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If you haven't read the article, it's about how people having kids later means you won't meet your great grandparents. My mom had me when she was 23, and her m

If you haven't read the article, it's about how people having kids later means you won't meet your great grandparents. My mom had me when she was 23, and her mom had her at 22. I'm in my forties and still have two living grandparents, and am very grateful for them. I remember a lot of days where my grandmother watched me and my sister, and she was able to do that because she was only in her late 40's herself and plenty mobile. I knew two of my great grandmothers, one of them only dying in my teens. Not everyone can rely on parents to help with childcare, but it is worth keeping in mind that if you wait until your mid 30's they might not be able to catch a running toddler like they could a decade earlier. My mom also managed to have a really good career, though she went to night school when I was around 6 and worked her ass off in general. But, she had a high earning partner to support her. I don't really have a single point here, except that I worry we've ignored the less-obvious downsides to people delaying childbearing until their mid 30's.

titzer 3y ago
My family has really long generations. Going back 7 generations for me patrilinearly is exactly 280 years; 40 years per generation. When I was young my grandparents were already in their 80s and both grandfathers gone before I was 14. Sadly, both had mental decline (stroke, Alzheimers) and I never knew them in their right mind. They'd be in their 110s today. The idea of knowing my great-grandparents, who would be in their 140s-150s today, is basically unthinkable for me.
- WillAdams 3y ago
  Same. When my were in school and had friends who were visiting great-grandparents in nursing homes (and in one instance great-great), I had to explain that my great-grandfather was a Civil War veteran, and that I'd only met my grandfather (who worked as a sharecropper alongside freed slaves and the children of freed slaves on my great-grandfather's farm) once. One of those children lived behind us when I was growing up, and if I'd paid better attention when helping him with his garden would have taught me how to plant by the moon and stars --- he did teach me how to gut and skin a squirrel.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    feel like it is questionable to describe yourself as a sharecropper if your daddy owns the entire farm
    - WillAdams 3y ago
      He married one of the daughters --- two different family branches here.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  My neighbour is a fifty year old guy and his grandfather was born in the 1860's. Both the grandfather and father had kids with much younger women. Funny how we're closer to the past than we think.
  - MenhirMike 3y ago
    John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790 and served as the 10th President of the USA from 1841-1845. His Grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler (Born November 9, 1928), is still alive today.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jrussino 3y ago
      According to Wikipedia, John died in 1862 and Harrison was born in 1928. So he never met his grandfather. It makes me wonder - who is the oldest "directly-known" person? Maybe there's a better term for this. What I mean is, of all of the currently-living people, who is the person that one of them actually met who was born the earliest?
      - ghghgfdfgh 3y ago
        If you think about it, there are about a couple of hundred super-centenarians (110 or older) alive[1]. Surely at least one of them met a very old relative when they were young - for example, when I was 9, I met a great uncle who was 100 years old. Taking into account life expectancy, if you assume at least one of them has met someone 85 years older than them, that means this oldest "directly known person" would have been born at least 195 years ago (1829). Which means there’s a good chance someone alive has met someone born in the 1820’s. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercentenarian#Incidence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercentenarian#Incidence
      - jl6 3y ago
        > Maybe there's a better term for this. Seems to be the rule used in Coco.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  In the line I've been able (most just showed up in the New World from somewhere or other...) to trace back to 7 generations, it was a little less, but they were in the colonies before the US was a thing, so more than 35, less than 40 years per generation? My wife can go back 7 as well, and her family has also tended towards high parental investment in offspring; next time I'm in the cellar I'll have to check but I'd easily believe they'd also be on the longer side. (NB. age matching is a post-WWI thing. I believe the pre-WWI ideal was mid-30's men* marrying early-20's women, which seems to have been inherited from Aristotle's recommendation for 30 year olds to marry 15 year olds) * Stefan Zweig has a chapter on how this gap influenced porn in the Austro-Hungarian Empire — not that anyone in this august assemblage might wonder how the Viennese equivalent of OnlyFans worked.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    I do get frustrated when I hear people saying negative or unfounded things about couples with relatively small age gaps 7-15 years. It’s the norm, not the exception. And I say that as someone who has only dated people my own age.
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39851970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39851970
    - rdlw 3y ago
      Many things were historical norms, with current practices being the exception.
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    I am shocked, shocked that Josephine Mutzenbacher didn’t reflect reality
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      Wait, given the age differences described here, the book very much reflected reality, no?
fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
I got fairly unlucky in the great grandparent department. My grandmother had my mom at 15, and my mom had me at 19, and all my great grandparents were already dead!
- em-bee 3y ago
  oh wow, talk about having the best conditions to have your great grandparents around for quite a while, and still no luck. at what age did they have your grandmother? i am sorry they had to leave so early.
  - hackable_sand 3y ago
    Those sound like awful conditions.
  - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
    My grandmother was the 2nd youngest of 9 sisters, so they weren't that young when they had her, but I don't know the exact age. Her dad killed himself when she was a young child, alcoholism and war trauma among other things, and her mom passed from some illness.
