9 ms·

Another lesson from your story (similar to many of my friends’) is to just have kids younger. It sounds like you started at around 35 — if people started at 30,

Another lesson from your story (similar to many of my friends’) is to just have kids younger. It sounds like you started at around 35 — if people started at 30, even, fertility is higher.

abyssin 4y ago
I agree. We shouldn’t pressure people to make children early, but make sure they understand the consequences of delaying. I’m surrounded by couples of 30-35 year old that are struggling to have children. They had no idea it would be so hard.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  I’m 35, wife is 34. We’ve had no problems conceiving but it hasn’t been smooth sailing post conception at all. Had one molar pregnancy, one missed miscarriage of a Mono/Di twin, and we’re now onto our third term. Although these issues can prop up at any age, the statistical chance of something going wrong keeps going up. Moreover, there’s the constant fear with every miscarriage that we’re getting even older and even more likely to run into bigger problems. I’m honestly surprised by how little people talk about these issues.
fhd2 4y ago
I started at 24 - certainly regret nothing, but I also can't say it was the smoothest path :D Trying to provide and care while being new to the job market was quite a ride. There's been some changes to make having kids less of a challenge in recent years - at least in Europe. But it still seems like there's a long way to go, especially in terms of corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really know what to do with young parents.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really know what to do with young parents What do they not know? I’ve been mostly treated fairly (not exactly a young parent though).
  - agentwiggles 4y ago
    I'll share an experience. My (now) wife and I got pregnant in our senior year of college. That summer I had the good fortune to land my first software dev internship. At the end of the summer, I was to be given an offer letter to come on as a full time employee after I finished school. I asked in that meeting if I could just continue to work and was told "uh yeah, that's fine I guess". Major victory for me at the time. I did not share that I was soon to be a father until a few weeks before the baby was due. I was afraid that this situation would negatively color their perceptions of me and my work. But eventually the time came. I pulled my tech lead aside and asked if I would be able to take a few days off for the birth. He said of course, but, at the time, I was still an hourly employee. My first son was born on Tuesday, I took unpaid time off for the rest of the week, then returned to the office less than a week after my son was born, the following Monday. I really had no other choice - I had been working for about 5 months at the time, and certainly couldn't afford to take any more hit to my paycheck. About a month later, I asked HR if I had any kind of PTO accrued to take some time off for Christmas. This wound up being how I became a salaried employee - they felt bad that I didn't have PTO and said basically "oh, well, you're full time now anyway, we'll just convert you to salary." I want to be clear that there was no malice or anything involved in any of these situations, and as a matter of fact, the company was very supportive and provided an absolutely wonderful first job. But still, there was just no procedure or infrastructure in place to support a 23 year old father. Everything that was done to help me through my internship and eventually full time employment was in some sense a just-in-time hack, done by kind people who knew and cared about me. Had my career started at Accenture or some other gigantic corporate machine, I assume none of those things would have happened for me, even if the HR people were similarly benevolent. Even with all my good fortune, being a parent within the first few months of my professional career was difficult. Nowadays, 6 weeks of parental leave seems to be pretty standard for professional jobs, and I imagine that benefit would extend even to someone at the entry level (maybe not an intern, but FTEs). But this is a pretty recent development. When my second child was born, I took a week off. Later that year, the company implemented a single week of paternal leave for new parents , which you would just receive as an extra 5 days of PTO. A very kind and good technical manager, without my asking, went to bat for me and got me the week of PTO refunded, effectively grandfathering me into the new benefit. No one had to do that for me, it didn't even occur to me to ask - but I have remembered that act of care from him for a long time. So, all told, I had a pretty good level of company support as a young parent. But it's quite easy for me to imagine that any of these strokes of fortune wouldn't have occurred for many others in similar situations.
cortesoft 4y ago
Having kids younger is not a simple choice. My wife was already 35 when we met, we couldn't have started younger.
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  I think the idea is that many societal choices need to be moved up, not just the decision to have children.
  - arglebargle123 4y ago
    For that to be viable people need to A: not leave academia with 5-15y of debt as a matter of course and B: housing suitable for young families needs to, I don't know, actually exist where the decent jobs are. Until those changes happen kids aren't going to be a popular choice before one (or more likely both) parents have a well established career and significant amounts of money in the bank.
nicholasjarnold 4y ago
Yep, I can confirm this based on personal experience with a gynecologist telling my wife that at 35 the pregnancy is considered a "geriatric pregnancy" (apparently some docs now call it "AMA"...advanced maternal age). This shocked both of us, frankly. We were aware of what the actuarial tables will tell you regarding birth defect rates related to maternal age, but hearing the term geriatric in your mid-thirties is quite shocking. I'm ignorant of any data around paternal age and sperm count (assume it goes down...no idea the rate), but the docs do tend to focus on maternal age quite a bit regarding possible defects and fertility. Nonetheless we were able to conceive in our late 30s without help or any trouble. Our baby is super healthy. Apparently we lucked out.
- Eleison23 4y ago
  - quest88 4y ago
    Please provide references showing it's bullshit.
    - Foobar8568 4y ago
      Considering how fast birth defect raise after 35...yeah not bullshit at all.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Just so we're all clear, this is now an internet fight with opposing claims and zero sources.
        Foobar8568 4y ago
        Because any search with pregnancy risk 35 would result in hits on any medical journals, health website with the actual sources. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729989/ https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-antenatal-checks/pregnancy-and-birth-for-women-over-35 https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-antenatal-c... Seriously, people are just lazy.
PakG1 4y ago
LOL, didn't get married until later, wouldn't have been possible for me back then. Takes two to tango. Which is of course another societal question. Why are people finding it difficult to partner up and settle down earlier in life? I know what my reasons were, I was idiotic, picky, shy, you name it. https://xkcd.com/439/ https://xkcd.com/439/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yumaikas 4y ago
