To wish I’d had my kids earlier?

[40220s]

My mum was 35 when she had me. She died when I was 16, and I had my first baby at 40. My dad died when I was 30.

One of my friends at school got pregnant at university and I remember my dad making some comment about being glad it wasn’t me. But I look at her now and it got me thinking. If I’d had my first baby at 20 and my mum had me at 20 … maybe there’s something in doing it that way, as you’re more likely to have extensive support from family.

Does anyone else think that this might be a ‘better’ way than the middle class approved route of kids in your 30s?

I think there are merits to both. DH has a colleague in his very early 40s who has adult children, AND a very good job. So he and his wife are now enjoying lovely holidays and disposable income etc, at a time when most people are still very much in the ‘dependent children’ stage.

For us it wouldn’t have worked out that way (at least I don’t think so). Having children a bit later gave me especially a chance to build my career- if I’d had a baby at 20 I suspect I would’ve found it harder to work my way up (because childcare costs would’ve been a huge struggle and my parents were still working so I would’ve had no help).

I was 29 when I had DC and whilst physically I wish I’d been younger (more energy), it was probably the right time for us in terms of career, resources, etc. We’re relatively comfortable now and able to afford the ‘nice to have’ stuff like extracurricular activities and the odd holiday at Center Parcs. I’ll be 50 when DC is hopefully independent-ish. Fingers crossed this is a good balance!!

Fuck, yes. Had both mine in my 40s. Now in my 50s with primary aged children. Like others I spent a decade trying to get pregnant so no real option there, plus I'm in absolute awe of people who managed to form and hold a committed relationship in their 20/30s which was entirely beyond me

Older parenthood is a mixed bag: Yes my career is stronger and I have a bigger house than most in my mum group (but not all).

Bit I didn't spend my childless 30s whooping it up, I spent I miserably dating lovers or being lonely while my could up friends were busy with family stuff at the WE. Once I met DH we had some great holidays though.

Parent wise, Im the oldest in the group but there are close seconds. I'm not friends with idiots so mainly this is fine but it did catch my breath when it turned out one of their mums was my age. But my older friends are celebrating the finances and space that departing adult kids bring, and I wi be that 60 something wondering wondering whether there's time to start again with a new partner.

So very very mixed bag... but on balance if i could have had them in my 30s, I would have.

I’d have inevitably ended up doing it all alone.

Pros & cons of everything. My relative who suffered with secondary infertility was so sad she hadn’t started earlier (did manage to conceive DC2 eventually).
I think I may have started a little too early (21) but I’m also happy with my decision, I now have 3 beautiful children & a good career & nice house - as mentioned upthread. I may be different as I’ve been working since 17 & worked my way up the company so wasn’t at uni with no money.

I wouldn’t have wanted to have been an older mum but I appreciate its not that easy or simple. A lot of people wouldn’t want to be younger parents too which is fine.

I’m so sorry for your losses

I wish I'd had my kids earlier because I'd love to have another two but I'm too old now. It would have also been nice to have had a bigger age gap between the two I've got but my biological clock didn't allow it!

I had my only child at 23 and it was a major struggle we never had any support and childcare was so expensive. It nearly broke us. I've just split from his dad and he's nearly 13 now. By the time I'm 40 he'll be an adult. I see my friends just starting to have babies and I'm glad I done it this way round but everyone's circumatances are different

I don't think I realised how much I would miss having my Mum around as my DD grew up. And now how I realise how little time I might have with future DGG.

But hindsight is no use really.

It’s hard to have it all and to have it perfectly timed.

Personally I had anxiety issues in my 20s so I think I would have been really anxious all the time.

It’s pretty common to think the grass is greener. There’ll be people regretting having kids early or late.

I had my first at 26. My sister has just had her first at 36.

I wish I'd waited longer, but I also wish I'd chose a man who didn't already have a child, as I'm sure part of the reason I had my own fairly early was that we had that constraint already so why not have my own now?