humansareok1 3y ago
Conversely even people who start young don't necessarily end up having living great grandparents let alone grandparents. My parents were both the youngest of 6 and 7 kids so my grandparents who started having kids in their early 20s had already passed or were quite old by the time I was born.
jncfhnb 3y ago
The economic situation of your mom having a great career is not the same as the economic situation of today; appeal to her hard work considered. People cannot afford to have kids like they used to. And yes, the older grandparents make this much worse because they’re now a costly liability rather than a useful child watcher. I find the idea that people haven’t considered downsides of waiting to have kids to be grating personally
- throwway120385 3y ago
  > I find the idea that people haven’t considered downsides of waiting to have kids to be grating personally Why do you care about what other people do? It's not harming you.
  - djur 3y ago
    Why does anyone care about anyone else's opinions? I think it's pretty reasonable to take issue with others assuming that you made a particular decision because you hadn't fully thought through the consequences. Do you like having people second-guess your decisions, or does it annoy you?
  - acover 3y ago
    I think being judged feels bad. If someone thinks you haven't considered the obvious it feels pretty insulting.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Publicly asserting incorrect reasons why people do things is in fact harmful due the social dialogue it creates.
xico 3y ago
One of the (maybe more) obvious downside being the increase in mutations this brings, in the order of 1 full generation of mutations for every decade the fathers are older for instance. There are plenty of studies on these issues, notably paternal age genetic disorders and "selfish genes", as well as increase of autism, schizophrenia, mendelian disorders, .... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028222019677 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001502822...
- ralusek 3y ago
  Probably a good thing to speed up the evolutionary landscape during these rapidly changing times.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    It would not speed up evolution at all. I remember seeing a talk by Steve Jones[1] where someone asked a question like this and he said the human species has basically not evolved at all for I forget how long he said but it was at least hundreds of thousands of years. He said specifically if you took the children of someone like this dude[2] and put them in a modern school system they would not perform noticeably differently in any way from a modern child as long as they had decent food etc all the other benefits of modern society. [1] https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/7056 https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/7056 (emeritus professor of human genetics and evolution at university college London and the author of a fantastic book on the subject called "In the Blood") [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
- Rury 3y ago
  Increased mutations/mutation rate is not necessarily a downside. Mutations aren't inherently bad, they can be beneficial, and the vast majority actually have no effect whatsoever, as the majority of our DNA is never used. But yes increased mutations means increased chances of bad mutations happening even if it also means increased chances of good mutations happening. Anyhow, it may put evolutionary pressure for longer lifespans. Studies involving fruit flies, and selective breeding them as old as possible for successive generations, show that can be the case. And other studies involving natural selection show that high mutation rates are a good thing (ie they help species survive), when environmental change is high (but high mutation rates are detrimental if the environment remains stable).
Merad 3y ago
It's not just great grandparents, but the family calculus on grandparents changes significantly as well. If my parents were 35 when I was born, and I don't have children until 35, my parents are 70. With a life expectancy of 80, my children never really get a chance to know my parents. Whereas if each generation is having children at age 25, my children will likely be able to know their grandparents for 30 years. I have no idea if it's good or bad, but it's interesting to think about. I do have to wonder if it affects how younger people perceive the past, since they have less of a direct connection to the past.
- Unfrozen0688 3y ago
  Its bad. Ofc course its bad to have a smaller support network.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    Support networks are not necessarily limited to blood relatives. (in particular, I was never within 5 hours of gp or ggp until my teens, and born multiple TZ away. then again, I'm in the "come home before it gets dark" generation; ymmv)
    - Unfrozen0688 3y ago
      No but its nice We have cheap daycare, maternity leave etc etc here in Sweden but having some another dropoff for the kids is still nice for parents
- vidarh 3y ago
  I realised last year that I'd reached the age (48) that my mums dad was when I was born. I remember him "always" being "old", but I also know that I have memories of him from before he turned 55 (he took early retirement around then, and I remember clearly the discussions about what would happen to his workplace that led up to the offer of taking early retirement). He lived another 32 years after that, and all of my grandparents were young enough through most of my childhood and teens that not only were they around but they had the energy to have us stay for whole weeks during the holidays and take us all kinds of places... Meanwhile my son, at 14, has only one living grandparent, and it does feel weird.
mrbgty 3y ago
Good points to think about. One I consider is that traditions and family roots are often good for people to feel connected and find meaning although traditions should be questioned from time to time. I think having family members of varying ages alive at the same time does help people feel connected, safe, and confident in having meaning and purpose. (Not that people can't have those things otherwise, it's just without that support)
Afton 3y ago
The upside is that I was a total basket case in my 20s, completely incompetent to be able to raise a child. I'll leave it to my children on how it turned out in my 30s. Generally I'd expect older adults to have done a lot more maturing and increased ability to emotionally regulate, which is a really critical ability when dealing with the 4th day of 3 hours of sleep and a colicky baby (for example). Also no point. But honestly, if you want people to have kids earlier, you need to make them think that their life won't be bleak if they do.
