I had some early startup-ish projects in the late-nineties/early-2k's, they crashed and burned with the dotcom crash, and I felt like I had lost any chance at making something cool or any kind of impact. I even felt like, at the age of 28, I was too old for dating and had missed all my opportunities.
Things picked up for me in every respect — professional and personal — at age 35. You really are as young as you feel.
This is one for me too. My whole adult life I’ve felt like I was “behind” in everything I was doing, only to realize with age that I was fine and there is no universal rule about where you should be at a given age. Make the most of yourself right now.
> I even felt like, at the age of 28, I was too old for dating and had missed all my opportunities.
I feel this immensely at 29, turning 30 this year. Especially after moving from another country and having all my friends in long-term relationships. Now just to get out there and have some confidence in approaching people.
Hey, I have a strategy for you that I used for dating. When I was 30, and still single, it was frightening and bewildering since all my friends were married or partnered, but I wasn't. The men my age that I was meeting were still single for a reason. Without internet dating (this was the mid-1990s) I was stuck relying on friends and colleagues, who all said they didn't know anyone suitable who was still single. My chances of meeting someone were dwindling, and I was getting older. When you're female, that's a death sentence for your wish to have kids.
As my life turned out, I'm glad I didn't meet anyone and have kids at that time, because I started a company that went from zero to half-million dollars-a-year in a few years. I poured all that energy that I would have invested in a family into my business. Still, the unknown about whether I would meet someone I could eventually marry did nag at me. I knew I was past the point of having children, but still...
Finally when I was in my late 40s, artificial intelligence had matured enough that I could rely on it to find me a mate. This was in 2011. I registered for OKCupid and, after a few good dates that were a breath of fresh air after not meeting anyone suitable for so long, I met my now-husband with seemingly little effort. As if that wasn't enough of a miracle, my now-husband was a widower, and had a 7 year-old girl he had adopted from Russia. We have raised her together as our daughter. She's now 17, and is the love of my life (besides my husband, of course.)
OKCupid has since been overtaken by Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and match.com. But that's because match.com realized OKCupid's A.I. was a much better system for meeting people, and it was free, too! Match.com bought OKCupid in 2011 with the intention of burying it by doing absolutely no marketing, which is where it stands now.
The great thing about OKCupid was the match score. A caveat here- you have to answer HUNDREDS OF HARD MORAL QUESTIONS for the OKCupid A.I. to work properly. I answered 800 questions over a period of 2 weeks at night, from 10pm to midnight, after I was done running my biggish small business. My husband was, at the same time, slowly answering 1000 questions. Even just the commitment level displayed by taking the time to answer the moral questions, and to take the exercise seriously, is in itself a good indicator of whether the person is earnest or not. It certainly guarantees you're not wasting time with a bot or a scammer. (Romance scams now support the economy of entire developing countries, and have gotten super out-of-hand.)
So, once you've answered hundreds of questions, I found the match scores to be totally trustworthy. The dates I mentioned that I enjoyed were over a 90% match score. (Being a confident and smart heterosexual woman who runs a successful business was lonely in the U.S. at that time. Feminism was still just an ideal, but not a typical lived experience like it is today. Less successful women were more fashionable as mates.)
My husband got an OKCupid match score of 99% with me! And, indeed, he's one of the best-matched people, male or female, that I've ever known. We have now been married for almost 10 happy years. I credit artificial intelligence with my happiness in my marriage and with my lovely daughter, too. Good luck to you. I wish for you the same success I had in my late 40s. Luckily for you, you don't have to wait for A.I. to develop. It's already here!
Don't. Take time to know your partner: minimum 2years, have vacations _and_ reflect on them -- if _anything_ heavily irritating or strong arguments arise trust your gust and don't marry, don't try to justify.
Married a paranoid schizophrenic with realising to late -- didn't know all family members (several relatives on the maternal and paternal side have it too)
Know the family. Don't try to justify think you picked a healthy exemplar too early -- again: wait 2y+, know their past. Any clinical interventions: stay away.
Otherwise as soon as children are involved this will be years of horror. Trust me.
In your 30s, if you are waiting to have kids for various reasons, you really need to stop delaying. Your probability of successfully having kids goes down every year, and by your early 40s your options for medical help if you have infertility stop being available because even those interventions lose effectiveness.
