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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.  
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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![/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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