Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's been a bad life choice for decades. I know plenty of women who had kids in their 20's that had deep regrets in their 40's and 50's. No news here.

How can it be a bad life choice to have children when you're biologically at your peak AND you make enough money to easily support them?>

OP said she was making 200k at 26, which is a great income for mid twenty somethings. One can only assume their income rose from there...

It's not just about lack of money. Your 20's are the time you should be having freedom and fun, start a career and find who you are...and mostly growing up into a real adult. It's hard to do any of these things with a baby.

This makes it very clear that you associate career with identity. Which is fine. My career is very much tied to mine. But there's no mandate that everyone be like that. Lots of people have kids in their 20s, and still manage to live full, rich, successful lives by a variety of measures. And I would also argue you can do much of that with a baby..just not much of it past 11pm, which...why does one *need* that?

Meh, I had my kids at 22 and 25. I have zero regrets. We just made do.

Many pps said that they had kids between 25-28. That's mid-late 20s. Enough time to have graduated college and worked for a couple years before having a child.

Early 20s is 20-23. That usually means someone who hasn't graduated college yet or 1 year out of college. There is a big difference between 22 vs 27 in terms of financial stability and security.

I think you can only have kids with your 20s if you have parents who are semi helpful and can visit when postpartum, watch your kids for a few hours during emergencies, etc. Otherwise, you have to wait to have money and annual leave at work to pay for the village.

God this varies so much across the country. I got pregnant w/ my first at 29 and simultaneously felt ancient and like a baby, depending on who I was talking to. My mom, grandma, people from my hometown, etc. acted like I had done this wild "career woman" thing by waiting that long - I had been getting questions about when a baby was coming since I was 25 so to them the fact I waited a full five years after that was preposterous.

At the same time, my peers in DC, my friends, coworkers, etc. here acted like I was doing this crazy thing by having a baby so young! Even now, I'm 33 with two kids, and my two best friends are only just now planning their weddings. I feel like such a sideshow sometimes! The fact I have kids is almost like this wild "fun fact" about me. I had to make a whole new set of "mom friends" here, who average about 5 years older than me.

I don't really have an opinion either way tbh, the timing was right for me and I'm happy. I just think it's funny how my family/hometown people think I was SO OLD to have kids and my "city friends" think exactly the opposite.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's been a bad life choice for decades. I know plenty of women who had kids in their 20's that had deep regrets in their 40's and 50's. No news here.

How can it be a bad life choice to have children when you're biologically at your peak AND you make enough money to easily support them?>

OP said she was making 200k at 26, which is a great income for mid twenty somethings. One can only assume their income rose from there...

It's not just about lack of money. Your 20's are the time you should be having freedom and fun, start a career and find who you are...and mostly growing up into a real adult. It's hard to do any of these things with a baby.

There are a lot of women on this board who get their jollies by disparaging women who have kids in their 20s. I can only assume it’s sour grapes. We too had the income, housing, education, marital status, maturity, etc. to have kids in our late twenties and so we did. It doesn’t work that way for everyone, but I don’t really see the need to cast a wide negative net over everyone who has kids in their twenties.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is about to graduate from college and she was talking about some of the girls on her campus who are already engaged. In some ways, she described it as a cop-out. Getting married and having kids is easier than having to go through all that shit: THe crappy room in the row house on capitol hill, the crappy first apartment; the first job; the job hunt. The ones who are getting married seem to be preoccupied with home furnishings and pinterest pages while everyone else is thinking about things like resumes and budgets.

I think this is a really unfair categorization on your and your daughter's parts that ignores the nuanced, complex lives that most of us live. First of all, no one is obligated to live in a group house or crappy first apartment or have a 20 year hard-charging career before settling down to be a card-carrying adult, and furthermore, marriage and a job or career are not mutually exclusive. Can you blame a young engaged person for being more thrilled about a wedding than a $45K job? In many ways, sharing those expenses with a partner is MORE mature and responsible and financially advantageous. Which is not to say one should feel compelled to partner up.

I think that your post has an ugly, maybe jealous?, tone, which I get, but you should realize this isn't a zero sum game -- everyone has feelings of grass-is-greener, and we just do the best we can.

Anonymous wrote:It's been a bad life choice for decades. I know plenty of women who had kids in their 20's that had deep regrets in their 40's and 50's. No news here.

Do you know why they feel this way? I had my first at 26, here in DC, and I am really happy both with my family and career. I know others who feel this way too.

Peopled need to MYOB and do what works for them.

I had my first at 26. Unplanned, and a $ struggle but we had help from my parents initially and now 10 years out we're doing very well and elated to be looking ahead at a late 40s and early 50s with more freedom and flexibility...and a cool young adult child!

I have a relative in the south who had her first at 24 and her DH was 25. One was a teacher and the other a manager at a large store. They bough a house YEARS before we did - good for them!

A lot of millennials are smart about making thoughtful choices and enjoying life and setting a firm financial foundation; a lot are stuck in a period of prolonged adolescence that is kind of gross. I am a millennial myself, but I suppose lots of generations have people who behave a variety of ways for a variety of reasons - imagine that!

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, around here, I felt like a teen mom when I had my first at 27! A lot of people could not understand why I’d do such a thing intentionally.

I had my first at 28 and I agree. I got many “was this planned” questions, even from people who knew that DH and I had been married several years by then, we had a house, good income etc. Many people thought I was my daughter’s nanny or au pair.

Anonymous wrote:No -
When I think about teen pregnancy I think about a situation where someone did not have full information or understand consequences of choice.

This

I grew up in a more conservative part of the country where women have kids earlier. They often have slightly older husbands-so it’s common to have situations where DW has a kid at 23 or 24 right after getting married just after college but DH is 28 to 29 and has recently finished grad or professional school.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is about to graduate from college and she was talking about some of the girls on her campus who are already engaged. In some ways, she described it as a cop-out. Getting married and having kids is easier than having to go through all that shit: THe crappy room in the row house on capitol hill, the crappy first apartment; the first job; the job hunt. The ones who are getting married seem to be preoccupied with home furnishings and pinterest pages while everyone else is thinking about things like resumes and budgets.

Patriarchy at its best. Reinforced by women. And then we wonder why the pay gap?

No. What a DMV NYC, etc concept.