Waiting to have children

[puffincarpet]

This is more of a question of opinion than an AIBU.

Women have a lot of plates to spin these days, balancing career, social life, family life, children. It's a lot, and women do bear the brunt of it all. Something has to slip for women, it doesn't usually for men. It is very challenging as often if you want to have children, your career does need to hit pause for a few years, or you battle on through and try and spin both plates at once (which can happen, but is tough). I wanted to open up with this because I am not criticising women that choose to wait to have children for any reason, whether they don't want kids yet, want to wait until they are older for career reasons, whether it is down to finances, support networks, childcare, whatever.

I think it is now more of a societal belief that having children below 30 is young. Not medically, just within society. So many people wait until they are 30+, going in to mid 30s, because they are told they are young. I am 30, expecting a baby, and being told I am a "young mum".

AIBU in thinking that people need to also take in to consideration the risks associated with becoming pregnant 35+ (including higher miscarriage risk, birth defect risk), as well as thinking about what happens if you don't get pregnant very easily?
TTC isn't a lightening quick process, it can take a while, and if you have complications or require fertility support, you might have a bit of a lengthy timeline ahead and at that age your body clock is ticking, whether we like it or not. I do know a few women that waited until they were in their mid 30s to start trying, because they felt like it was "the done thing nowadays", and in short they said they regret waiting as long as they did.

This is just an opinion thread. Ultimately it is up to every women what age they do want children, don't want children, there are so many things to consider including finances, support, and so on...but should people have more of an awareness of the full picture and possibilities, rather than society painting a picture of under 30s being young mums?

FWIW, the reason I am thinking about this this morning is that know of people that aren't planning on trying for children until they are in their mid - late thirties purely because they feel like they'd be classed as a young mum if they had children now. No other contributing factors, they have said they can afford a child, aren't bothered about taking time away from work. Want to be a mum, but don't want to be seen as a young mum. They're very open about this belief on social media too.

With the young mum thing, I can only share what I have been told or heard. I won't be sharing social media screenshots because that is very unfair.

Others in this thread have mentioned that they've heard the same thing in their work place. One of mine was very similar, expected people to go off on maternity leave age 35ish so some people didn't want to recruit women in their mid 30s. Which was awful!

I remember when I was interviewing for a post in my old workplace, one of the people on the panel (a woman in her 20s) wasn't going to consider candidates 30 - 39 because of the maternity leave risk. This was obviously ridiculous and discriminatory, I fought against it and we appointed one of these people, because they were the most suited for the job and her age had nothing to do with anything.
Her reason was that she felt most people wouldn't consider going off work to have a baby if they were under 30, or over 40, but people might if they were in that age bracket. For all she knew, these people might have had no desire to have children or might not have been able to have them, but that's another rabbit hole. I know full well that some other people agreed with her and didn't think we should hire anyone in their mid 30s, but that a late 20s hire was 'safe'.

Thankfully this person left and the recruitment panel was reviewed.

I had my first child at 22yo (that child is now 25yo).

That was young but society as a whole didn't seem to have that same emphasis on you having to be completely secure before starting a family, maybe because there was more support for families at that time - ie you could be a single mum on income support until the youngest child was 12yo. Regardless of if you believe that was the right approach, the fact is young parents were less frowned on as being irresponsible by having children before they had a career, house, etc.

Biologically speaking younger is better and I do agree that there very much an attitude of you want kids, they are your problem in todays society in comparison to the past where communities seemed to be more family orientated. I think the push for women to have it all has meant that children are very much an inconvenience to society these days and those who do want to be home with their family are made to feel they aren't contributing enough.

Threads like this piss me off. I am an IVF mum, I needed IVF not because of my age but because I am an ED survivor. But people who don't know me assume DH and I 'left it too late' nothing is ever certain with TTC. We should stop judging women and thinking we can tell them what to do,

Hi, I just wanted to say I'm sorry if this thread hit a nerve. I have significant fertility issues myself, symptoms of which came to light in my early late teens/early 20s, which is why I started down the fertility road when I did. Everyone has their own story, and it isn't fair for anyone to think you just left it late.