- myko 3y ago
  I am so glad I waited until my late 30s to have a kid. It sucks not being as physically capable as I would've been, but being calmer and more understanding I think is a big help in child rearing.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Not a parent, but I feel the same about myself. Having a kid at 22 would’ve been a mess to say the least. Looking back at that age halfway through my 30s, at that point I wasn’t much more than an overgrown 16 year old that could legally walk into a bar who wouldn’t get his head screwed on quite right for another 6 years or so at minimum.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    I think a potential problem (depending on ones point of view) is that when parents wait till they are responsible they tend to have one, maybe two kids, which is below replacement rate. When coupled with things like costs, you end up with a rapidly shrinking population.
    - jwells89 3y ago
      Cost and support networks are both big factors here. 30-somethings are probably more likely to have replacement rate or more if it’s affordable to do so and there’s family/friends around to lend a hand, but few enjoy such circumstances. Things like remote work could’ve helped here, allowing couples to live near family instead of wherever the best employment prospects exist currently, but the RTO push prevented that.
angarg12 3y ago
The wording here is a bit odd, almost like blaming people for delaying childbearing. The world is complicated and a number of factors have produced this outcome in the developed world. My parents were factory workers and they encouraged me to study a university degree as a sure way to a successful career. I finished my degree well into my 20s, but then the economic collapse of 2008 happened and I spent several years living paycheck to paycheck, lucky me who at least had a job. In my late 20s I finally broke from economic stagnation by moving abroad. Then I spent the next 12 years moving countries every 2-3 years, which isn't good for stability. In fact I didn't meet who would become my wife until my mid 30s. Now I approach 40 and have a good paying job in tech. However I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa and my company has done waves of layoffs that I luckily survived. We are seriously considering having a child, but the prospects don't look great. Everything else aside, we don't really know anyone or have a support network here. I know most of this is moaning and if we "really wanted" we could make it work. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  I don't blame people, just noting that at least in my own youth all I heard were reasons to wait. Good luck! Funny enough my wife and I are from the US and we waited until we knew our kids would have EU citizenship before having them. And raising kids without a support network sucks, I can't pretend otherwise.
- lukan 3y ago
  "But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network." Definitely. Still, sometimes you have to take risks, as you are not getting younger. Maybe moving again somewhere, where you could have a support network, even though pay is lower, might be an option? We had grandparents around, that definitely helped. No idea, what other people do without that. If both parents get sick, the child still needs lots of care .. and you don't want some stranger to take care of your baby.
- bombcar 3y ago
  > But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network. It is easier, but people have been having kids in all sorts of various situations for, well, as long as the human race has been around. Kids are way more resilient than we think.
tombert 3y ago
I only got to meet one of my great grandparents, my great grandmother, though she died when I was five years old so I don't remember her terribly well. I am the oldest kid in my family, and my mom had me when she was 25. My oldest sister also got to meet my great grandmother, but my two youngest sisters never did. I still have two living grandparents as well, both grandmothers, one I won't talk to, and one that I like a lot. My oldest sister had a kid almost three years ago, and he got to meet his great grandmother last October for her 90th birthday. That grandmother is still in pretty good health for her age, so I certainly hope she lives a lot longer, but realistically she probably doesn't have that much time left. I'm not having kids, but my other sisters are planning on it and it seems unlikely that they'll get to meet their great grandmother.
enobrev 3y ago
My story covers both ends of this. Mom had me at 21 (dad was 30). I knew both my grandmothers and neither of my grandfathers. One was left behind when my mom's family immigrated. The other died not too long after my dad's family immigrated - just before my dad was born I had my son (now 4) when I was 41. Both his grandmothers are around, and neither of his grandfathers. My dad died last year and my son barely remembers him. My wife's dad died when she was two. I'm glad to say my son and my mother are very close - they spend every other weekend together. His other grandmother and my wife aren't close and so my son doesn't know her very well. Not sure if there's much here - except to say that having kids in our thirties should still be young enough that healthy grandparents can be around for the formative years. And regardless of age, life happens, and a multi-generational family unit isn't guaranteed.
giantg2 3y ago
Except grandparents in their 40s are still working, so not a great choice for childcare.
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> it's about how people having kids later means you won't meet your great grandparents. It really depends. When I was born my youngest grandma was 50. She already had three grandchildren. I already had only 3 grandparents, one had died when my father was young, having survived two world wars, ironic ain't it? At the age of 10 only one grandma was still alive, but she lived to the age of 95 and managed to meet 4 great grand-children. My cousins had children late in their lives, their parents were average for their times. I would say that meeting your grand parents is a benefit that has become a given only for the past 2-3 generations, when life and work conditions improved so much that it became the norm.
mkoubaa 3y ago
My parents had me in their early 20s and I only met one of my grandparents. We had our kid in our late 20s and my parents aren't healthy enough to help at all. Take it from someone who never had the opportunity. If you have healthy parents do yourself and them a favor and if you're gonna have kids have them sooner.
sublinear 3y ago