If you want kids, just have the kids. You're not going to care that you were being responsible and waiting when you find out waiting means you never get to have them.
"If you want kids, just have the kids" sounds very irresponsible - a good way to create a lot of suffering. It is not a decision you can reverse. You should give it a lot more thought than to choosing your career, where/how you live, or to getting a pet. It is shocking that so often it is the opposite, and people 'yolo' into this decision. If anything, you should err on the side of not having children, unless you are very, very sure:
1. You will still want to be spending overwhelming majority of your time on children in 1, 2, 5, 10 years at least and will be enjoying it.
2. You are in a position to be consistently spending enough time and effort and other resources on them.
3. You are very confident you will be able to be a good parent, and that you are bringing new life into a good environment that both you and them will enjoy.
You need to be in a very good, stable place both physically and mentally for sure before you even consider it.
This is the type of modern wisdom that the person you’re responding to is deliberately contradicting. This modern wisdom is why our birth rate (at least for citizens) is so catastrophically low. Sure, you can’t be a 20yo janitor with a housewife, 3 kids, a home, and new iPhones every 2 years, but plenty of people go for kids before they’re “ready” and make it just fine.
You’re over complicating it. If you *want* kids then have them. That’s perfectly reasonable. If you’re in you thirties and have the adult basics down you’re ready for kids. Kids are hard work but also they’re cute and add a lot of joy to life. They also put your own personal goals and other peoples goals in perspective. The other day in a meeting with my child’s teacher I was so proud that had to wipe away the tears. I don’t get that feeling from my personal achievements.
Waiting is not bad, most child abuse cases come from people who shouldn't have had kids in the first place. The worst case if you wait is that you'll have to adopt kids, which is arguably way more humane than introducing another hungry soul into the world.
It's not that we have too many mouths to feed, it's that we have too many selfish people in positions of leadership and authority who exploit the masses to line their own pockets.
Having 50% less people would reduce the overall hunger numbers, but not the ratio.
That is not a good reason to have children when it is not the right time. You are gambling with someone else's life. Absolutely do wait until it is the right time, and if it never comes - do not have children.
This is the point I'd stress. There's never a "right time", you'll always wonder if you're doing the right thing, and there'll always be reasons why you should wait a year or two more.
If you want to participate in parenting, you'll want to be somewhat fit. You can expect a lot of lifting, carrying, squatting and sitting on floor, stroller pushing, running after etc. Better chance you won't get exhausted by that at your thirties than fifties.
The older you are, the more likely that you will pass genetic abnormalities to your child. Sperm gene quality (i.e. the genetic version of not having bitflips in memory) deteriorates with age. If you have a choice it's probably better to have a similar timetable as women
> Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird.
They are, in every quantitative and qualitative measure, far more well-adjusted than the poor children, like yours, who had no choice but to grow up with literal children as parents.
> Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird.
By what measure? I was 42 and my wife was 40 when we had our daughter who is now 13 and headed off to full time pre conservatory program in violin next year. Well adjusted, sensitive and empathic, I can’t think of any way in which she’s ‘weird’ Certainly not by any conventional definitions of the word.
I waited entirely too long to get settled. I didn't really understand the value of "home" until my thirties.
I used to be a hardcore "minimalist" throughout my twenties and into my early thirties. I didn't want to own anything at all, didn't want to have objects or things that I'd have to move, that could tie me down to a space or place. I didn't want to have to fix or maintain anything.
In my thirties, I realized that all of the spaces I had lived in were cold, unwelcoming, aesthetically anemic. It didn't look like anyone "lived" there. At 35, I started buying things I wanted to keep forever: bookshelves, living and dining furniture, rugs, art. I spent good money on "stuff" that I liked, things that I want to experience and live with every day. I purchased decent picture frames and hung photos of my family for the first time.
I also spent a lot of time setting up my living space for other people, not just for me. I could invite family over and they could stay comfortably for weeks at a time. If a friend needed to quickly get out of a tricky situation, I had a spare room ready to go. If I wanted to host a small dinner, it could happen at my place, instead of a friends house where a bunch of grown-ass adults are sitting on five-gallon buckets and yard chairs around a folding table.
All of this had a strong, positive affect on my day-to-day disposition. It made me more open to others, more willing to embrace hospitality as a mode of living. I'm less stressed about having people over because my place is actually a place people want to be, and that feels great.