I mean, a lot of people may not have the financial option to have had kids younger. Like, the last 15 years have included two "completely upend your life" level crises, along with a lot of smaller crises that could have swept up someone.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I dunno, kids may be incompatible with a lot of lifestyles, but I wouldn’t call them inherently expensive. You just have to adjust your expectations.
  - afavour 4y ago
    I dunno how you can say that. When children are young you have two options: - both parents work, you pay for childcare - one parent drops out of the workforce, takes care of children at home neither of these is cheap. Decades ago it was realistic for one parent's salary to cover the whole family but these days salary stagnation and increased costs of e.g. housing makes it much more difficult.
    - rsj_hn 4y ago
      That's assuming you live alone or have no nearby friends/relatives who can watch your child. Most of the world somehow has kids without spending huge sums, because they have children when they are much younger and rely on nearby family to help, just as you will gladly help your children, etc. This is how civilization propagates. The idea that only the wealthiest can afford to have kids by living in pure isolation and hiring teams of nannies and specialists is contradicted by the practice of opening one's eyes, looking around, and observing much poorer people having kids just fine. But it requires making sacrifices. Those societies in which few are willing to make the sacrifices necessary die out, and healthier societies take their place.
      - afavour 4y ago
        > That's assuming you live alone or have no nearby friends/relatives who can watch your child. Yes it is, because those friends and relatives also have to work in order to afford housing, healthcare, etc... grandparents that are happily retired, living off their savings and happy to donate their time is not close to a reality for many people. > observing much poorer people having kids just fine Define "just fine". I'm responding to the OP saying that having kids is "not expensive". It is. The fact that people make do, struggle and get by does not alter that fact, it just means they're doing it anyway. 1 in 6 children in the US lives in a food insecure home, that's not particularly "fine". > Those societies in which few are willing to make the sacrifices necessary die out, and healthier societies take their place. O...kay? I'm not sure a perspective that's this disconnected from personal lives is all that helpful. "Yes, raising a child in America in 2022 is difficult but don't worry, society will die and a new one will rise"... what's my reaction supposed to be there?
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
We have a societal problem when the rational individual choice (to provide your children the best head start) is to wait until your fertility declines to have children.
- rconti 4y ago
  It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. The main exception I can think is family support; having younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an advantage, I guess? I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah, this is the way society should be!"
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for two children with ease, in one of what was even back then one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me (IT worker) and my s/o (public health administration) can barely afford a flat and two cats. Fuck that shit, we need rent controls, higher wages and higher taxes on the rich. Then people like me are not forced to wait until 35 that they can start having children.
    - vardump 4y ago
      Rent in Germany is really really cheap. Even in "expensive" cities. Energy, on the other hand, not so.
    - moonchrome 4y ago
      I was under the impression that programming and IT is very undervalued in Germany, like you're basically earning slightly above average in most cases. At least that's what I gather from two friends who live there.
droopyEyelids 4y ago
Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough to help you with your kids. It's also linked to things like low birth weight. I sure wish my wife & I had started earlier.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.
  - duffyjp 4y ago
    I'm 41 and my boys are 4 and 8. It's wild to even consider I could have been a grandfather by now if my life choices had been different. Wouldn't be such a bad thing though, at 40 you're still pretty young so I could've had my freedom back by now. As it is I'll be 55 by the time they're out of the house and probably won't be able to pick mountain biking back up... And then if they wait a while I could be pushing 70 before my grandkids arrive. Great-grandkids might be a relic of a time gone by...
    - WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
      > Great-grandkids might be a relic of a time gone by They seem to be the case for me. My five are 20-30. I see no avenue for grandkids where it takes 3-4 incomes to afford minimal living expenses.
  - patja 4y ago
    I find it surprising that this is something that has to be imagined. I run into real world examples of this all the time. It isn't the norm, but it sure isn't something that requires imagination to see all around us.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Problem is that a lot of people aren't in a position to have kids at 30 mainly due to economic reasons.
- skwirl 4y ago
  This common explanation never made sense. Lower income is correlated with higher fertility within the US, within every country, across the world, and (seemingly) throughout history.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Most of history is subsistence farming economies. More people means more labor. It’s a pretty good ROI. And of course, lack of contraception. Plus with kids dying you need several to reliably end up with a few when you’re old. In an urban economy kids are largely dead weight and expensive for two decades. The middle class dual income family isn’t typically looking for 3+ kids anymore.
    - skwirl 4y ago
      The fertility rate today in the United States is inversely correlated with income. The effects are not minor, either. As far as I'm aware, there's not much subsistence farming going on in the United States.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        They are inversely correlated, yes, but the absolute levels of fertility American poor vs subsistence farming poor are much lower. It’s possible for the poorest people to have more kids than anyone while economic pressures also lower birth rates across the board.
  - tsol 4y ago
    Kids require more investment today in the first world. 400 years ago you just kind of taught your child your craft, your religion, and your culture and that was their education. Extremely few people went to any sort of school. Raising a child was different. Now there's a level of sensitivity and attention that's necessary to ensure emotional and developmental stability that's much greater than in the past. Kids must be educated through to at least college, sometimes even beyond. There's a globalized economy which children will be competing in, and everything that gives them an advantage makes a difference