Isn't the ultimate goal of parenting that your kids shouldn't have to trust anyone but themselves? Parents who don't have a plan and need help shouldn't have had kids. The grandparents and great grandparents would just get in the way of these goals. There shouldn't be anything magical about getting to know your family. If you got to meet them, great, but you're your own person and developing that is so much more important.
- RayVR 3y ago
  Is this a joke?
- rfrey 3y ago
  This reads like a parody of American individualism that a Chinese government newspaper might write. The ultimate goal of my parenting is for my kids to realize they're part of a community that gave them tremendous advantages, and to which they have a duty to give back.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    Not sure what bubble you're describing, but the sense of community anywhere at any time in human history is ultimately an illusion. I'm not saying the kids should grow up to be selfish, but that the more they can do for themselves the more they can also do for others. That is a leader. We really don't need another generation of guilt ridden cogs.
    - rfrey 3y ago
      It's "rugged individualism" that is the bubble, both in time and in space. Community and duty exist everywhere and have at every time, despite what it is like in 2024 America.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 3y ago
> Not everyone can rely on parents to help with childcare, but it is worth keeping in mind that if you wait until your mid 30's they might not be able to catch a running toddler like they could a decade earlier. Starting having kids in our 20s is the best decision my wife and I ever made. When my daughter was born, my parents (then in their early 60s) got a decade younger overnight. I wish we hadn’t spaced them out so much (27-37) because indeed my parents are not able to keep up with the littlest one like they could with the first two.
- anon291 3y ago
  Same. Easiest decision we made. I don't understand the comments about maturity. I fully agree that at 25 I would be unable to raise a 16 year old. Luckily I've never met someone who gave birth to one of those.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> My mom had me when she was 23, and her mom had her at 22. I'm in my forties and still have two living grandparents, and am very grateful for them. My mother had me when she was 20. I am not yet in my forties, but I lost my last grandparent many years ago. :(
throwaway6734 3y ago
We just had our first child at 33 and I wish we had done it at 24 or 25, although it's hard to predict if we'd be as happy as we spent those years changing jobs, going back to graduate school, and traveling
jxramos 3y ago
I’ve had a similar thought about marriage, late marriage means you forgo the likelihood for big wedding anniversaries.
- arkey 3y ago
  Reading all these comments I just keep thinking it's all a matter of priorities. If you really want to do something, the sooner you do it the better. Responsibly, of course. What "responsibly" means in any case might also be influenced by your priorities. For instance, a lot of people say "We're not financially ready to have kids" but they really mean "We can't keep up the fancy holiday trips if we add a kid". If your priority is to have a family, you might cut on holidays and have the kid. That applies to some, even plenty, of cases, but I acknowledge that not for all. At least where I'm from, it often feels everything is set up to make it difficult for people to build a family.
  - jxramos 3y ago
    Doubling the child tax credit a second time could go a long way. Also making single detached family homes cheaper around good paying jobs will help a lot too. What do you think are the chief obstacles that make it difficult to build a family?
gleenn 3y ago
It would be nice if our life expectancy got longer at the same pace (instead of doing exactly the opposite).
jd3 3y ago
I'm in my late 20s, but my mom had me when she was 42. My Dad's father died 32 years before I was born and my Mom's father died 22 years before I was born, so I've always wondered what it must have been like to grow up with grandfathers, let alone great grandfathers or grandmothers. On the plus side, in the early 60s, my recently windowed grandmother put herself through night school while raising 4 teenage kids, one of whom eventually worked on the national security council and traveled the world; all these years later, I still wonder how she managed it all without having a nervous breakdown. Life is strange like that, sometimes.
sroussey 3y ago
Oh, don’t kid yourself. There are areas of the country where knowing a great grandmother is common, and even great great grandmother. If you have kids at 15, it tends to be generational. Same way as having kids in your 30s+ is generational.
jzb 3y ago
It weirds me out a lot when people talk about parenting and family planning like this. Like, having kids should be planned around strategically based on factors like "are my parents young enough to be supplemental child care" over "do I have the mental and financial readiness to be responsible for raising a human being? And do I even want to do that?" If people want earlier parenting, then create a society that supports it. One with living wages, universal health care, and programs to provide childcare for working people. Because those are reasons people hesitate to have kids, and those situations are not improving.
- rendang 3y ago
  Do you have evidence for the second paragraph? The wealthiest countries are generally those with lower birth rates, although the very lowest fertility is in upper-middle income regions like Eastern Europe and E Asia
  - DHPersonal 3y ago
    Sweden doesn't have exactly the things that was mentioned, but it is far more supportive of parents than the United States: https://www.norden.org/en/info-norden/parental-benefit-sweden https://www.norden.org/en/info-norden/parental-benefit-swede...
    - Brusco_RF 3y ago
      And how does their fertility rate compare? Actually I'll tell you, Sweden's is 1.66, the USA is 1.64. South Sudan, the poorest country in the world, is 4.54
      - DHPersonal 3y ago
        South Sudan's infant mortality rate is also significantly higher than either Sweden or the US.
- resource_waste 3y ago
  >"are my parents young enough to be supplemental child care" My first kid(late 20s) didn't get my parents watching the kid because they were working. My next 3 kids (early 30s) got grandparents attention because they were retired. Although I feel like the baby/kid thing has lost its magic on the grandparents. But on the flip side, the kids are basically old enough to take care of themselves(4+ yr old).
shostack 3y ago
The flip side, and I recognize this is not a privilege everyone shares, is that being an older parent may mean better financial stability and opportunities. On today's world of housing costs putting ownership out of reach of many, inflation, layoffs, that can mean a lot in terms of stability for a family.

