Of course this is true to some degree but it's exacerbated by lack social welfare benefits for women and children . I left college in 1991 knowing that I wasn't going to have any kids until at least age 30 or even settle down because I wanted to be smart. As it happened it was a decade more (age 40) that I had my first and I still wasn't sure I was ready.  I truly never thought about my fertility until around age 35 or so.  I did not have a lot of close women friends and never discussed these things with anyone--these messages I absorbed from the media.  I think we do spend a tremendous amount of time talking about the work children bring you and none at all talking about joy and benefits of being a parent--all the things that might make you curious and  willing to start earlier.  Motherhood in my mind was very much a story about the end of your own independent life.[/quote]

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