(Please don't take this as I'm not happy with my lot. I absolutely am, but looking back critically having a stepson radically changed my life in ways I could not have foreseen).

I think theres advantages and disadvantages to both. It depends on so many things. Like grandparents might be younger but they might also have to work. And it depends when your friends have kids and what the typical age to have kids is in your area so you dont feel the odd one out.

Either way we live.long enough now to get a decent chunk of child free time, whether that's before kids if you have them later or after kids if you have them earlier.

I had mine mid 30s and I sometimes wish I'd had them earlier. Seeing the amazing relationship with grandparents I think it would be nice if they could have been in their lives longer etc. And I'm not looking forward to menopause with teenagers. But I dont dwell too much on the what ifs. In a parallel universe I might have had kids 10 years earlier and resented all those exotic holidays I missed out on, and the kids might not have been as close to my parents or my parents might have been ill or something. At least being older we are more financially secure and have got all the partying out of our system. Even if I do feel slightly embarrassed when my child tells me I'm the oldest mum in the class

My cousins are 18 and 15 years younger than me. We share the same grandparents and my childhood memories are of my db and I visiting London museums, theatres, theme parks with them, and having parties at grandparents home. My cousins’ memories are very different - much older grandparents. I’m grateful I saw them younger (although thought they were ancient at the time). Now I’m 39 and granny is 95 and knows her great grandchildren from db and I but I doubt she’ll get to know dc from my 3 cousins who are in their very early 20s and at uni.

@AllTheBs

I agree with *@Brian9600* I think your specific circumstances have a lot to do with your thinking. You lost both parents very young which must be very difficult, I couldn't imagine.

I had my first child last year at 35 and am now pregnant again with my second who will be born when I'm 37.

I didn't meet my now DH until I was almost 31, married at 33. Until I met him, I was on the fence as to whether I wanted children or not. Up until that point I had led a full and happy life (uni, travelling, etc.) and wasn't in a rush to change that. However, I met my husband and my life took a new direction.

I don't regret not having kids earlier in life as it would have meant missing out on the experiences I've had and those experiences have helped shape me into the person I am today.

I understand the 'what if' feeling regarding having more time with your parents/children but I believe (as cliche as it sounds) everything happens for a reason and what's for you won't go past you x

I think it depends on what you actually want out of life - this was my life almost word for word except I've always wanted kids, but couldn't meet anyone else who did. I would gladly have sacrificed uni and working overseas to get married young and have lots of babies 🤷‍♀️

starynightsparkles this was me too! I had my first at 18 and then another at 20 during my degree. I was in an abusive relationship which I left, ended up in a refuge for half a year, eventually rehoused, all while living away from family - and I completely took it in my stride, it didn't hold me back or change my ambitions and I still managed 2:1 STEM degree.

I'm early thirties now, with the older two and a new toddler, married, home owner and financially secure... and it's so hard juggling it all. I'm exhausted and look back in awe at 21 year old me and miss the simplicity of those days. I'm not sure the older me would have be so chilled and unfazed by my experiences.

That said - I'm glad I did and I wouldn't change it for me but I wouldn't recommend having children before 25, because I've had to work extra hard to catch up with my peers and make sacrifices.

The oldest children started the first few years of their lives, with me not having much and not many experiences as a result, were in nursery all week so I could study. Compared to my youngest who will never know going without and has the luxury of my husband and I being in a position to working flexibly so childcare is minimised. Thankfully, graduating and starting work when the eldest were still very young means they didn't miss out for long.

That said, I'm really looking forward to not even being 40 when my eldest are both adults and taking back some of the missed years. I have a lot to look forward to.

@m0therofdragons

My cousins are 18 and 15 years younger than me. We share the same grandparents and my childhood memories are of my db and I visiting London museums, theatres, theme parks with them, and having parties at grandparents home. My cousins’ memories are very different - much older grandparents. I’m grateful I saw them younger (although thought they were ancient at the time). Now I’m 39 and granny is 95 and knows her great grandchildren from db and I but I doubt she’ll get to know dc from my 3 cousins who are in their very early 20s and at uni.