titzer 3y ago

My family has really long generations. Going back 7 generations for me patrilinearly is exactly 280 years; 40 years per generation. When I was young my grandparents were already in their 80s and both grandfathers gone before I was 14. Sadly, both had mental decline (stroke, Alzheimers) and I never knew them in their right mind. They'd be in their 110s today. The idea of knowing my great-grandparents, who would be in their 140s-150s today, is basically unthinkable for me.

WillAdams 3y ago
Same. When my were in school and had friends who were visiting great-grandparents in nursing homes (and in one instance great-great), I had to explain that my great-grandfather was a Civil War veteran, and that I'd only met my grandfather (who worked as a sharecropper alongside freed slaves and the children of freed slaves on my great-grandfather's farm) once. One of those children lived behind us when I was growing up, and if I'd paid better attention when helping him with his garden would have taught me how to plant by the moon and stars --- he did teach me how to gut and skin a squirrel.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  feel like it is questionable to describe yourself as a sharecropper if your daddy owns the entire farm
  - WillAdams 3y ago
    He married one of the daughters --- two different family branches here.
CalRobert 3y ago
My neighbour is a fifty year old guy and his grandfather was born in the 1860's. Both the grandfather and father had kids with much younger women. Funny how we're closer to the past than we think.
- MenhirMike 3y ago
  John Tyler was born on March 29, 1790 and served as the 10th President of the USA from 1841-1845. His Grandson, Harrison Ruffin Tyler (Born November 9, 1928), is still alive today.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jrussino 3y ago
    According to Wikipedia, John died in 1862 and Harrison was born in 1928. So he never met his grandfather. It makes me wonder - who is the oldest "directly-known" person? Maybe there's a better term for this. What I mean is, of all of the currently-living people, who is the person that one of them actually met who was born the earliest?
    - ghghgfdfgh 3y ago
      If you think about it, there are about a couple of hundred super-centenarians (110 or older) alive[1]. Surely at least one of them met a very old relative when they were young - for example, when I was 9, I met a great uncle who was 100 years old. Taking into account life expectancy, if you assume at least one of them has met someone 85 years older than them, that means this oldest "directly known person" would have been born at least 195 years ago (1829). Which means there’s a good chance someone alive has met someone born in the 1820’s. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercentenarian#Incidence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercentenarian#Incidence
    - jl6 3y ago
      > Maybe there's a better term for this. Seems to be the rule used in Coco.
082349872349872 3y ago
In the line I've been able (most just showed up in the New World from somewhere or other...) to trace back to 7 generations, it was a little less, but they were in the colonies before the US was a thing, so more than 35, less than 40 years per generation? My wife can go back 7 as well, and her family has also tended towards high parental investment in offspring; next time I'm in the cellar I'll have to check but I'd easily believe they'd also be on the longer side. (NB. age matching is a post-WWI thing. I believe the pre-WWI ideal was mid-30's men* marrying early-20's women, which seems to have been inherited from Aristotle's recommendation for 30 year olds to marry 15 year olds) * Stefan Zweig has a chapter on how this gap influenced porn in the Austro-Hungarian Empire — not that anyone in this august assemblage might wonder how the Viennese equivalent of OnlyFans worked.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  I do get frustrated when I hear people saying negative or unfounded things about couples with relatively small age gaps 7-15 years. It’s the norm, not the exception. And I say that as someone who has only dated people my own age.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39851970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39851970
  - rdlw 3y ago
    Many things were historical norms, with current practices being the exception.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  I am shocked, shocked that Josephine Mutzenbacher didn’t reflect reality
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    Wait, given the age differences described here, the book very much reflected reality, no?

fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago

I got fairly unlucky in the great grandparent department. My grandmother had my mom at 15, and my mom had me at 19, and all my great grandparents were already dead!

em-bee 3y ago
oh wow, talk about having the best conditions to have your great grandparents around for quite a while, and still no luck. at what age did they have your grandmother? i am sorry they had to leave so early.
- hackable_sand 3y ago
  Those sound like awful conditions.
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
  My grandmother was the 2nd youngest of 9 sisters, so they weren't that young when they had her, but I don't know the exact age. Her dad killed himself when she was a young child, alcoholism and war trauma among other things, and her mom passed from some illness.

humansareok1 3y ago

Conversely even people who start young don't necessarily end up having living great grandparents let alone grandparents. My parents were both the youngest of 6 and 7 kids so my grandparents who started having kids in their early 20s had already passed or were quite old by the time I was born.

