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Anonymous wrote:Surprised by all these positive anecdotes. Every man i know who married young cheats.

It's because these posts are all by the wives.

Interesting, I can share the opposite insight. The men I know who got married younger (generally to their college sweethearts) seem to still be very in love with them. The men who didn't get married until older and had a lot more dating experience are the ones who look back wistfully at that fun hot carefree girl from their youth that "got away", and feel like something in their marriage is missing

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised by all these positive anecdotes. Every man i know who married young cheats.

It's because these posts are all by the wives.

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Anonymous wrote:I find both men and women, but especially women (probably since they do the majority of child care) look soooooo much older if they had kids young. Not just compared to their childless peers- but when they get older and things have equalized, the ones who had kids young just look more haggard to my eye. Generalizing, of course.

Yikes lady. Feeling insecure and trying to justify your own choices much? This is objectively not true

Shrug. It's what I've seen, time and time again. But... to each their own.

You are clueless. As a woman who became a parent in my 30s, having kids older wrecks absolute HAVOC on an older person. There is no comparison. My niece recently had a baby at 23 (5 months ago) and we just got back from the beach where she was parading around in her bikini, but cheeks barely covered. Not a single inch of lose skin or flab. Young bodies bounce. Young bodies are biologically designed to bear children.

You will not find a single older mother who will tell you that having kids at an older age will perserve your looks. It's the absolute down fall into rapid middle age.

But it's not the kids that age you, it's the actual age. Your niece has nice buttcheeks because she's 23, no baby will change that assuming her bum looked great to begin with. By 40, buttcheeks are going, whether you've had kids or not. It's not like a pregnant 40-year old had a perfect body before she got pregnant. Your body will be aged by the number of years it spent walking the earth, not by pregnancies.

No compare women who have never had babies to ones who have. Even when you lose all the weight, your hips and even ribs often spread wider to accommodate your uterus and they never go back. Women who have never had babies are usually narrower, giving them a leaner, much chicer look.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I find both men and women, but especially women (probably since they do the majority of child care) look soooooo much older if they had kids young. Not just compared to their childless peers- but when they get older and things have equalized, the ones who had kids young just look more haggard to my eye. Generalizing, of course.

Yikes lady. Feeling insecure and trying to justify your own choices much? This is objectively not true

Shrug. It's what I've seen, time and time again. But... to each their own.

You are clueless. As a woman who became a parent in my 30s, having kids older wrecks absolute HAVOC on an older person. There is no comparison. My niece recently had a baby at 23 (5 months ago) and we just got back from the beach where she was parading around in her bikini, but cheeks barely covered. Not a single inch of lose skin or flab. Young bodies bounce. Young bodies are biologically designed to bear children.

You will not find a single older mother who will tell you that having kids at an older age will perserve your looks. It's the absolute down fall into rapid middle age.

But it's not the kids that age you, it's the actual age. Your niece has nice buttcheeks because she's 23, no baby will change that assuming her bum looked great to begin with. By 40, buttcheeks are going, whether you've had kids or not. It's not like a pregnant 40-year old had a perfect body before she got pregnant. Your body will be aged by the number of years it spent walking the earth, not by pregnancies.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find both men and women, but especially women (probably since they do the majority of child care) look soooooo much older if they had kids young. Not just compared to their childless peers- but when they get older and things have equalized, the ones who had kids young just look more haggard to my eye. Generalizing, of course.

Yikes lady. Feeling insecure and trying to justify your own choices much? This is objectively not true

Shrug. It's what I've seen, time and time again. But... to each their own.

You are clueless. As a woman who became a parent in my 30s, having kids older wrecks absolute HAVOC on an older person. There is no comparison. My niece recently had a baby at 23 (5 months ago) and we just got back from the beach where she was parading around in her bikini, but cheeks barely covered. Not a single inch of lose skin or flab. Young bodies bounce. Young bodies are biologically designed to bear children.

You will not find a single older mother who will tell you that having kids at an older age will perserve your looks. It's the absolute down fall into rapid middle age.

Anonymous wrote:DH and I got married at 24 in the middle of our PhD program and are now 29. I think we are absolutely a great match for one another personality-wise and temperament-wise, but the downside to getting married so young has been dealing with a lot of career "two body" problem issues that perhaps we were not mature enough to handle well. We have done long distance for stints of time on and off for the past few years, and he recently took a faculty job in an area that has very limited job prospects for me, which has led to a lot of resentment. If I get lucky, I might be able to find employment in the city he is relocating to in the next year or two (there is only one employer outside of the university in the area that fits my expertise), but if not, I'm not sure how we are going to resolve this. Basically, I can give up or entirely change my career, he can give up his incredibly competitive dream job, or we can move on from one another.