Another lesson from your story (similar to many of my friends’) is to just have kids younger. It sounds like you started at around 35 — if people started at 30, even, fertility is higher.

abyssin 4y ago

I agree. We shouldn’t pressure people to make children early, but make sure they understand the consequences of delaying. I’m surrounded by couples of 30-35 year old that are struggling to have children. They had no idea it would be so hard.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
I’m 35, wife is 34. We’ve had no problems conceiving but it hasn’t been smooth sailing post conception at all. Had one molar pregnancy, one missed miscarriage of a Mono/Di twin, and we’re now onto our third term. Although these issues can prop up at any age, the statistical chance of something going wrong keeps going up. Moreover, there’s the constant fear with every miscarriage that we’re getting even older and even more likely to run into bigger problems. I’m honestly surprised by how little people talk about these issues.

fhd2 4y ago

I started at 24 - certainly regret nothing, but I also can't say it was the smoothest path :D Trying to provide and care while being new to the job market was quite a ride. There's been some changes to make having kids less of a challenge in recent years - at least in Europe. But it still seems like there's a long way to go, especially in terms of corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really know what to do with young parents.

Aeolun 4y ago
> corporate cultures that, in my experience, don't really know what to do with young parents What do they not know? I’ve been mostly treated fairly (not exactly a young parent though).
- agentwiggles 4y ago
  I'll share an experience. My (now) wife and I got pregnant in our senior year of college. That summer I had the good fortune to land my first software dev internship. At the end of the summer, I was to be given an offer letter to come on as a full time employee after I finished school. I asked in that meeting if I could just continue to work and was told "uh yeah, that's fine I guess". Major victory for me at the time. I did not share that I was soon to be a father until a few weeks before the baby was due. I was afraid that this situation would negatively color their perceptions of me and my work. But eventually the time came. I pulled my tech lead aside and asked if I would be able to take a few days off for the birth. He said of course, but, at the time, I was still an hourly employee. My first son was born on Tuesday, I took unpaid time off for the rest of the week, then returned to the office less than a week after my son was born, the following Monday. I really had no other choice - I had been working for about 5 months at the time, and certainly couldn't afford to take any more hit to my paycheck. About a month later, I asked HR if I had any kind of PTO accrued to take some time off for Christmas. This wound up being how I became a salaried employee - they felt bad that I didn't have PTO and said basically "oh, well, you're full time now anyway, we'll just convert you to salary." I want to be clear that there was no malice or anything involved in any of these situations, and as a matter of fact, the company was very supportive and provided an absolutely wonderful first job. But still, there was just no procedure or infrastructure in place to support a 23 year old father. Everything that was done to help me through my internship and eventually full time employment was in some sense a just-in-time hack, done by kind people who knew and cared about me. Had my career started at Accenture or some other gigantic corporate machine, I assume none of those things would have happened for me, even if the HR people were similarly benevolent. Even with all my good fortune, being a parent within the first few months of my professional career was difficult. Nowadays, 6 weeks of parental leave seems to be pretty standard for professional jobs, and I imagine that benefit would extend even to someone at the entry level (maybe not an intern, but FTEs). But this is a pretty recent development. When my second child was born, I took a week off. Later that year, the company implemented a single week of paternal leave for new parents , which you would just receive as an extra 5 days of PTO. A very kind and good technical manager, without my asking, went to bat for me and got me the week of PTO refunded, effectively grandfathering me into the new benefit. No one had to do that for me, it didn't even occur to me to ask - but I have remembered that act of care from him for a long time. So, all told, I had a pretty good level of company support as a young parent. But it's quite easy for me to imagine that any of these strokes of fortune wouldn't have occurred for many others in similar situations.