jncfhnb 3y ago

The economic situation of your mom having a great career is not the same as the economic situation of today; appeal to her hard work considered. People cannot afford to have kids like they used to. And yes, the older grandparents make this much worse because they’re now a costly liability rather than a useful child watcher. I find the idea that people haven’t considered downsides of waiting to have kids to be grating personally

throwway120385 3y ago
> I find the idea that people haven’t considered downsides of waiting to have kids to be grating personally Why do you care about what other people do? It's not harming you.
- djur 3y ago
  Why does anyone care about anyone else's opinions? I think it's pretty reasonable to take issue with others assuming that you made a particular decision because you hadn't fully thought through the consequences. Do you like having people second-guess your decisions, or does it annoy you?
- acover 3y ago
  I think being judged feels bad. If someone thinks you haven't considered the obvious it feels pretty insulting.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Publicly asserting incorrect reasons why people do things is in fact harmful due the social dialogue it creates.

xico 3y ago

One of the (maybe more) obvious downside being the increase in mutations this brings, in the order of 1 full generation of mutations for every decade the fathers are older for instance. There are plenty of studies on these issues, notably paternal age genetic disorders and "selfish genes", as well as increase of autism, schizophrenia, mendelian disorders, .... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028222019677 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001502822...

ralusek 3y ago
Probably a good thing to speed up the evolutionary landscape during these rapidly changing times.
- seanhunter 3y ago
  It would not speed up evolution at all. I remember seeing a talk by Steve Jones[1] where someone asked a question like this and he said the human species has basically not evolved at all for I forget how long he said but it was at least hundreds of thousands of years. He said specifically if you took the children of someone like this dude[2] and put them in a modern school system they would not perform noticeably differently in any way from a modern child as long as they had decent food etc all the other benefits of modern society. [1] https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/7056 https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/7056 (emeritus professor of human genetics and evolution at university college London and the author of a fantastic book on the subject called "In the Blood") [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
Rury 3y ago
Increased mutations/mutation rate is not necessarily a downside. Mutations aren't inherently bad, they can be beneficial, and the vast majority actually have no effect whatsoever, as the majority of our DNA is never used. But yes increased mutations means increased chances of bad mutations happening even if it also means increased chances of good mutations happening. Anyhow, it may put evolutionary pressure for longer lifespans. Studies involving fruit flies, and selective breeding them as old as possible for successive generations, show that can be the case. And other studies involving natural selection show that high mutation rates are a good thing (ie they help species survive), when environmental change is high (but high mutation rates are detrimental if the environment remains stable).

Merad 3y ago

It's not just great grandparents, but the family calculus on grandparents changes significantly as well. If my parents were 35 when I was born, and I don't have children until 35, my parents are 70. With a life expectancy of 80, my children never really get a chance to know my parents. Whereas if each generation is having children at age 25, my children will likely be able to know their grandparents for 30 years. I have no idea if it's good or bad, but it's interesting to think about. I do have to wonder if it affects how younger people perceive the past, since they have less of a direct connection to the past.

Unfrozen0688 3y ago
Its bad. Ofc course its bad to have a smaller support network.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  Support networks are not necessarily limited to blood relatives. (in particular, I was never within 5 hours of gp or ggp until my teens, and born multiple TZ away. then again, I'm in the "come home before it gets dark" generation; ymmv)
  - Unfrozen0688 3y ago
    No but its nice We have cheap daycare, maternity leave etc etc here in Sweden but having some another dropoff for the kids is still nice for parents
vidarh 3y ago
I realised last year that I'd reached the age (48) that my mums dad was when I was born. I remember him "always" being "old", but I also know that I have memories of him from before he turned 55 (he took early retirement around then, and I remember clearly the discussions about what would happen to his workplace that led up to the offer of taking early retirement). He lived another 32 years after that, and all of my grandparents were young enough through most of my childhood and teens that not only were they around but they had the energy to have us stay for whole weeks during the holidays and take us all kinds of places... Meanwhile my son, at 14, has only one living grandparent, and it does feel weird.

mrbgty 3y ago

Good points to think about. One I consider is that traditions and family roots are often good for people to feel connected and find meaning although traditions should be questioned from time to time. I think having family members of varying ages alive at the same time does help people feel connected, safe, and confident in having meaning and purpose. (Not that people can't have those things otherwise, it's just without that support)

Afton 3y ago

The upside is that I was a total basket case in my 20s, completely incompetent to be able to raise a child. I'll leave it to my children on how it turned out in my 30s. Generally I'd expect older adults to have done a lot more maturing and increased ability to emotionally regulate, which is a really critical ability when dealing with the 4th day of 3 hours of sleep and a colicky baby (for example). Also no point. But honestly, if you want people to have kids earlier, you need to make them think that their life won't be bleak if they do.

myko 3y ago
I am so glad I waited until my late 30s to have a kid. It sucks not being as physically capable as I would've been, but being calmer and more understanding I think is a big help in child rearing.
jwells89 3y ago
Not a parent, but I feel the same about myself. Having a kid at 22 would’ve been a mess to say the least. Looking back at that age halfway through my 30s, at that point I wasn’t much more than an overgrown 16 year old that could legally walk into a bar who wouldn’t get his head screwed on quite right for another 6 years or so at minimum.
- pixl97 3y ago
  I think a potential problem (depending on ones point of view) is that when parents wait till they are responsible they tend to have one, maybe two kids, which is below replacement rate. When coupled with things like costs, you end up with a rapidly shrinking population.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Cost and support networks are both big factors here. 30-somethings are probably more likely to have replacement rate or more if it’s affordable to do so and there’s family/friends around to lend a hand, but few enjoy such circumstances. Things like remote work could’ve helped here, allowing couples to live near family instead of wherever the best employment prospects exist currently, but the RTO push prevented that.