It's difficult to put this into words, but for the twenty-somethings who are reading this: whether you are renting or owning, don't be afraid to settle. Buy nice stuff when you can afford it, take care of it, plan to keep it forever. Set your space up to support you and the people in your life.
- Use all of your vacation time, set strict limits on work hours. [1]
- Exercise, eat real food, take time to relax. All three are connected and work together. You cannot optimize for just one.
[1] Stress is a destroyer of both your mental and physical health that has real long term consequences. No startup/job/employer/etc is worth destroying yourself over. If you are at a burn-out factory now, get out as soon as possible.
Im doing everything minus taking time to relax. I’m in a constant limbo between “relax” but not fully committed by the stress of wasting productive time. This turns into a waste of time that’s not productive nor relaxing that is just procrastination. If I could figure out how to fully relax I’d probably be available for productivity for longer and I’d enjoy my free time more.
I wish I had known the truth about romantic relationships. Would have saved me a lot of trouble:
- Women are not all the same. Men are not all the same. There is no single approach. What works for your friend won't necessarily work for you, because you're different people and thus after different things.
- "pick up lines" and pick-up-artist techniques and all that kind of bullshit are just that: bullshit. At best you get a roll in the hay, and not a relationship that lasts (because you're lying).
- You really really REALLY need to be yourself. Any potential SO will discover who you really are as they get closer, and if you're putting on a front, you're attracting people to a person who doesn't exist, and won't like the person who really does exist. Look for people who are attracted to the kind of person you actually are.
- There is a certain amount of marketing involved in presenting yourself, but never go so far as to deceive.
- Don't try to change for people. You can't change who you are, and anyone who tries to change you is selfish. Don't waste your time with them.
- Accept people as they are. They're not going to change.
- The most important personality trait that MUST be compatible is dominance and submission. Two dominant people will fight all the time, have great sex probably, and a terrible relationship that's more off than on. Two submissive people will suffer in silence as their relationship gives no fulfillment or direction. You need to be compatible in who leads on what (and communicate that!).
- If you're looking to get noticed, find a way to stand out. Waiting for a potential SO to find you by pure chance is risking a life alone.
- If you find someone you like, at the very least greet them. The sooner you get the fear of rejection over with, the better.
- You'll have a bunch of failed relationships on the way to the successful one. These failed ones teach you about yourself and about what you need in a SO.
- Don't be in a hurry to get to the successful one. Slow and steady wins the race. Just make sure you STAY in the race!
- Communication is the single most important thing in a relationship. And trust. Without those, your relationship doesn't have a prayer.
While I agree fundamentally about not changing yourself for others, but if the change is positive in both of your accounts, try to go for it. E.g. if someone is morbidly obese and their partner wants him to loose weight by getting into the habit of diet/exercise, I really don’t see no evil here.
I'm in my early 40s, I can't really think of anything, maybe because it's too close to realize what mistakes I might have made, and I don't really believe in that kind of retrospection generally.
FWIW, if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family (and want to some day), consider doing it in your early 30s (or earlier), there are a lot of things that get tougher as you get older. I don't regret putting it off until my 40s because it let me find a person I want to have a family with, but if you have such a person, my advice is do it now.
Getting older has opened my eyes to the benefits of having kids young. For one thing, I had more energy and was more resilient to loss of sleep when I was younger. That would've been nice to pair with kids.
My mother had me at 30. My wife's mother had her in her late teens. There's a big difference in energy there too. My wife's mother has more time, and energy, with our kids.
I have friends who had kids in college and a friend who had kids in high school. It seemed like a mistake back then - they could never come hang out and had to leave early cause they were dealing with kids or a wife or whatever. I'm not so sure they made a mistake now.
I would guess that late twenties are the ideal time to have kids. Early twenties you wrap up your education and start your career, thirties and forties get the kids out the door, fifties settle your retirement, sixties and on enjoy your extended family and retirement. That's how I'd plan it if I were going again.
> I would guess that late twenties are the ideal time to have kids.
In hindsight, I'm thinking teenage years. For all practical purposes your days are wasted anyway, so you may as well waste it enjoying your kids. They'll be much more independent by the time you're deemed old enough to begin participating in society. You are also more likely to have a larger community of people in the household at that age to help raise the children.
