> It would be especially helpful to hear from people who decided to remain childless. Looking down the thread it seems that mostly people with kids have answer

> It would be especially helpful to hear from people who decided to remain childless. Looking down the thread it seems that mostly people with kids have answered. Not surprising. Here's one more... > Child birth is probably the most consequential inflection point in peoples' lives and yet many seem to rush into it headlong without asking the right questions "the right questions" are very subjective. From your post we can extrapolate one of these questions to be "Will having children give me a competitive disadvantage". A person with no children will see this as one of the "right questions" to ask. A person with children will likely disagree and think the question irrelevant. I have kids. I'm always surprised to see people talk about prioritising career over children. In hindsight now, my kids are the most important thing in my life. But it's easy to forget that once I was young and wasn't sure if I wanted kids at all. They would impact my life. They would limit my freedom, in career, holidays, commitments, hobbies. This was all accurate, but it was worth it. I could live my life over again, I think I'd probably have them younger, and damn the consequences. > If someone is in their 30s, married, but hasn't hit their really time-intensive stretch goals ... If you have an inkling that you want kids, have them as young as possible. There will be no perfect time. Even if you hit all those "time-intensive stretch goals" you mentioned, there will be more reasons to put it off. On the other hand, if you don't want kids, then don't stress it. there are plenty of childless couples out there who are happy. That you're posting this at all suggests you do want kids on some level. Some facts: - Fertility declines with age. It is increasingly difficult to have a successful pregnancy for every year past the age of 35. IVF is expensive and does not always work. - Careers also decline with age, though not so much. it is orders of magnitude easier to land a new job at 40 than get pregnant - The later in life you have your children, the less time you will have with them, and the less time they will have with grandparents