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> Have them early if possible. The two most important factors in having successful children are: 1. having two parents and 2. having older parents at child bir

> Have them early if possible. The two most important factors in having successful children are: 1. having two parents and 2. having older parents at child birth. There’s a ton of data on this. Maybe it’s correlation only, but it also makes sense. Parenting is too difficult for a single person. And waiting until you’re established and stable will give your kids a better environment for growth.

ilammy 5y ago
The age might very well be correlation, not causation. Wealthy 50-years-olds having their firstborns, then promptly leaving them vast inheritance — boom! you get “successful” children merely because they got quite a boost. Meanwhile, you don't see not-so-wealthy 50-years-olds having new kids because they had them already at 25 and that was enough. Also, there is a whole host of implications from having kids earlier. Like, you being just 30 when they go to school — or young adults having 65-year-old parents to care of when they'd be rather establishing their own life.
- nostromo 5y ago
  I’m not just talking about wealth… Look at our prison population and you’ll find people raised by a very young single parent. Look at people that graduate from university and you’ll see the opposite. It strongly correlates with just about any measure you can think of. And it is true across race, gender, immigration status, etc.
CSSer 5y ago
If I gave you my mom’s phone number, do you think you could call and chat with her about this for a bit?
nickdothutton 5y ago
If stability arrives only in your mid to late 30s, leaving only a handful of fertile years (assuming no prior medical problems picked-up in younger life) then it stands to reason that a women will be far less successful at producing a large family than one in say, her early 20s. For men, I would agree with you. But then the calculation is rather different.
- nostrademons 5y ago
  It's a pretty delicate balancing act, and one that's getting harder because of the increasing complexity of modern society. The issue is that differentiated careers - ones where you are hard to replace, your company will pay you more than commodity wages, and they'll give you time off for a sick kid because replacing you will cost more than just letting you take a day off when necessary - require a long period of time to become differentiated and hard to replace. That could be spending your 20s in med school and residency, or in law school and being an associate, or bouncing between lower-level engineering jobs before you get the experience needed to tackle big projects. But in most fields, it does take up most of your 20s, which means you really only get stability, trust, and the ability to downshift for family life in your 30s. Ideally, on a societal level, you should be able to raise a family on one of those "commodity" wages. But that's not happening, largely because many of the necessities of life - housing, health care, and education - have become differentiated professions where owners and practitioners can get premium wages. We need to allow shantytowns and village doctors again before we can have large amounts of people having kids in their 20s.
polski-g 5y ago
> two most important factors in having successful children are: 1. having two parents and 2. having older parents at child birth. This ignores the genetic confounding. The reason "older parents" have "successful kids" is because those same parents have genes which make their kids successful. Decades of twin studies have shown that parenting really doesn't matter, but parents do (because of the genes they impart).
wvenable 5y ago
Parenting younger in life is a much better experience for everyone. The real problem is that nobody is stable anymore at a younger age.
- yoyohello13 5y ago
  Is it really? What makes it better? My mother was 22 when I born. I went through a lot of pain as a child because of her an my dad’s emotional issues (I don’t blame them, they were young.) It took me until my late 20s to really work through some of the crap I went through as a child. Compare that to my cousin who’s parents were in their mid to late 30s. He’s had a much more stable life than I had. He’s already got a much better head start in life than me, and I think a big component of that was the maturity of his parents.
  - azth 5y ago
    How much of an input did your parents have in your mom's selection of her husband?
- azth 5y ago
  Very good point. Back in the day in my culture you had multi generation families living in the same house. This helps everyone, parents get more people to help, the children grow around respective role models (uncles, grandfather, etc. for boys, aunts, grandmother, etc. for girls), etc. It still exists for some people, but less common. Today things are so messed up, the economy, the push in secular cultures to even destroy the nuclear family, all this is taking a toll on society. Eventually it might be too late to recover.
Kranar 5y ago
As far as age is concerned, just doing a Google search shows there's a ton of data both in support and against having kids at various ages. There is no single dimension called "success", there are all kinds of health, economic, and educational considerations and they're all impacted in different ways by age. Furthermore it also looks like where the study was conducted plays a big role, which leads me to think this is more of a correlation than a causation. Studies in Europe seem to focus a lot more on health in which case being younger seems to be the best time to have kids. Studies in the U.S. seem to focus a lot more on crime and educational attainment, in which case being older seems to be the best time to have kids.
jimbob45 5y ago
Waiting to have kids is the worst advice you can give someone. It’s a very difficult thing to have kids to begin with (contrary to what the “abstinence only” crowd would have you believe) and waiting can be the difference between having kids and heartbreak.
- azth 5y ago
  > contrary to what the “abstinence only” crowd would have you believe Sounds like a straw man fallacy. My faith both advocates for abstinence before marriage, and getting marriage as soon as it viable (physically, mentally, financially, etc.).
HorizonXP 5y ago
I agree with this. I wasn’t ready to have kids at 30. I had my son at 33. Only now am I entering some stability in my career. I am very fortunate to have made wise decisions in my youth that shaped my trajectory. I made the most of the opportunities I had. I’ve squandered many too. I don’t actually wish I had my son earlier. I’m happy with our current situation. I’m able to give him access to a plethora of resources and attention so he can flourish. He’s turning 4 this year. I wish I could make more of him because I think this world is better with him in it, than not. No, I said “early if possible” only because we cannot change the realities of biology. My wife is the same age as me, and we can likely have 1 more before she’s “done.” If we could have 3 or 4 with ease, we would. An alternative solution would be for men to marry young. It’s a reasonable solution. But my wife’s age and maturity is a huge benefit too. She wasn’t ready to be a mom at 25 or 30. It’s a difficult dilemma and balancing act.
hackflip 5y ago
Older parents are good for financial health. Less so for biological health.