Obviously, people should not do it if they're not ready. But people think they need to have everything figured out (degree, career, house) first. You don't. And the younger you have kids, the longer you'll be around to spend time with them (or grandkids), and the less chance you'll have fertility issues.
+1 Had kids in late 30s, and now have young kids in my 40s. It is hard physically, mentally, career-wise and other dimensions. Only financially, I'd say I'm less worried than if I was in my early 20s. But my financial security was probably strong right after grad school (world was my oyster!)
I don't regret putting it off until my 40s because it let me find a person I want to have a family with
Thank you for including this tidbit. I'm a man in my early 30s interested in having kids and recently discovered that I've poorly vetted my 5+ year SO's interest in having kids. Her "yeah, I'm hypothetically interested" has become "hard not interested".
The requirement to break up with her if I want kids is deeply painful, but the real source of my dread is the feeling that I won't then be able to find someone good in time. I'm very glad you found someone good to have a family with.
Break up with her now. There are plenty women your age of younger that know they are getting closer to the point of no return and are desperate to have kids. I’m similar age but my wife is 35 and lemme tell you what, she wants to have some dang kids now (and we’ll have one soon).
And what do you mean by “in time”? Assuming you are 32/33 you have plenty of time to find another partner. When you’re 50 you will feel so silly for feeling old at 32/33. Just make sure the next partner is on the same page relatively early.
It’s your life, not your partner’s, go live it how you want.
I just left a relationship for this reason, and it is so deeply painful. I wish you the best. I think it is the right decision and that making it sooner rather than later is best, but it is not easy.
Please google "future faking." It's a typical thing that people with narcissistic tendencies do. I don't know your situation or your girlfriend, of course, so I could be totally off-base. But the painful and avoidable situation you're in set off red flags in my mind. (I was in a long relationship with a narcissist and unfortunately had to learn all about their habits in order to figure out what was going on.)
welp i'm 33 and single and this hits home so hard. My younger brother is 30 with two under two and he looks like hell most days. I can't imagine 3 hours sleep a night when i'm mid to late 30s. christ.
> if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family
I'm in my 30s, and this seems to be the trickiest part that people older than me — sorry — seem to want to just pave over. House prices are bananas. Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. Student loans are a constant tax on my finances (that I'm almost free of… …soon…). Wage growth has been stagnant (my career has seen ~4.7% YoY gains, mostly me switching employers and trying to renegotiate higher; but I hear my father's career saw much faster progress, particularly in the earlier years…). Costs have not. (E.g., healthcare, and that's an incredible — and bad — incentive to marry.)
I imagine we'll hit a "it's now or never" point, and just sort of morally abdicate the idea of being responsible adults and "#yolo we're parents now" it. I don't really see the world changing for the better, anytime soon.
If you try to get financially better off, in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all, and you won't have kids. At that point you probably can't.
If you have kids at 35, you may very well go bankrupt. It will be off your credit in seven years, and you'll have a seven year old.
The second option will be happier (if you want kids).
I feel this living in London and seeing my parents having achieved a measure of success at a younger age far greater than my own. But not every country has seen this level of affluence for the generation before ours and indeed not every race.
Minorities in the US in particular might argue otherwise about whether the previous few decades were better than the current ones.
We are indeed in troubling times, but the Cold War wasn't so long ago and I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world.
> Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains.
I really, really, really hate to defend Mr. Trump, but on his first day of office the Vanguard total stock market index closed at $116.91; on his last day of office it closed at $198.86, a 70.01% increase (14.19% annualised). There are numerous reasons to criticise the former president, but the performance of the stock market during his tenure does not appear to be one of them.
I could change a few words in your main paragraph and match them to any time in the last 40 years.
You seem to be hanging on for magic better times but at the same time not expecting things to get better. This doesn't seem to be a good strategy, especially in the case of having children where delaying a few years will very likely result in more difficulties.
> Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains.
I'm sorry, what asset classes did you invest in? Because Trump and the Covid stimulus were both very beneficial for my investments. Sure, the market has taken a beating of late but it most definitely has not erased years of gains.
There's this idea that men don't need to settle down because they can have children at any age, which I guess is technically true but it presupposes that a 30 y/o woman will want to have children with you when you're 45, but they are more inclined to go +5 years, not +15.