cortesoft 4y ago

Having kids younger is not a simple choice. My wife was already 35 when we met, we couldn't have started younger.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago
I think the idea is that many societal choices need to be moved up, not just the decision to have children.
- arglebargle123 4y ago
  For that to be viable people need to A: not leave academia with 5-15y of debt as a matter of course and B: housing suitable for young families needs to, I don't know, actually exist where the decent jobs are. Until those changes happen kids aren't going to be a popular choice before one (or more likely both) parents have a well established career and significant amounts of money in the bank.

nicholasjarnold 4y ago

Yep, I can confirm this based on personal experience with a gynecologist telling my wife that at 35 the pregnancy is considered a "geriatric pregnancy" (apparently some docs now call it "AMA"...advanced maternal age). This shocked both of us, frankly. We were aware of what the actuarial tables will tell you regarding birth defect rates related to maternal age, but hearing the term geriatric in your mid-thirties is quite shocking. I'm ignorant of any data around paternal age and sperm count (assume it goes down...no idea the rate), but the docs do tend to focus on maternal age quite a bit regarding possible defects and fertility. Nonetheless we were able to conceive in our late 30s without help or any trouble. Our baby is super healthy. Apparently we lucked out.

Eleison23 4y ago
- quest88 4y ago
  Please provide references showing it's bullshit.
  - Foobar8568 4y ago
    Considering how fast birth defect raise after 35...yeah not bullshit at all.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Just so we're all clear, this is now an internet fight with opposing claims and zero sources.
      - Foobar8568 4y ago
        Because any search with pregnancy risk 35 would result in hits on any medical journals, health website with the actual sources. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729989/ https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-antenatal-checks/pregnancy-and-birth-for-women-over-35 https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/tests-scans-and-antenatal-c... Seriously, people are just lazy.

PakG1 4y ago

LOL, didn't get married until later, wouldn't have been possible for me back then. Takes two to tango. Which is of course another societal question. Why are people finding it difficult to partner up and settle down earlier in life? I know what my reasons were, I was idiotic, picky, shy, you name it. https://xkcd.com/439/ https://xkcd.com/439/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yumaikas 4y ago

I mean, a lot of people may not have the financial option to have had kids younger. Like, the last 15 years have included two "completely upend your life" level crises, along with a lot of smaller crises that could have swept up someone.