We have spent the past year fighting about how his dream (to be a tenure track research professor) has been extremely disruptive to our lives due to the fact that a serious academic job search is a national one. He was adamant about wanting to be a professor, and I harbored a lot of resentment about how he was unwilling to at least apply for and seriously consider jobs outside of academia (such as in industry or government) where we might both be able to find jobs in our respective subfields in the same geographic area more easily. Aside from the aspect of personal professional fulfillment, I also don't want to raise a family on one faculty salary, even in a lower COL area. We had considered trying to start a family earlier, but there was a series of setbacks and opportunities that have made it challenging to be in the same city for long stretches of time without sacrificing a lot of career opportunities. It started when we were not able to coordinate our graduation dates, because his PhD advisor moved universities and department put pressure on my husband to graduate early. I realize that prioritizing our career aspirations is a choice. But at this point, despite getting married young, it doesn't mean we are having kids any earlier than those who got married later.

If I had more perspective and didn't get married so young, I would have better appreciated how challenging balancing professional ambitions of two spouses can be, especially when you have very specialized training. Of course, you can't help who you fall in love with, and perhaps if I hadn't married my husband, I would have met someone who I had to work out these issues with anyway.

Anonymous wrote:Surprised by all these positive anecdotes. Every man i know who married young cheats.

Anonymous wrote:I started dating DH at 22. Married at 25 when I graduated from law school. Had kid at 27 & 29. I just had my 18th wedding anniversary. Kids are now 13 & 15.

Getting married was 100% the right thing for me to do, and I have never seriously regretted it or questioned the decision. I wasn't trying to get married young, or thinking of marriage when I met DH. It just happened when it happened.

Having kids before 30 was 80% the right decision. Looking back, I wish I had taken more time to travel and be carefree with less responsibility. I was pretty young, and I should have had plenty of time to enjoy being in my 20s before the responsibility of kids. But, as it turned out, I had very complicated pregnancies and both babies were premies, plus a couple of miscarriages. If I had delayed having kids, I might not have been able to carry to term. In fact, I wanted a 3rd, but was strongly advised by my OB to stop while I was ahead. So, I'm thankful I went ahead when aid did.

The nice thing is that I am in my early 40s now, and have reached a place where DH and I can go spur of the moment dinners, and date nights and movies without worrying about childcare. My younger DC will head to college before I turn 50, with most of my children's college education save for. So DH and I will still be young enough, and have the money available to travel and enjoy our freedom. Down the road, we will also hopefully be young enough to really be involved with grandkids.

The other nice thing was that I quickly realized that motherhood and biglaw did not mesh well for me, and went Fed. I ended up doing something I love, low stress and with great work-life balance. I probably could have been richer or more high powered if I had delayed kids, but I doubt I would be happier.

So, it worked for me. But, like a lot of things in life, it is largely about choosing to be thankful for what you have, and not playing the grass is greener game.

Anonymous wrote:Wow so basically marrying early and having children young is a great thing!

Anonymous wrote:Married at 21, three kids by early 30s, happily married 15 years later. Both DH and I have professional degrees and work FT outside of the house. It was hard to go through grad school and early career with little kids but I wouldn't change a thing. I feel very lucky to have found the right partner in college. There are certainly advantages to having kids later as well, so I think you have to accept the hand you are dealt. Our friends who are just starting out with having their first in their early 30s had a lot more fun in their 20s. We missed out on that but hope to get to travel once the kids are older.

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Anonymous wrote:While I wouldn't trade my life for anything, I would *love* to have had my kids 5 years earlier. I had them at almost-36 and just-turned-39. Being an empty nester by my early 50's would be incredibly.

Further, I'm totally envious of my SIL, who had her first at 18, and two more by age 24. Now, at 39, she has one in college and two in high school. Obviously, the teen mom part is not ideal, but... it certainly has its benefits!

I agree. I am a poster above and I forgot to mention that because of the age difference with my kids we are very close. I think it makes a huge difference in parent-child relations if you are 20 years or 40 years apart with your child.

I agree. My mom is 20years older than me. I'm 40, she's 60 and my kids are tweens. She's been a huge part of our lives and is incredibly physically fit. I would not be a bit suprised if she lives to meet her great grandkids. She takes my kids to her summer house in Maine from mid July to the mid August and they get to have the quintessential summers in coastal Maine hiking in Acadia, eating lobster rolls and digging up clams. Since she's only 60 and fit she has a lot of energy to keep up.

At this point, my mom is like a great friend. We travel together, meet for happy hour and talk on the phone almost every day. We dont have a big generational gap.