angarg12 3y ago

The wording here is a bit odd, almost like blaming people for delaying childbearing. The world is complicated and a number of factors have produced this outcome in the developed world. My parents were factory workers and they encouraged me to study a university degree as a sure way to a successful career. I finished my degree well into my 20s, but then the economic collapse of 2008 happened and I spent several years living paycheck to paycheck, lucky me who at least had a job. In my late 20s I finally broke from economic stagnation by moving abroad. Then I spent the next 12 years moving countries every 2-3 years, which isn't good for stability. In fact I didn't meet who would become my wife until my mid 30s. Now I approach 40 and have a good paying job in tech. However I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa and my company has done waves of layoffs that I luckily survived. We are seriously considering having a child, but the prospects don't look great. Everything else aside, we don't really know anyone or have a support network here. I know most of this is moaning and if we "really wanted" we could make it work. But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network.

CalRobert 3y ago
I don't blame people, just noting that at least in my own youth all I heard were reasons to wait. Good luck! Funny enough my wife and I are from the US and we waited until we knew our kids would have EU citizenship before having them. And raising kids without a support network sucks, I can't pretend otherwise.
lukan 3y ago
"But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network." Definitely. Still, sometimes you have to take risks, as you are not getting younger. Maybe moving again somewhere, where you could have a support network, even though pay is lower, might be an option? We had grandparents around, that definitely helped. No idea, what other people do without that. If both parents get sick, the child still needs lots of care .. and you don't want some stranger to take care of your baby.
bombcar 3y ago
> But it doesn't discount the fact that it's easier to start a family for someone with a stable job with a support network. It is easier, but people have been having kids in all sorts of various situations for, well, as long as the human race has been around. Kids are way more resilient than we think.

tombert 3y ago

I only got to meet one of my great grandparents, my great grandmother, though she died when I was five years old so I don't remember her terribly well. I am the oldest kid in my family, and my mom had me when she was 25. My oldest sister also got to meet my great grandmother, but my two youngest sisters never did. I still have two living grandparents as well, both grandmothers, one I won't talk to, and one that I like a lot. My oldest sister had a kid almost three years ago, and he got to meet his great grandmother last October for her 90th birthday. That grandmother is still in pretty good health for her age, so I certainly hope she lives a lot longer, but realistically she probably doesn't have that much time left. I'm not having kids, but my other sisters are planning on it and it seems unlikely that they'll get to meet their great grandmother.

enobrev 3y ago

My story covers both ends of this. Mom had me at 21 (dad was 30). I knew both my grandmothers and neither of my grandfathers. One was left behind when my mom's family immigrated. The other died not too long after my dad's family immigrated - just before my dad was born I had my son (now 4) when I was 41. Both his grandmothers are around, and neither of his grandfathers. My dad died last year and my son barely remembers him. My wife's dad died when she was two. I'm glad to say my son and my mother are very close - they spend every other weekend together. His other grandmother and my wife aren't close and so my son doesn't know her very well. Not sure if there's much here - except to say that having kids in our thirties should still be young enough that healthy grandparents can be around for the formative years. And regardless of age, life happens, and a multi-generational family unit isn't guaranteed.

giantg2 3y ago

Except grandparents in their 40s are still working, so not a great choice for childcare.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago

> it's about how people having kids later means you won't meet your great grandparents. It really depends. When I was born my youngest grandma was 50. She already had three grandchildren. I already had only 3 grandparents, one had died when my father was young, having survived two world wars, ironic ain't it? At the age of 10 only one grandma was still alive, but she lived to the age of 95 and managed to meet 4 great grand-children. My cousins had children late in their lives, their parents were average for their times. I would say that meeting your grand parents is a benefit that has become a given only for the past 2-3 generations, when life and work conditions improved so much that it became the norm.

mkoubaa 3y ago

My parents had me in their early 20s and I only met one of my grandparents. We had our kid in our late 20s and my parents aren't healthy enough to help at all. Take it from someone who never had the opportunity. If you have healthy parents do yourself and them a favor and if you're gonna have kids have them sooner.

sublinear 3y ago

Isn't the ultimate goal of parenting that your kids shouldn't have to trust anyone but themselves? Parents who don't have a plan and need help shouldn't have had kids. The grandparents and great grandparents would just get in the way of these goals. There shouldn't be anything magical about getting to know your family. If you got to meet them, great, but you're your own person and developing that is so much more important.