ilammy 5y ago

The age might very well be correlation, not causation. Wealthy 50-years-olds having their firstborns, then promptly leaving them vast inheritance — boom! you get “successful” children merely because they got quite a boost. Meanwhile, you don't see not-so-wealthy 50-years-olds having new kids because they had them already at 25 and that was enough. Also, there is a whole host of implications from having kids earlier. Like, you being just 30 when they go to school — or young adults having 65-year-old parents to care of when they'd be rather establishing their own life.

nostromo 5y ago
I’m not just talking about wealth… Look at our prison population and you’ll find people raised by a very young single parent. Look at people that graduate from university and you’ll see the opposite. It strongly correlates with just about any measure you can think of. And it is true across race, gender, immigration status, etc.

CSSer 5y ago

If I gave you my mom’s phone number, do you think you could call and chat with her about this for a bit?

nickdothutton 5y ago

If stability arrives only in your mid to late 30s, leaving only a handful of fertile years (assuming no prior medical problems picked-up in younger life) then it stands to reason that a women will be far less successful at producing a large family than one in say, her early 20s. For men, I would agree with you. But then the calculation is rather different.

nostrademons 5y ago
It's a pretty delicate balancing act, and one that's getting harder because of the increasing complexity of modern society. The issue is that differentiated careers - ones where you are hard to replace, your company will pay you more than commodity wages, and they'll give you time off for a sick kid because replacing you will cost more than just letting you take a day off when necessary - require a long period of time to become differentiated and hard to replace. That could be spending your 20s in med school and residency, or in law school and being an associate, or bouncing between lower-level engineering jobs before you get the experience needed to tackle big projects. But in most fields, it does take up most of your 20s, which means you really only get stability, trust, and the ability to downshift for family life in your 30s. Ideally, on a societal level, you should be able to raise a family on one of those "commodity" wages. But that's not happening, largely because many of the necessities of life - housing, health care, and education - have become differentiated professions where owners and practitioners can get premium wages. We need to allow shantytowns and village doctors again before we can have large amounts of people having kids in their 20s.

polski-g 5y ago

> two most important factors in having successful children are: 1. having two parents and 2. having older parents at child birth. This ignores the genetic confounding. The reason "older parents" have "successful kids" is because those same parents have genes which make their kids successful. Decades of twin studies have shown that parenting really doesn't matter, but parents do (because of the genes they impart).

wvenable 5y ago

Parenting younger in life is a much better experience for everyone. The real problem is that nobody is stable anymore at a younger age.

yoyohello13 5y ago
Is it really? What makes it better? My mother was 22 when I born. I went through a lot of pain as a child because of her an my dad’s emotional issues (I don’t blame them, they were young.) It took me until my late 20s to really work through some of the crap I went through as a child. Compare that to my cousin who’s parents were in their mid to late 30s. He’s had a much more stable life than I had. He’s already got a much better head start in life than me, and I think a big component of that was the maturity of his parents.
- azth 5y ago
  How much of an input did your parents have in your mom's selection of her husband?
azth 5y ago
Very good point. Back in the day in my culture you had multi generation families living in the same house. This helps everyone, parents get more people to help, the children grow around respective role models (uncles, grandfather, etc. for boys, aunts, grandmother, etc. for girls), etc. It still exists for some people, but less common. Today things are so messed up, the economy, the push in secular cultures to even destroy the nuclear family, all this is taking a toll on society. Eventually it might be too late to recover.

Kranar 5y ago

As far as age is concerned, just doing a Google search shows there's a ton of data both in support and against having kids at various ages. There is no single dimension called "success", there are all kinds of health, economic, and educational considerations and they're all impacted in different ways by age. Furthermore it also looks like where the study was conducted plays a big role, which leads me to think this is more of a correlation than a causation. Studies in Europe seem to focus a lot more on health in which case being younger seems to be the best time to have kids. Studies in the U.S. seem to focus a lot more on crime and educational attainment, in which case being older seems to be the best time to have kids.

jimbob45 5y ago

Waiting to have kids is the worst advice you can give someone. It’s a very difficult thing to have kids to begin with (contrary to what the “abstinence only” crowd would have you believe) and waiting can be the difference between having kids and heartbreak.

azth 5y ago
> contrary to what the “abstinence only” crowd would have you believe Sounds like a straw man fallacy. My faith both advocates for abstinence before marriage, and getting marriage as soon as it viable (physically, mentally, financially, etc.).

HorizonXP 5y ago

I agree with this. I wasn’t ready to have kids at 30. I had my son at 33. Only now am I entering some stability in my career. I am very fortunate to have made wise decisions in my youth that shaped my trajectory. I made the most of the opportunities I had. I’ve squandered many too. I don’t actually wish I had my son earlier. I’m happy with our current situation. I’m able to give him access to a plethora of resources and attention so he can flourish. He’s turning 4 this year. I wish I could make more of him because I think this world is better with him in it, than not. No, I said “early if possible” only because we cannot change the realities of biology. My wife is the same age as me, and we can likely have 1 more before she’s “done.” If we could have 3 or 4 with ease, we would. An alternative solution would be for men to marry young. It’s a reasonable solution. But my wife’s age and maturity is a huge benefit too. She wasn’t ready to be a mom at 25 or 30. It’s a difficult dilemma and balancing act.

hackflip 5y ago

Older parents are good for financial health. Less so for biological health.