I think that’s a good point. I have a baby and my father-in-law is wheelchair bound now and he talks about how he used to run around and play with his other grandkids who are now late teens. I think he feels sad he won’t get to experience that with my son.

@TomatoSquash

If you have your kids at 20 then you have hope of having a life after they’ve grown up. You have a future to look forward to. You won’t even be 40 when they leave home. However if you have your kids at 40 you have a constant sinking sensation that this is it for you, you’ll be an old person of 60 when they leave home and you have no future.

I completely agree. I had mine at 21. By the time I was 40, active parenting was done and dusted. I had all that travel, childfree holidays and stuff in my 40s with the added bonus of much more money to enjoy it than I’d have had in my 20s. I have zero regrets.

It's very true what a poster upthread said about the way you don't know how your life will work out. I lost my mum early 2010 to breast cancer (56) and we buried her mother last year at 90. My mum was an only child so I spent a lot of the last ten years supporting my widowed grandmother (visiting very often) while working full time at the other end of the country. As she was very religious I delayed getting pregnant till we were married in 2017 when I was 39 (we met at 33), and now I am 43, one miscarriage later and still trying. I wish we had just gone for it when we decided we wanted kids about 7 years ago. I don't regret putting her first as she would have been very upset about a baby outside marriage but I can see things differently in hindsight.

I thought in the past women had dc earlier but they had more dc so plenty were still having them in their 40s?

If I had adult dc when I was in my 40s I think I would struggle with being "free again" but not have any friends in the same boat. Instead we can all moan about our teenagers together 😆

@TomatoSquash

Plenty of 60 year olds would be enormously insulted by that Well put it this way: You have to sacrifice yourself for 20 years to raise kids. By the time they leave home and I’m free I’ll be 60 and it’ll be too late to leave DH and find someone to fall in love with. But if I’d had them at 20 I could leave DH at 40 and still be young enough to find someone else.

If you're thinking like that you should probably leave DH now!

I do think that the best time for a woman to have her children is on her twenties. Your body is ready and strong enough, and you have youth to cope with it and the child rearing part of it.
With support, you can still have a career.
I think this life style where we do have our children later and later in life is, indeed, damaging to our health, by quite a lot.

I had my first at just turned 23, he's about to turn 18. Second at 28.

It was hard when DS1 was born, I was very quickly a single mum (even though we had a very established relationship, lived together etc) and it was really tough. On a positive I'm only 40 and DS is looking at Uni's etc. I'll likely have an empty house by the time I'm 50.

It's nice to think I've still got lots of time to live, but given my time again I would have waited a bit, feel I missed out on some of the young 20's stuff

@MimiDaisy11

It’s hard to have it all and to have it perfectly timed.

Personally I had anxiety issues in my 20s so I think I would have been really anxious all the time.

It’s pretty common to think the grass is greener. There’ll be people regretting having kids early or late.

I think this is so true. There is never a perfect time to have a baby and there will always be some people who regret it either way.

Except that I want to have the exact dc that I have (obviously!) I wish I’d waited til I was older. I was 29 (almost 30) when I had Dd and 35 when I had Ds, but certainly the first time, I wasn’t really ready, and exh certainly wasn’t.

Plus we didn’t really have any money!

@ParkheadParadise so sorry about your Daughter

I had my first at 29. I absolutely love the fact that I have a 18 year old who adores me at almost 50 when you become a bit invisible. Pros and cons like all things in life. I do wish I had mine all younger and closer together but it can never be changed. This is our one shot no retake life. It has its pros too.

I am sorry you lost your parents young

As the posts here have shown having kids young is no guarantee of anything. My mum had me at 41, I'm now 42 and she's 83. I had my children at 32, 35 and 37. My mum is in excellent health and is an amazing Nana to my kids.
At times I do wish I'd had my kids earlier. I met DH when I was 23 so could have but then I think back to our 20s and we had an absolute ball so I could never regret that.