Oddbean new post about login | logout Having children in my early 20s meant that I was working at 200%, while everyone else was partying and relaxing. It also means that I am half-retired in my 40s. https://m.primal.net/HoXc.jpg
I am in my early twenties right now and I don’t feel like partying. But all my friends do. In search for deep and meaningful. Most people on parties and clubs don’t understand my deep desire for a better world. They be like “let’s drink it away” Partying for myself. Dancing through the house singing embarrassingly loud. Running over meadows & starting my own raves with friends “right here right now”. 🕺 You remind me of my mom. She always gave 200% too. She was already carrying my brother in her arms in my current age. Crazy. She now doesn’t have to care a lot for us anymore, she’s following her dreams. 🫂
Yes, I think I would have died of boredom, if I hadn't married early or become a nun or SOMETHING. I always need some mission greater than pleasure.
I think it’s amazing that you felt so sure about something so big so young. Becoming a mother early and hustling pays off 👏🏼👏🏼
I wasn't sure. I suppose I am risk-inclined and meaning-seeking. Death is better than boredom and commonness.
What scared you the most about getting married and having kids?
That I would become so immersed in my various intellectual pursuits that I would forget to feed the children, as I tend to kill all of my houseplants. My husband pointed out that children cry when they're hungry, unlike houseplants. This seemed logical to me.
Aww hahaha seems like they didn’t starve. 😁
I think I grossly underestimated how interesting I'd find little children. They are mesmerizing. Hyperfocused on them for about 10 years. Thought of little else.
Oh God this made me feel warm things. That's so cute. My wife and I feel the same way about our little girl.
LMAO 🤣 🤣 Literally "it's not a but, it's a feature!"😭 🥲
Well, it explains why children cry, doesn't it? Had never occurred to me, before he pointed it out. They signal when they need something. Brilliant system.
Make sense (? This is the norm in nature, almost everything that passed the test of time has a purpose, when we fail to understand why most of the time is us not being smart enough to get it.
Children are both easier and more difficult, than I thought. All the basic survival stuff quickly becomes routine. Dealing with two additional people with their own personalities and desires is difficult.
It seems to be one of those "problems that are nice to have"
Agreed. Or, as the Germans say, "Complaining at a very high level." #FirstWorldProblems
Is nice that you met someone with the same values and compatible life goals so early in life
I wasn’t scared enough. It just felt right. It was right. But what the heck, what a ride!
Having them come up to me and ask questions about Time.
That's not really the point. For a woman i would say that it's good to have children till 32 years old. Also all women at the age of 25-26 have thoughts to become mothers. So... The conclusion is that if you are between 25-32 go for it. After that things become difficult...
32 is already 6 years into the fertility decline and you'll be chasing little kids around in your 40s.
I know women with 4+ kids, who had little ones in their 40s, but they also had teenage kids to help. Alone, it'd be brutal. Especially if you have really bright kids.
I was 35 when we had our daughter and we want 5 kids. We think that's a reasonable goal. Bare minimum is 3. Ultimately we'll be happy with what God gives us, but we both wanted a big family.
We have four and I started when I was 34. Doable 💪😀🤞.
Good. I've quit drinking entirely, now i just need to start a work out regimen.
Moooooar babies!!!!
Agreed!
Yes. That's my point. I said 32 because after that in most women, hanging tits and ass are quite visible and the decline is somewhat obvious. Of course better late than never they say.
32 actually can look pretty good, if she has children. The pregnancy delays the loss in fertility and that can keep her looking more youthful. But tired. Mothers always look tired.
Nothing. We were right for each other, and later it was a journey we wanted to go on together.
Just an anecdote I can share from being a human My father was 40 when I was born. He was diagnosed with cancer in my late 20’s. I am in my early 30’s now. I constantly think about this…on one hand, wanting to live my life as an individual and take my time. But also being aware that…I want to maximize the time I have with my future children so hopefully they do not have to prepare their minds for my loss the same way I did. Just a thought. My perspective on people having children younger has changed quite a bit.
Delaying also makes it less likely that your kids will know their grandparents or even great-grandparents.
Can confirm, lost all of my grandparents by 30. Existential thoughts that often frequent my mind…
It’s weird bragging about not having kids, many folks cry deeply and pray a lot to have kids.
I wish I had them sooner. I met my wife at 21 and we started saving while both living at home to buy a flat together, which took 6 years because of how expensive London is. Got married then wanted to move to a house but lockdown happen so delayed us further and didn't have our son until I was 33. The Fiat system makes people wait longer because they need a place to raise a family. #bitcoin fixes this.
Housing will continue to be expensive in a rapidly-growing, highly-concentrated population, I'm afraid.
Yes but it is massively accelerated by broken money. Housing has become the defacto store of value, especially in England, especially in the South East and especially in London. We are a tiny island and currently have over a million people immigrating here every year to prop up the ponzi economy. Most of us that grew up in London have to move so far to get anywhere near the property ladder it totally destroys communities and family bonds.
