Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only person in DC area who actually had a completely planned pregnancy in my 20s? We had been married a couple years, had bought a home and had a steady income.

Sorry, it is just so odd that people act like all 20-something parents had oops/unplanned pregnancies and/or weren't ready to be parents.

I wish this poster well and have had plenty of 40 something mom friends. I don't know that we really parented our kids all that differently.

I think it's just hard to be ready in your 20s. I had an unplanned pregnancy in my 20s and was just finishing grad school, renting a crappy apartment, and had no kind of career established. It was rough for us. Doesn't mean our experience is universal, though--you sound like you were absolutely ready! And at the end of the day, our baby was worth every struggle 1000 times over. She is the light of my days.

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only person in DC area who actually had a completely planned pregnancy in my 20s? We had been married a couple years, had bought a home and had a steady income.

Sorry, it is just so odd that people act like all 20-something parents had oops/unplanned pregnancies and/or weren't ready to be parents.

I wish this poster well and have had plenty of 40 something mom friends. I don't know that we really parented our kids all that differently.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ most of these older posters are Preg after infertility treatments and know for certain that the want to be older patents. It is VERY hard to RAISE a child when you ate 43 and yr husband is 55.

Pfft ridiculous. I am surely a better mom in my 40s than I possibly could have been in my 20s. Much wiser about my fellow humans than previously.

Anonymous wrote:Congratulations!!!!! Lots of moms in this area have first in late 30s -- and lots have in the early 40s -- and lots of older dads. You will find that you are not as old as you think.

This is interesting family drama and you should start a thread about it, but this isn't the case for OP OR the nanny who posted above.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had all of my three children before my twenty third birthday and now at forty five, they have all grown and flown the coop.

I cannot even imagine chasing after a toddler or dealing w/a moody teen-ager at this stage in my life.

I remember having a lot of energy when my kids were younger. I could clean the whole house in a day, do four loads of laundry as well as bathe all of them AND even take them to the playground! Now, I am proud of myself if I can scrub the bathtub w/out having to take a break in between for my sore back! Lol.

Anyway, I work as a nanny and most of the families I work for are couples in their late thirties to early forties w/young children. I comment to them that I sometimes wish I had had my own children when I was older so I could have gotten a good career first and raised them in a nice big house and had more money, etc. They in turn, respond that they sometimes wished they had their children younger because working and caring for children in middle-age was really tiring.

So in my opinion, it is all relative.

How is your overall health & energy level? Remember, having a child does not automatically end at eighteen yrs. of age. Your child will still need you around long after that. You will want to be around to watch your child get married and your husband will want to walk his daughter (if it's a girl) down the aisle on her wedding day. Plus, you will want much energy and life left to run after grand children.

All of this must be considered.

So, for money, you can imagine dealing with children, but not for love?

You don't be nasty either. She has an interesting perspective and can go home at the end of the day and be done. There are pros and cons either way. I'm an older mom pp who is very happy. To all those people talking about their golden years--for some people they are not so golden. In my case my parents had a happy and loving marriage for most of my and my siblings' lives--lots of physical affection and good family times. They had kids in their 20s and worked hard, but then as we approached college they both had individual mid-life crises. I think they were lost and had no idea what to do next. From their perspective I guess it looked all downhill. They divorced and wrecked our family and in some ways experiencing parental divorce as a near-adult was much harder than if it had been the status quo. In my view I'm saving myself from this fate by having had a really interesting life pre-kids and now focusing entirely on making a great family life and marriage. Kids keep you young. I don't buy the energy argument that so many people bring up. Kids tire you out at any age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had all of my three children before my twenty third birthday and now at forty five, they have all grown and flown the coop.

I cannot even imagine chasing after a toddler or dealing w/a moody teen-ager at this stage in my life.

I remember having a lot of energy when my kids were younger. I could clean the whole house in a day, do four loads of laundry as well as bathe all of them AND even take them to the playground! Now, I am proud of myself if I can scrub the bathtub w/out having to take a break in between for my sore back! Lol.

Anyway, I work as a nanny and most of the families I work for are couples in their late thirties to early forties w/young children. I comment to them that I sometimes wish I had had my own children when I was older so I could have gotten a good career first and raised them in a nice big house and had more money, etc. They in turn, respond that they sometimes wished they had their children younger because working and caring for children in middle-age was really tiring.

So in my opinion, it is all relative.

How is your overall health & energy level? Remember, having a child does not automatically end at eighteen yrs. of age. Your child will still need you around long after that. You will want to be around to watch your child get married and your husband will want to walk his daughter (if it's a girl) down the aisle on her wedding day. Plus, you will want much energy and life left to run after grand children.

All of this must be considered.

So, for money, you can imagine dealing with children, but not for love?

Anonymous wrote:I had all of my three children before my twenty third birthday and now at forty five, they have all grown and flown the coop.

I cannot even imagine chasing after a toddler or dealing w/a moody teen-ager at this stage in my life.

I remember having a lot of energy when my kids were younger. I could clean the whole house in a day, do four loads of laundry as well as bathe all of them AND even take them to the playground! Now, I am proud of myself if I can scrub the bathtub w/out having to take a break in between for my sore back! Lol.

Anyway, I work as a nanny and most of the families I work for are couples in their late thirties to early forties w/young children. I comment to them that I sometimes wish I had had my own children when I was older so I could have gotten a good career first and raised them in a nice big house and had more money, etc. They in turn, respond that they sometimes wished they had their children younger because working and caring for children in middle-age was really tiring.

So in my opinion, it is all relative.

How is your overall health & energy level? Remember, having a child does not automatically end at eighteen yrs. of age. Your child will still need you around long after that. You will want to be around to watch your child get married and your husband will want to walk his daughter (if it's a girl) down the aisle on her wedding day. Plus, you will want much energy and life left to run after grand children.

All of this must be considered.

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure DH is going to LOVE the teen years on his 70s , not to mention the diaper years in his 50s and the endless school years in his (not) retirement

Anonymous wrote:I had all of my three children before my twenty third birthday and now at forty five, they have all grown and flown the coop.

I cannot even imagine chasing after a toddler or dealing w/a moody teen-ager at this stage in my life.

I remember having a lot of energy when my kids were younger. I could clean the whole house in a day, do four loads of laundry as well as bathe all of them AND even take them to the playground! Now, I am proud of myself if I can scrub the bathtub w/out having to take a break in between for my sore back! Lol.

Anyway, I work as a nanny and most of the families I work for are couples in their late thirties to early forties w/young children. I comment to them that I sometimes wish I had had my own children when I was older so I could have gotten a good career first and raised them in a nice big house and had more money, etc. They in turn, respond that they sometimes wished they had their children younger because working and caring for children in middle-age was really tiring.

So in my opinion, it is all relative.

How is your overall health & energy level? Remember, having a child does not automatically end at eighteen yrs. of age. Your child will still need you around long after that. You will want to be around to watch your child get married and your husband will want to walk his daughter (if it's a girl) down the aisle on her wedding day. Plus, you will want much energy and life left to run after grand children.

All of this must be considered.

Anonymous wrote:^^ most of these older posters are Preg after infertility treatments and know for certain that the want to be older patents. It is VERY hard to RAISE a child when you ate 43 and yr husband is 55.