Are we having children too late in society?

[mids2019]

We had children at around 35 and now in our 50s we are feeling a little bit physically tired. We have stressful jobs and accompanied with child care this leads to a full on life. Now added to the mix it looks like our parents are starting the slow cognitive and physical decline of old age (both in their 70s).

This brings the question is it better to have children earlier in life (if possible. Biologically I would have thought late teens/early twenties would be an optimum as out bodies are at a maximum fitness and we are physically prepared?

Modern society seems to make this model extremely difficult with university and early career expectations really not taking into account what would be considered in the middle class western world as 'an early age' for birth. Housing and general finance don't help either.

I work with a few women in graduate careers in their early twenties (often in training) and it is an assumption that they do not have children when we talk. It seems that child birth at this age for this demographic is so infrequent we just zone out of the possibility that there may be chikdren.

Is society going in the right direction. Will women in general have children earlier if society, careers etc. were more geared to early childbirth? Obviously we have to take into account a suitable partner and that is whole other discussion!

@Eastie77Returns same - I still wasn’t particularly ready at 35 (!) but I had built enough of a career to have good flexibility, was in a decent - if not perfect - house, and my parents were in their early 60s and in OK health. I’ve been with DH since early 20s but just didn’t want to settle down until I was ready.

I went to visit said friend at Christmas and we were laughing about how she can barely remember where I’m at now with 3yo DC - her teen and preteen kids were all quietly doing their own thing in different rooms whilst we sat in her beautiful, tidy kitchen-diner with no plastic toys in sight!

Everyone can only do what’s right for them, or what circumstances allow.

@Traumdeuter haha bil will disagree. He’s a primary teacher and exhausted and sil is refusing to work because she’s too tired.

Yes of course, but that's because biologically we are meant to because we used to live in caves and there wasn't much else to do except breed ... now we have options

Biologically, yes. Socially, no. I felt pressure from my family to have kids before I was ready (financially or emotionally) and wish I’d just enjoyed my life a bit more first. My twenties were fun but could have been more fun if I’d just relaxed and not worried about it.

Yes of course, but that's because biologically we are meant to because we used to live in caves and there wasn't much else to do except breed ... now we have options

I wonder if we've tipped from more choice to actually less.

Looking at education needed now to get on in many workplaces and housing cost - it all means getting financially and socially stable at later ages -there structural pressures pushing older parenthood as being more sensible option.

So within a generation parenthood gone from early 20s to late 20/early 30s as has buying a house in our generation and looking like it will be even later for our kids generation.

That's occurred within a few generations after centuries of it being perfectly affordable to have first child in early to mid 20s.

It's an interesting topic because although "back in the day" people would have children younger and not really have a career, people were not living as long.
We now have an ageing population and people are living much longer due to medical advances.
I had my baby at 25 and was trying for over a year prior. Bought my house at 24 and had done my degree and had been working a couple of years so qualified for maternity pay. I suppose it all depends what you want in life. I've always wanted children and wanted them ideally in my 20s so chose to start early. I knew I had PCOS though and that it could cause some issues (which it did , we needed ivf). I'm also not massively career minded and happier now I work part time (and toddler at home).
There's no right or wrong, it's whatever suits the person/family.
But yes from a biological perspective we are ready to start having babies from a very young age.

I think one factor is the response of employers when recruiting graduates at maybe 21/22. A lot of professional careers expect maybe 3-6 years of postgraduate full time experience including examinations to make a concrete platform for careers. Having may leave and potentially part time work soon after starting a graduate training scheme can still unfortunately have a negative career impact (depending on employer). Some unenlightened employers would see it as a lack of commitment of a new member of staff fresh from a competitive interview scheme to be suddenly faced with a pregancy. That goes before we start considering more than one child.

It seems women do get pressurised in some areas between family and career.

Better education for women leads to delayed first childbirth and reduced total number of children. This pattern has been observed worldwide and it doesn’t respond to any incentives, financial or social, to have more and earlier children.

Short of banning women from going into higher education there’s bugger all anyone can do about it.

@puncheur

Interesting

If we are to retain population growth in Western nations where is it going to come from? Is immigration going to be the answer?