Also take prescription labels more seriously, like don't take Advil all the time, because you will get an ulcer and don't mix alcohol and aspirin because it causes liver damage.
Exercise and don't eat to much, and invest in your posture (don't get carpal tunnel, hunch over at the computer, etc)
I think you mean tylenol / acetaminophen (maybe aspirin is bad too?)
Even if you can find a younger mate, you'll want to participate in your kid's lives and that's much harder as an old man. If your kids are teenagers and you're in your sixties, I imagine it can be tough; and if they make the same choices as you, living to see grandchildren is unlikely
+1 for having kids at a younger age. My dad was 44 when I was born and he died when I was 16 -- that sucked a lot. I think you should have a fair idea you'll live long enough to see your kid "launched" into the world -- say 25 years old at a minimum. If you won't live that long, don't have kids.
Use the bankers money to buy a rental duplex/triplex/quad I think is the shortest path to wealth, but atm I'm only interested in bitcoin, nvidia (watch GTC that came out yest) and SARK.
Readit News
I had some early startup-ish projects in the late-nineties/early-2k's, they crashed and burned with the dotcom crash, and I felt like I had lost any chance at making something cool or any kind of impact. I even felt like, at the age of 28, I was too old for dating and had missed all my opportunities.
Things picked up for me in every respect — professional and personal — at age 35. You really are as young as you feel.
I had a talk with a friend the other day about how 50 year olds used to be old. They just don’t look or feel that way now a days
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I feel this immensely at 29, turning 30 this year. Especially after moving from another country and having all my friends in long-term relationships. Now just to get out there and have some confidence in approaching people.
Married a paranoid schizophrenic with realising to late -- didn't know all family members (several relatives on the maternal and paternal side have it too) Know the family. Don't try to justify think you picked a healthy exemplar too early -- again: wait 2y+, know their past. Any clinical interventions: stay away.
Otherwise as soon as children are involved this will be years of horror. Trust me.
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If you want kids, just have the kids. You're not going to care that you were being responsible and waiting when you find out waiting means you never get to have them.
1. You will still want to be spending overwhelming majority of your time on children in 1, 2, 5, 10 years at least and will be enjoying it.
2. You are in a position to be consistently spending enough time and effort and other resources on them.
3. You are very confident you will be able to be a good parent, and that you are bringing new life into a good environment that both you and them will enjoy.
You need to be in a very good, stable place both physically and mentally for sure before you even consider it.
There are definitely bad times. But many of the things you mention contradict each other?
Can I afford children? Get a well paying job. Well paying jobs require more hours. That means you have less time to dedicate to your kids.
Realistically, unless you have at least $500,000 saved up, you’re taking a financial gamble having kids.
If they have serious medical issues, any amount of money could be wiped out.
I’d argue there are probably too many people who should be having kids not having kids, than people who shouldn’t be having kids having kids.
Both are obviously happening. And in probably biased because I know so many childless software engineers who make six figures.
But there really, really never is a good time.
I mentioned it off-hand to an ex-girlfriend and was called a sexist (not in an angry/confrontational way, but pretty much dismissed equally off-hand).
Having 50% less people would reduce the overall hunger numbers, but not the ratio.
Kids from much older parents (40+) are also almost completely weird.
My experience is that kids from older parents are wise beyond their years, and tend to be far more well-adjusted adults.
They are, in every quantitative and qualitative measure, far more well-adjusted than the poor children, like yours, who had no choice but to grow up with literal children as parents.
(Or maybe we shouldn’t generalize like this…?)
By what measure? I was 42 and my wife was 40 when we had our daughter who is now 13 and headed off to full time pre conservatory program in violin next year. Well adjusted, sensitive and empathic, I can’t think of any way in which she’s ‘weird’ Certainly not by any conventional definitions of the word.
Yeah, I love you too.
Dead Comment
- Exercise regularly (doesn't mean hours a day in the gym, just make it a regular habit)
- Don't eat so much junk, don't drink so much
- Have a regular sleep schedule and stick to it.
- don't sacrifice for your work, unless your work is also part of your recreation.
- conversely do prioritize your relationships
- max out your retirement contributions as best you can
Age: 50s; some of above are what I did and some are what I wish I had done.