RayVR 3y ago
Is this a joke?
rfrey 3y ago
This reads like a parody of American individualism that a Chinese government newspaper might write. The ultimate goal of my parenting is for my kids to realize they're part of a community that gave them tremendous advantages, and to which they have a duty to give back.
- sublinear 3y ago
  Not sure what bubble you're describing, but the sense of community anywhere at any time in human history is ultimately an illusion. I'm not saying the kids should grow up to be selfish, but that the more they can do for themselves the more they can also do for others. That is a leader. We really don't need another generation of guilt ridden cogs.
  - rfrey 3y ago
    It's "rugged individualism" that is the bubble, both in time and in space. Community and duty exist everywhere and have at every time, despite what it is like in 2024 America.
deleted 3y ago
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rayiner 3y ago

> Not everyone can rely on parents to help with childcare, but it is worth keeping in mind that if you wait until your mid 30's they might not be able to catch a running toddler like they could a decade earlier. Starting having kids in our 20s is the best decision my wife and I ever made. When my daughter was born, my parents (then in their early 60s) got a decade younger overnight. I wish we hadn’t spaced them out so much (27-37) because indeed my parents are not able to keep up with the littlest one like they could with the first two.

anon291 3y ago
Same. Easiest decision we made. I don't understand the comments about maturity. I fully agree that at 25 I would be unable to raise a 16 year old. Luckily I've never met someone who gave birth to one of those.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> My mom had me when she was 23, and her mom had her at 22. I'm in my forties and still have two living grandparents, and am very grateful for them. My mother had me when she was 20. I am not yet in my forties, but I lost my last grandparent many years ago. :(

throwaway6734 3y ago

We just had our first child at 33 and I wish we had done it at 24 or 25, although it's hard to predict if we'd be as happy as we spent those years changing jobs, going back to graduate school, and traveling

jxramos 3y ago

I’ve had a similar thought about marriage, late marriage means you forgo the likelihood for big wedding anniversaries.

arkey 3y ago
Reading all these comments I just keep thinking it's all a matter of priorities. If you really want to do something, the sooner you do it the better. Responsibly, of course. What "responsibly" means in any case might also be influenced by your priorities. For instance, a lot of people say "We're not financially ready to have kids" but they really mean "We can't keep up the fancy holiday trips if we add a kid". If your priority is to have a family, you might cut on holidays and have the kid. That applies to some, even plenty, of cases, but I acknowledge that not for all. At least where I'm from, it often feels everything is set up to make it difficult for people to build a family.
- jxramos 3y ago
  Doubling the child tax credit a second time could go a long way. Also making single detached family homes cheaper around good paying jobs will help a lot too. What do you think are the chief obstacles that make it difficult to build a family?

gleenn 3y ago

It would be nice if our life expectancy got longer at the same pace (instead of doing exactly the opposite).

jd3 3y ago

I'm in my late 20s, but my mom had me when she was 42. My Dad's father died 32 years before I was born and my Mom's father died 22 years before I was born, so I've always wondered what it must have been like to grow up with grandfathers, let alone great grandfathers or grandmothers. On the plus side, in the early 60s, my recently windowed grandmother put herself through night school while raising 4 teenage kids, one of whom eventually worked on the national security council and traveled the world; all these years later, I still wonder how she managed it all without having a nervous breakdown. Life is strange like that, sometimes.

sroussey 3y ago

Oh, don’t kid yourself. There are areas of the country where knowing a great grandmother is common, and even great great grandmother. If you have kids at 15, it tends to be generational. Same way as having kids in your 30s+ is generational.

jzb 3y ago

It weirds me out a lot when people talk about parenting and family planning like this. Like, having kids should be planned around strategically based on factors like "are my parents young enough to be supplemental child care" over "do I have the mental and financial readiness to be responsible for raising a human being? And do I even want to do that?" If people want earlier parenting, then create a society that supports it. One with living wages, universal health care, and programs to provide childcare for working people. Because those are reasons people hesitate to have kids, and those situations are not improving.

rendang 3y ago
Do you have evidence for the second paragraph? The wealthiest countries are generally those with lower birth rates, although the very lowest fertility is in upper-middle income regions like Eastern Europe and E Asia
- DHPersonal 3y ago
  Sweden doesn't have exactly the things that was mentioned, but it is far more supportive of parents than the United States: https://www.norden.org/en/info-norden/parental-benefit-sweden https://www.norden.org/en/info-norden/parental-benefit-swede...
  - Brusco_RF 3y ago
    And how does their fertility rate compare? Actually I'll tell you, Sweden's is 1.66, the USA is 1.64. South Sudan, the poorest country in the world, is 4.54
    - DHPersonal 3y ago
      South Sudan's infant mortality rate is also significantly higher than either Sweden or the US.
resource_waste 3y ago
>"are my parents young enough to be supplemental child care" My first kid(late 20s) didn't get my parents watching the kid because they were working. My next 3 kids (early 30s) got grandparents attention because they were retired. Although I feel like the baby/kid thing has lost its magic on the grandparents. But on the flip side, the kids are basically old enough to take care of themselves(4+ yr old).

shostack 3y ago

The flip side, and I recognize this is not a privilege everyone shares, is that being an older parent may mean better financial stability and opportunities. On today's world of housing costs putting ownership out of reach of many, inflation, layoffs, that can mean a lot in terms of stability for a family.