Aeolun 4y ago
I dunno, kids may be incompatible with a lot of lifestyles, but I wouldn’t call them inherently expensive. You just have to adjust your expectations.
- afavour 4y ago
  I dunno how you can say that. When children are young you have two options: - both parents work, you pay for childcare - one parent drops out of the workforce, takes care of children at home neither of these is cheap. Decades ago it was realistic for one parent's salary to cover the whole family but these days salary stagnation and increased costs of e.g. housing makes it much more difficult.
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    That's assuming you live alone or have no nearby friends/relatives who can watch your child. Most of the world somehow has kids without spending huge sums, because they have children when they are much younger and rely on nearby family to help, just as you will gladly help your children, etc. This is how civilization propagates. The idea that only the wealthiest can afford to have kids by living in pure isolation and hiring teams of nannies and specialists is contradicted by the practice of opening one's eyes, looking around, and observing much poorer people having kids just fine. But it requires making sacrifices. Those societies in which few are willing to make the sacrifices necessary die out, and healthier societies take their place.
    - afavour 4y ago
      > That's assuming you live alone or have no nearby friends/relatives who can watch your child. Yes it is, because those friends and relatives also have to work in order to afford housing, healthcare, etc... grandparents that are happily retired, living off their savings and happy to donate their time is not close to a reality for many people. > observing much poorer people having kids just fine Define "just fine". I'm responding to the OP saying that having kids is "not expensive". It is. The fact that people make do, struggle and get by does not alter that fact, it just means they're doing it anyway. 1 in 6 children in the US lives in a food insecure home, that's not particularly "fine". > Those societies in which few are willing to make the sacrifices necessary die out, and healthier societies take their place. O...kay? I'm not sure a perspective that's this disconnected from personal lives is all that helpful. "Yes, raising a child in America in 2022 is difficult but don't worry, society will die and a new one will rise"... what's my reaction supposed to be there?

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

We have a societal problem when the rational individual choice (to provide your children the best head start) is to wait until your fertility declines to have children.

rconti 4y ago
It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. The main exception I can think is family support; having younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an advantage, I guess? I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah, this is the way society should be!"
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are. When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for two children with ease, in one of what was even back then one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me (IT worker) and my s/o (public health administration) can barely afford a flat and two cats. Fuck that shit, we need rent controls, higher wages and higher taxes on the rich. Then people like me are not forced to wait until 35 that they can start having children.
  - vardump 4y ago
    Rent in Germany is really really cheap. Even in "expensive" cities. Energy, on the other hand, not so.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    I was under the impression that programming and IT is very undervalued in Germany, like you're basically earning slightly above average in most cases. At least that's what I gather from two friends who live there.

droopyEyelids 4y ago

Fertility isn't the only consideration with having children when you're old. Skin elasticity and athleticism decreases with age, and that translates into worse tearing, and more difficult births, longer recovery, and more trouble keeping up with a baby after all that. Then, on top of all that, your parents are entering their sunset years rather where you have to help them rather than having grandparents young enough to help you with your kids. It's also linked to things like low birth weight. I sure wish my wife & I had started earlier.

Aeolun 4y ago
Can you imagine having two generations of kids at 20 years old? ‘Grandma’ will be 40 when she has her first grandkid.
- duffyjp 4y ago
  I'm 41 and my boys are 4 and 8. It's wild to even consider I could have been a grandfather by now if my life choices had been different. Wouldn't be such a bad thing though, at 40 you're still pretty young so I could've had my freedom back by now. As it is I'll be 55 by the time they're out of the house and probably won't be able to pick mountain biking back up... And then if they wait a while I could be pushing 70 before my grandkids arrive. Great-grandkids might be a relic of a time gone by...
  - WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
    > Great-grandkids might be a relic of a time gone by They seem to be the case for me. My five are 20-30. I see no avenue for grandkids where it takes 3-4 incomes to afford minimal living expenses.
- patja 4y ago
  I find it surprising that this is something that has to be imagined. I run into real world examples of this all the time. It isn't the norm, but it sure isn't something that requires imagination to see all around us.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

Problem is that a lot of people aren't in a position to have kids at 30 mainly due to economic reasons.

skwirl 4y ago
This common explanation never made sense. Lower income is correlated with higher fertility within the US, within every country, across the world, and (seemingly) throughout history.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Most of history is subsistence farming economies. More people means more labor. It’s a pretty good ROI. And of course, lack of contraception. Plus with kids dying you need several to reliably end up with a few when you’re old. In an urban economy kids are largely dead weight and expensive for two decades. The middle class dual income family isn’t typically looking for 3+ kids anymore.
  - skwirl 4y ago
    The fertility rate today in the United States is inversely correlated with income. The effects are not minor, either. As far as I'm aware, there's not much subsistence farming going on in the United States.
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      They are inversely correlated, yes, but the absolute levels of fertility American poor vs subsistence farming poor are much lower. It’s possible for the poorest people to have more kids than anyone while economic pressures also lower birth rates across the board.
- tsol 4y ago
  Kids require more investment today in the first world. 400 years ago you just kind of taught your child your craft, your religion, and your culture and that was their education. Extremely few people went to any sort of school. Raising a child was different. Now there's a level of sensitivity and attention that's necessary to ensure emotional and developmental stability that's much greater than in the past. Kids must be educated through to at least college, sometimes even beyond. There's a globalized economy which children will be competing in, and everything that gives them an advantage makes a difference