I used to be a hardcore "minimalist" throughout my twenties and into my early thirties. I didn't want to own anything at all, didn't want to have objects or things that I'd have to move, that could tie me down to a space or place. I didn't want to have to fix or maintain anything.
In my thirties, I realized that all of the spaces I had lived in were cold, unwelcoming, aesthetically anemic. It didn't look like anyone "lived" there. At 35, I started buying things I wanted to keep forever: bookshelves, living and dining furniture, rugs, art. I spent good money on "stuff" that I liked, things that I want to experience and live with every day. I purchased decent picture frames and hung photos of my family for the first time.
I also spent a lot of time setting up my living space for other people, not just for me. I could invite family over and they could stay comfortably for weeks at a time. If a friend needed to quickly get out of a tricky situation, I had a spare room ready to go. If I wanted to host a small dinner, it could happen at my place, instead of a friends house where a bunch of grown-ass adults are sitting on five-gallon buckets and yard chairs around a folding table.
All of this had a strong, positive affect on my day-to-day disposition. It made me more open to others, more willing to embrace hospitality as a mode of living. I'm less stressed about having people over because my place is actually a place people want to be, and that feels great.
It's difficult to put this into words, but for the twenty-somethings who are reading this: whether you are renting or owning, don't be afraid to settle. Buy nice stuff when you can afford it, take care of it, plan to keep it forever. Set your space up to support you and the people in your life.
Edit: Also worth reading: https://www.seanblanda.com/your-30s-are-a-time-for-to-go-for...
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- Max out retirement contributions.
- Use all of your vacation time, set strict limits on work hours. [1]
- Exercise, eat real food, take time to relax. All three are connected and work together. You cannot optimize for just one.
[1] Stress is a destroyer of both your mental and physical health that has real long term consequences. No startup/job/employer/etc is worth destroying yourself over. If you are at a burn-out factory now, get out as soon as possible.
- Women are not all the same. Men are not all the same. There is no single approach. What works for your friend won't necessarily work for you, because you're different people and thus after different things.
- "pick up lines" and pick-up-artist techniques and all that kind of bullshit are just that: bullshit. At best you get a roll in the hay, and not a relationship that lasts (because you're lying).
- You really really REALLY need to be yourself. Any potential SO will discover who you really are as they get closer, and if you're putting on a front, you're attracting people to a person who doesn't exist, and won't like the person who really does exist. Look for people who are attracted to the kind of person you actually are.
- There is a certain amount of marketing involved in presenting yourself, but never go so far as to deceive.
- Don't try to change for people. You can't change who you are, and anyone who tries to change you is selfish. Don't waste your time with them.
- Accept people as they are. They're not going to change.
- The most important personality trait that MUST be compatible is dominance and submission. Two dominant people will fight all the time, have great sex probably, and a terrible relationship that's more off than on. Two submissive people will suffer in silence as their relationship gives no fulfillment or direction. You need to be compatible in who leads on what (and communicate that!).
- If you're looking to get noticed, find a way to stand out. Waiting for a potential SO to find you by pure chance is risking a life alone.
- If you find someone you like, at the very least greet them. The sooner you get the fear of rejection over with, the better.
- You'll have a bunch of failed relationships on the way to the successful one. These failed ones teach you about yourself and about what you need in a SO.
- Don't be in a hurry to get to the successful one. Slow and steady wins the race. Just make sure you STAY in the race!
- Communication is the single most important thing in a relationship. And trust. Without those, your relationship doesn't have a prayer.
This is rooted in reality and Humility.
On
FWIW, if you are in a position where you could potentially start a family (and want to some day), consider doing it in your early 30s (or earlier), there are a lot of things that get tougher as you get older. I don't regret putting it off until my 40s because it let me find a person I want to have a family with, but if you have such a person, my advice is do it now.
My mother had me at 30. My wife's mother had her in her late teens. There's a big difference in energy there too. My wife's mother has more time, and energy, with our kids.
I have friends who had kids in college and a friend who had kids in high school. It seemed like a mistake back then - they could never come hang out and had to leave early cause they were dealing with kids or a wife or whatever. I'm not so sure they made a mistake now.
I would guess that late twenties are the ideal time to have kids. Early twenties you wrap up your education and start your career, thirties and forties get the kids out the door, fifties settle your retirement, sixties and on enjoy your extended family and retirement. That's how I'd plan it if I were going again.