Do you think the reduced birth rate amongst educated women is due to a completely free consideration that children demand sacrifice and there are inherent stresses or does the education allow women to see the dice are loaded against them as mothers both societally and financially so they don't bother (though in reality there is a strong maternal instinct)

I don't think you've mentioned fathers once @mids2019 . And teenagers have the highest incidence of complications during pregnancy, we shouldn't be getting pregnant before 20 because our bodies are not mature enough, something we forget now puberty is so early in comparison to the past.

We are similar ages and so I'm assuming you are comparing our generation with our parents. The early baby boomers got married and had children very young in comparison to both their children (us) and their parents. We are now having children at similar ages to the prewar generation, in fact there are still fewer babies being born to women in their 40s than there was in the 1930s.

My grandfather's employer (a bank) did not allow their staff to get married until they reached a certain grade and could then provide for a family. It's less paternalistic now but I think many people chose to wait until they are married and own a house before having children so they have security.

@puncheur Actually, birth rates do increase with reducing childcare costs, increasing work flexibility, and increasing the amount of time that men spend on house work.

@JaninaDuszejko

ah yes fathers.......

do you think there is a kind of perma adolescence amongst some men that delays the point where men are ready for child rearing? I think there are issues with men as toxic masculinity seems to creeping into society and maybe women trying to avoid unsuitable partners is yet another factor in later chikdbirth.

Possibly there was more respect about the state of fatherhood with previous generations and maybe because of work type snaps general life expectancy men were expected to mature earlier?

I'm not sure. I had two in my very early twenties and one late twenties, I sure had more energy and motivation with the older two though! I think having them young may mean you don't get to establish a relationship, though I know this isn't true for everyone, but I was divorced by 26. I didn't get to benefit from having parents to help with childcare which meant, with being a single mum, I started my career later on, plus 30's. There are pros and cons to both I feel. Personally though I'd have waited a little longer...

It’s not up to women to fix society. Have a baby at the age you want, there are benefits and pitfalls to all ages. But please, let’s stop this ridiculous judgement of women. Men are also in the same position, nobody worries their parents are also older.

Let others have babies when they want, it doesn’t affect you and you can’t do anything about it anyway. Why do women always have to conform?

This is just my perspective, but I have a close friend who is Mormon and became a mum quite young, getting pregnant with her first child at 19 and I can't help but feel a bit envious of her.

At 35, I'm pregnant with my first child and it wasn't easy becoming pregant and I feel like I'm starting a bit late in life, I'm still very excited about it but i also really want this baby to have a sibling and I'm worried that won't happen. Which realistically it might not.

If I could go back in time, I would definitely have chosen to have my children in my 20s when I had more energy and been more fertile. When I think about my Mormon friend, i feel a pang of jealousy thinking by the time my baby reaches the same age as her oldest, I'll be 50. It's a strange feeling.

I think in the West we're starting to realise that freedom comes at a price and width consequences, especially when our societies are not reaching the replacement rate, or we have gf's who are desperate to meet someone and have babies or conceive past 35-40 and are really struggling. For e.g I've got a gf, mid 30s who split with her fiance during lockdowb and is so desperate to become mum she's looking at sperm donors and even browsed an app where men offer their sperm called Just A Baby. Thankfully she's not going the app route but its said a lot about her mindset. Just as teen mums may make mistakes in judgement with the men they get pregnant by so might older women desperare to meet someone and settle down.

Obviously it's a very subjective matter and some teen mums will say they wish they had waited, some older mums well say they wish they had started earlier but I imagine generally speaking you'll find more teens and "geriatric mums" who regret the age that they had babies over mums in their 20s, early 30s. At school only girls from poorer backgrounds became teen mums at like 15 or 16. I've always wondered how their lives turned out. I do believe we need to consider the consequences of putting the "girl boss" aspirations above that of the mother, or implying all women can have it all no questions asked.

Obviously we don't want lots of British teen mums relying on benefits and being trapped in unhappy relationships. And I cant stand these tradosphere types online who think it's wise to panic impressionable young people into procreating like rabbits. There's no easy answer to this. But its also dishonest to suggest that women can have it all and wait until 40 to settle down and start having children. While that may work for some, many women that do this will find that it doesn't work for them and end up seriously depressed.

Sorry that was an essay 😅

@LameBorzoi even the Scandi countries which are without doubt some of the most family-friendly countries in the world in terms of childcare, employment policies and facilities are seeing decreasing birth rates. Educated women want to have fewer children, and they want to have them later - if they want to have children at all.

