Men having kids in their 20's

[cloudywater]

I'm asking purely because I'm curious and being a bit nosy but from your experience would you say in today's world is it not that common for men to have children when they are in their 20s. I'm asking because I've noticed a lot of footballers seem to have children when they are young. I'm just wondering from your social circles how common is it for men to have kids before the age of 30?

DSis and BIL started in their early 20s. Both university educated professionals, both from MC families. Actually, BIL is just a bit posh.
Not everyone does things the same way.

DH had just turned 28 when DS was born. He is most definitely not a footballer!

DH was 25 when DS1 (now 16) was born, I was 26. We got married when we were 22 though 😁

My son was 24 when his first child was born (his wife is a few years older). He's a responsible and mature father.

@MooseBreath

DH had just turned 28 when DS was born. He is most definitely not a footballer!

I wonder if being a rugby player makes be a ‘bogan’, if so does me also being an actuary cancel it out 🤔

The only men I know of who had children in their twenties didn't go to uni after 6th form. The youngest ones didn't go to sixth form.

One reason could be six years of work more, so they feel ready for the next step. Some of the men I know who didnt go to uni but came from more middle class backgrounds still were in the thirties when they had their first.

Just when you think it was safe to go out, along come some MNetters to make guesses on your social class based on the age you were when you had your children.....

I had my eldest DC when I was 18 and my youngest DC when I was 36. I must be some sort of hybred ugg-wearing postgraduate 6-figure earning pleb.

Reading about various footballers ( I dont follow footaball but it's in the news) a lot of them in mid 20s with DC are with long term childhood girlfriends , been together since school.
So established relationships , money/fame . Marriage and children.

If my DD had come home from 6th Form with "Gary , he's playing for West Ham " I think I'd have discouraged a bit "Well he's going to be training and at away matches DD" to put her off .

I do meet (in my line of work) men my age who have grandchildren in their teens/late teens ( that makes me feel old ) I'm 55 .
Maybe its what they planned ? Or how life turned out ?

I was 24 and my ex was 25 when our son was born. he wasn’t the first in his friendship group to have a kid. I have a degree and my ex has a masters but lucky enough to have both got into secure jobs straight after uni which made childcare costs manageable as we both worked full time:

Unfortunately that didn’t work out my bu now DH was 29 when our first was born and he was the first in his friendship group. They’re only just starting to have kids now in their early 30s

Times have certainly changed since I had my children. I was five days short of being 22 when I had my eldest, and just turned 24 when I had my second (and last). My husband was five years older than me and had a vasectomy at 29. He owned his own business so I didn't have to work, our modern three bed semi had cost us £8.500.

They're usually feckless if they do.

Taking teen pregnancy etc aside. Working class young adults tend to settle down and have children earlier. They have the income, often close family units and support and have earnings earlier than those who go off to Uni.

My DSs have just turned 21 and 20 both in Uni so nothing on the horizon in terms of marriage and children unless there is an "accident". They went to a very mixed primary and many of their primary school classmates have children, a few are married, a few engaged. They went to a more middle class high school and there doesn't seem to be any in the same circumstance.

I'm obviously older now but come from a poor working class background as does DH. Some of my older siblings had DC very young. One brother was married and had two children by age 21 and another was married with two kids by 23. Both still married to the same person and got married in the mid 70s. DH and I were mid to late 30s when we had DC but they are only slightly older than my siblings grandchildren.

I remember once reading the rather opinionated view of a woman who said something like, 'men shouldn't get married until they're at least 30 and certainly shouldn't have children until they're 35'. Something to do with being insufficiently mature.

My brother had his first at 23.

Me: 28. H was 32.

DH was 25 when DS was born. University educated and has worked his way up quickly in his career and is now a high earner at 30. We hope to have a second in the next couple of years. Having our first in our twenties has given us the option of spacing DC out.

Of course footballers have children in their 20s - they can afford it!!