In hindsight, I'm thinking teenage years. For all practical purposes your days are wasted anyway, so you may as well waste it enjoying your kids. They'll be much more independent by the time you're deemed old enough to begin participating in society. You are also more likely to have a larger community of people in the household at that age to help raise the children.
Obviously, people should not do it if they're not ready. But people think they need to have everything figured out (degree, career, house) first. You don't. And the younger you have kids, the longer you'll be around to spend time with them (or grandkids), and the less chance you'll have fertility issues.
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Thank you for including this tidbit. I'm a man in my early 30s interested in having kids and recently discovered that I've poorly vetted my 5+ year SO's interest in having kids. Her "yeah, I'm hypothetically interested" has become "hard not interested".
The requirement to break up with her if I want kids is deeply painful, but the real source of my dread is the feeling that I won't then be able to find someone good in time. I'm very glad you found someone good to have a family with.
And what do you mean by “in time”? Assuming you are 32/33 you have plenty of time to find another partner. When you’re 50 you will feel so silly for feeling old at 32/33. Just make sure the next partner is on the same page relatively early.
It’s your life, not your partner’s, go live it how you want.
Can't this be a simple yes/no answer? I have never been a relationship. So pardon me if I am being ignorant.
The first week of the first kid, we slept 3 hours in total (that is, 3 hours in the whole week)
I'm in my 30s, and this seems to be the trickiest part that people older than me — sorry — seem to want to just pave over. House prices are bananas. Trump, COVID, Russia have erased years of investment gains. Student loans are a constant tax on my finances (that I'm almost free of… …soon…). Wage growth has been stagnant (my career has seen ~4.7% YoY gains, mostly me switching employers and trying to renegotiate higher; but I hear my father's career saw much faster progress, particularly in the earlier years…). Costs have not. (E.g., healthcare, and that's an incredible — and bad — incentive to marry.)
I imagine we'll hit a "it's now or never" point, and just sort of morally abdicate the idea of being responsible adults and "#yolo we're parents now" it. I don't really see the world changing for the better, anytime soon.
If you try to get financially better off, in seven years you'll probably be only slightly better off if at all, and you won't have kids. At that point you probably can't.
If you have kids at 35, you may very well go bankrupt. It will be off your credit in seven years, and you'll have a seven year old.
The second option will be happier (if you want kids).
Minorities in the US in particular might argue otherwise about whether the previous few decades were better than the current ones.
Whenever I feel tempted to look at the past with rose tinted glasses I only have to look at infant mortality rates which were horrifically high in even affluent countries like the US: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6487507/figure/...
We are indeed in troubling times, but the Cold War wasn't so long ago and I recall a commentator speaking about how they'd read the newspaper each morning with a knot in their stomach, wondering if a nuclear mishap had occurred somewhere in the world.
I really, really, really hate to defend Mr. Trump, but on his first day of office the Vanguard total stock market index closed at $116.91; on his last day of office it closed at $198.86, a 70.01% increase (14.19% annualised). There are numerous reasons to criticise the former president, but the performance of the stock market during his tenure does not appear to be one of them.
You seem to be hanging on for magic better times but at the same time not expecting things to get better. This doesn't seem to be a good strategy, especially in the case of having children where delaying a few years will very likely result in more difficulties.
I'm sorry, what asset classes did you invest in? Because Trump and the Covid stimulus were both very beneficial for my investments. Sure, the market has taken a beating of late but it most definitely has not erased years of gains.
There's this idea that men don't need to settle down because they can have children at any age, which I guess is technically true but it presupposes that a 30 y/o woman will want to have children with you when you're 45, but they are more inclined to go +5 years, not +15.
Also take prescription labels more seriously, like don't take Advil all the time, because you will get an ulcer and don't mix alcohol and aspirin because it causes liver damage.
Exercise and don't eat to much, and invest in your posture (don't get carpal tunnel, hunch over at the computer, etc)
I think you mean tylenol / acetaminophen (maybe aspirin is bad too?)
Even if you can find a younger mate, you'll want to participate in your kid's lives and that's much harder as an old man. If your kids are teenagers and you're in your sixties, I imagine it can be tough; and if they make the same choices as you, living to see grandchildren is unlikely