We're near Munich and it's the same. Feels like the country is a clown car. Just keep stuffing more and more people in.
it's so frustrating, they treat people like fungible economic units that are totally interchangeable. No respect for the native people and their culture
They always say that Germans have no culture and they should definitely not force it on others and they should be ashamed of it. *logic* Like the old joke that being American meant never having an accent.
There's also just the sheer confusion of making me feel like I've hitched my horse to a broken carriage, while they stuff people into the carriage and shout giddy-up! Worst carriage evah. Best would be to burn it and rid the world of it, forever. Okay, everyone get in.
That's all-too-familiar. "Canada has no native culture." Heard that for years.
Same in England, when the reality is most of us can trace our heritage back 1000 years. By contrast the Maori only go back 600 years. Indigenous just means not white at this point.
Ugh. Yeah more or less.
As we go along, it's all becoming even more nonsensical, as an increasing portion of the Euro-indigenous aren't white, or at least, completely white. I'm not sure what their rhetorical Plan B is. Guess that's where "white adjacent" comes in. When in doubt, just make shit up.
Using the pity people have for the immigrants' family bonds to destroy their own is especially sad.
The weirdest thing is when they say "The great thing about the immigrants is their strong family orientation." Yes, you might want to try that, yourself, sometime. 🙃
Yup 💯 I was a technology teacher for refugees for a year, as my first job, and that's exactly what all the other childless teachers would talk about all day.
State pensions and healthcare play a massive role in this as well. People assume there will be young people to look after them when they are old but don't want to do the work of raising those people. If they look at the self reported rates of absue in care homes they would especially wish they had put the work in
The sending countries often suffer from exporting their young people, later. Happened with a lot of Eastern European countries. They don't actually have "excess offspring". They just have a large, young generation and no plan to keep them busy until their parents age.
There's a special kind of self hatred in our nations, it's suicidal
I was 35. Sucks.
Just be happy it worked out. I'm just trying to show others that "pulling it forward" isn't the TERRIBLE HORRIBLE thing that everyone thinks it is, and it has benefits, like simply making sure it gets done. It's such a hard thing to fix, later. I didn't get knocked up and turn into a pumpkin, or something. I'm still here. I'm still breathing. Still have all my limbs.
All those late nights in our 20s were for raising young kids!
Seems to be the case.
Who is bragging about not having kids?
I heard some weird folks who hates marriage and kids. I think they have some mental issues.
Children are such a blessing. Must be difficult to reorder expectations, when it doesn't pan out.
My goals and expectations: #nostr https://image.nostr.build/a2eae38c89276f8ac19843421d7fc8a3a3b30bea1718da314afd282dab6394f3.jpg
Call me weak but this looks awful. Living in the woods? Endless manual labor just to eat. The kids I will take
Well, you could live in the country estate...
A little better
Ours are 2 and 9 months. I just broke 40. My wife's 9 years younger and was studying, hence the wait. Wish I'd have had them sooner. But then it wouldn't have been them, and here they are. Little miracles. Plus I still pass for 30 after a good night's sleep, and moisturiser, and low lighting, and a few beers.
ROFLMAO Same. I didn't finish my studies. Trying to do it now, with mixed success. The long years of education that we're now all saddled with is delaying childbearing for everyone. Or you pull the children forward and get to slog it out later. Soon, we'll all need to have a Ph.D. to sweep floors.
Yeah we debated it, but decided for her to finish first. German education system is a fucking joke. Her bro is 29, about to start his 2 year masters, then a year and a half getting paid beans to MAYBE become a teacher. He'll be 34 before he earns his first proper paycheck. I started working at 24 with a masters (UK educated).
Got to pay on one side, or the other. There’s no way I could’ve handled kids in my 20s 😂.
My husband is older, so he was in his 30s, when we married. He spent his 20s mostly partying and having fun. 😂 He did also become a journeyman telcom electrician and get a M.Sc. in EE and serve military service, though, so he was actually unusually productive... when he was sober and upright.
As you say, either/or. I think it's also easier for a woman to drop everything and go home and make babies, early on. I went back to work in my late 20s and have had an unbroken employment period for 16 years. I'm already bored of working. Working is overrated.
I can still remember that time well. I also had my children in my early twenties and got married even earlier. I approached the whole thing with a great deal of naivety 😂 I had no idea. To be honest, I had never thought of myself as a mother until then. Then the children, university and everything that goes with it. A wild ride 😂 But also a great time
I think overthinking it is dangerous. So many people simply lose their nerve because they think it through rationally and there's not really anything rational about having children.
It's the bell curve meme. You either don't overthink it or you reeeaaally overthink it to the point where you know it's the most selfish thing you'll ever do.
Yes, same. Boys are both now about 20. Most of our peers are in 40's with their first little ones. They look at us like we must have been reckless teenage parents lol! There is also this very gross version of 40+ year old new moms in America who basically speak of their children as some kind of evil burden bestowed upon them. I never understood how women who were raised by the most amazing stay at home suburban moms in the 80's & 90's could turn around and reject the magical version of childhood they received.