Most ordinary people these days need to wait until they're earning enough money, which IME is mid to late 30s in the Sourh East.

A friend of ours is a teacher at a very expensive private infant school and was shocked when she first started to find nearly all the mums were in their mid-20s - she thought they were all nannies at first!

In 2017, 31% of babies born in the UK had fathers under the age of 30. So not uncommon. My children were born in the early 2000s, and late twenties was pretty common for first babies in my "social circle". So families tended to straddle the 30yo mark.

Most of the people I know had their kids in their 20s. Me and DP were 21 and 23 when DS1 was born

We are unusual in our friendship group however. Babies are only just starting to come now we are in our 30s and it is still small numbers.

DH was 26 when dc1 was born. We were the first in our circles to have dc but most of his friends had their first dc in the following 2-5 years. Our youngest was born when he was 30.

I don’t think it really matters what age you are, as long as you can provide a stable loving home for your dc.

Most in our circle were 35+. I actually don't have a single friend, male or female that had kids in their 20s. Wider family there were a few.

@astoundedgoat

Is this not a tiny bit disingenuous? The more highly educated/middle class you are, the older you are starting a family. If you are uneducated and/working class, you start younger. So the opening question is kind of more “are you and your friends middle class or not?”

Agree with this and @LouNatics. Obviously exceptions each way but I am 32 and my sister and her DH are 26 and are having their first child. Most of their friends are the same age and are already on baby no.2, had first kids when they were 21/22. Whereas my friends of a similar age to me about half have just started having their first kids now, the others aren't even thinking about it for a while yet! The earliest of any of my friends to have kids was 28 and we all thought that was young!

The main difference is education and types of jobs we have - pretty much all of my friends went to uni and are now in "professional" jobs. BILs and his friends are all in trades, their girlfriends either SAHM or do part time admin etc. So while they wouldn't have been earning much when they first started out, by 20 they'd finished apprenticeships and most are doing really well by their mid 20s, some have their own businesses etc. All work really hard. Whereas my friends didn't even graduate until 21/22, quite a few did masters so were in education for even longer, and then a lot of us really struggled getting onto the ladder in our first role (graduated into the recession) so were a few years behind where we should have been.

Also my sister and her friends all live within 5 miles of where we grew up which is a cheaper area, so most were homeowners by their mid twenties, several have upgraded to second/third homes since. Whereas my friends are either living in more expensive cities, some in completely different countries, so are only just getting on the ladder.

So yeah, basically makes sense if you are 24, in a steady relationship, with a good job, no debt, and able to afford a house close by your friends and parents, you are a lot more likely to be thinking of having kids soon than someone the same age who only graduated last year, has £40k student loan debt, is on a temporary contract and sharing a flat with three other people two hundred miles away from where they grew up!

DH is the only one out of his mates to have had a child in his 20s. We've got a 5 yo and they're all just starting now

Quite a few of my son's peers have started to have children ( 24- 25 years )
They are edicated, in a reasonably longterm relationships, have their own homes and employed.
The youngest one I know from his school group had a child when he was 18. He is still with the mother and loves in a lovely house near me. We speak quite a lot when i see him on the school run and he absolutely adores his child and wife. He is definitely not "bogan" . He us from a de ent middle class background and him and his wife have good family support.
I cant see issues with age as long as everything is lined up in terms of relationship stability, employment and housing.

Footballers aren’t typical of most young men. They leave school at 16, in most cases having checked out of education years before, to join their club’s academies. By 21, they are already wealthy independent adults with houses, pensions, cars etc etc while their contemporaries are still at uni.

Many of them get married young to their childhood girlfriends because they know they are with them for the ‘right’ reasons, not for their money. Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney & Harry Kane being obvious high-profile examples. Clubs strongly encourage players to ‘settle down’ young, as they believe marriage & children makes them grow up & be less likely to get into trouble off the pitch.