The problem with ‘nice’ incentive-based pro-natalism is that it assumes that women aren’t having children because of external barriers. Once the patriarchy cottons that women aren’t having children because they simply don’t want to, we are likely to see the other kind of pro-natalism, based on coercion.

I had to go to uni, work and do my career to be able to be independent at least that was what was drilled in while growing up as I had no safety net from family to rely on. Study, get a good paying job they said which is pretty average salary I'm earning right now so was it really worth it? I'm pregnant with my second right now and going to be nearly 37 and I'm one of the younger mums in dc1's school. If life was so much easier, especially affording accommodation and of course meeting the right guy in your 20's, I would have loved to have been a mum in my 20's.

Who knows, maybe I could help out my dc with deposits etc and they could have children earlier than me but then again, would the next generations be ready for that. My friend from uni met her guy at uni and they got married at 24 and they were given lovely deposits from both sides of the family to buy a lovely flat and they had no financial barriers. Both got their professional jobs but wanted to use their 20's and 30's to travel and experience and only now aged nearly 37 they are trying for their first. My friend's mum keeps complaining that she can't offer help now with childcare as she is nearly 70 and wish they'd have kids way sooner rather than travelling. Each to their own, but with my mind now and if I had the same opportunities as my friend did with family support etc, I would have had my kids in my 20s and travelled in my 40s.

To what extent are we masking to an extent the profound evolutionary force to o procreate when we make considered decisions about the time for having children (or whether to have them at all). I ask because in a sense that we have a sexual drive which can be extremely powerful and very few people are truly celibate so isn't the 'maternal instinct' at a deep subconscious level as powerful?

I know a few staunchly child free people by choice in their late 40s/50s but I suspect there are many women maybe in their late 30s really starting to ask some big questions of their life and the looming biological clock focuses the mind on this question.

@puncheur I'm not suggesting that people would start having 8 or 10 kids if they were given a bit more free childcare. However, there is good evidence that people in western countries, on average, aren't having quite as many kids as they would like to. For example, there are quite a few people out there who have a kid or kids, and were considering one more, but just couldn't quite afford it / afford the time off work etc. There is evidence that shows that people are a bit more likely to make the leap and have that one last one, if you just make things a bit easier for them.

@puncheur and yes, Sweden's birth rate is low by world standards - but it's still higher than the UK.

The thing is, you can't put the genie back in the bottle of women having and expecting to have fulfilling careers, even if some people want to, even if as a result some people have problems getting pregnant or we have a lower birth rate. And to have that you need to have stayed at school, gone through further and higher education and had at least a few years establishing yourself and gaining experience. Women can't ' have it all' but the emphasis needs to stop being on selfish women wanting careers and that actually, if men want children, they can't ' have it all' either. They need to be telling their boss that they are leaving work to pick the kids up from nursery/ taking the day off because their child is sick/ taking paternity leave etc. And employers need to be aware that people, not jyst women, have children that need to be cared for. Not to mention if the media banged on about birth defects being caused by older men and their ageing sperm even half as much as they berate women for ' leaving it too late' then maybe more men would have to think about committing earlier. Not a week goes by on Mumsnet without a 'He won't tell me when he wants kids - is he stringing me along?' thread. If women can't find decent men who are willing to commit to them and parent with them then either they wait or go it alone.

@Angrycat2768 I totally agree with what you've said

@Angrycat2768 Totally! Women are "blamed" for lower fertility - as of men weren't half the equation.

@LameBorzoi

I wonder if we should highlight some of the disadvantages of late fatherhood? Typically in modern society men will on average try to delay parenthood for career or social reasons and due to their lifelong fertility can.

However women may hesitate to date older men and when children reach teenage years the middle aged to elderly dad will possibly not be able to support or relate to the child as much as would be ideal.

t with younger men I think there may be a fear that child rearing will be a huge shock to the relationship and they are quite happy with the status quo. I think one irony is that some men get into relationships stipulating that they don't want children, the relationship then breaks down due partially to the pressure of the debate whether or not to have children and the woman fails to have children in her lifetime yet the man has children with another woman as a relatively elderly dad as suddenly he has an existential crisis and want to leave a legacy.