This post was talking about the people who don't seem aware that there are possibilities like having issues when TTC, needing fertility help, and so on - as I've mentioned, I do know several people who decided not TTC but don't feel like they had the full picture and wouldn't have left it. As you've mentioned, nothing is certain with TTC, I feel that it's important that people know the possibilities of TTC and that it isn't always straight forward.

And yes the pp who mentioned male fertility, you are right, that isn't discussed anywhere near as much as female infertility. I think part of the reason is that we menopause, but many people would probably think that a man has his sperm forever. That isn't the case, of course, sperm count and quality does start declining at a certain age.

It's not at all. Medically safest for everyone with best chance of easy pregnancy and birth, fewest problems is absolutely 23-33. No question.

Pregnant with my first at age 30, will be 31 when it’s born. Want another two after so will be 35-36 when I finish is my guess.

I would’ve loved to have baby at 25 but both my husband and I agreed we wanted financial stability. Which we feel we’ve now achieved. I do t think that’s irresponsible.

What about 22 or 34? Why have you chosen this? Source?

I don't know anyone who purposely waited, including me. I met my husband at 32. Babies at 35 and 37.

OK this is the first Google demonstrating greater risk of obstetric complications over 35, however some genetic imbalances and conditions such as Septo- optic dysplasia are more frequent in younger mothers
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3147131/#:~:text=The%20age%20of%20pregnant%20women,who%20were%20%E2%89%A535%20years.

University of Phillidephia on risks of pregnancy over 30
https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/pregnancy-over-age-30#:~:text=The%20risk%20of%20chromosomal%20abnormality,who%20conceives%20at%20age%2040.

This one refferences the risks of very young motherhood as well
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532312/

Yeah I’m 26 and have a 10 week old planned baby but I was adamant that there were a few factors that needed to be in place before we had a baby I.E financially stable, I’m on £50k so thought that was reasonable and we bought a house and we had our wedding booked anyway. The way it worked out we booked the wedding before we got engaged (sister got engaged when we planned to do had to put it off), got engaged, moved into the house 5 days later, found out I was pregnant 5 days after that so the timing was perfect!

by the way I do think you can do career and children. I managed to get promoted just as I went off on maternity but very lucky to be with a fantastic company

i do get the young mum thing though. My wee man was in hospital last week and the consultant made me feel like a silly 14 year old.

so glad we made the decision to have the baby young.

Is that enough ? It is absolutely accepted as medical fact. For the absolute best outcomes it's probably 25-30 .

That aside, I don't know how long ago the 'back then' you're referring to is but people also have this concept of 'enjoying your youth'. Travel, work abroad , etc etc. Kids definitely put a damper on that.
Late 90's - early 00's it was only a few people who did that but these days almost everyone under the age of 30 is on the go.
Nothing wrong with that, but people have higher expectations and don't want to spend their youth (and money ) on kids. Even if they could afford it!

I had my 8 month old at 35. No regrets but then I didn't want children at all in my 20's and didn't meet DH until 29 anyway.

Nursery fees are £100 a day and that's just a start with how expensive babies and children can be so I'm very glad I waited until my career was well established and we were set financially. It's just the sensible option to me.

Rampant individualism beautifully illustrated by SouthLondonMum " I didn't want to", " I wasn't ready" " it was right for me". It's Thatcherism writ large, ultimate comodification you can have whatever you want whenever you want.

And I do blame men. Who are most often " not ready" at a biologically advantageous age.

The conversations I have with my friends are absolutely along the lines of "these days you can have kids up to 40, technology is amazing! I'm going to wait until I make partner personally"

In some cases it is related to being hard to find a man in an age of hookup culture, so it's more comforting to believe there is time. And there is a lot of messaging around "you're still valid even if you don't have kids" plus "you can go on way nicer adults-only holidays without them", which is true, but I think some of my friends will be sad if they aren't able to have kids due to this combo of choice and circumstance.

Good luck trying to find a guy who wants the same. I would argue strongly that guys in their 20s who are aiming for professional careers no longer care about getting married and having kids in their 20s.

True. I think this is a large reason for the age gap relationships that were typical for most of history.

I was ruthless, I stopped taking hormonal contraception at 26 ( 10 years is surely enough) and was clear I would not be terminating a healthy pregnancy just because he " didn't feel ready".

I think it’s actually 25-30, higher chance of autism under 25 according to a small study

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-explained/

That was 21 years ago, no regrets here.

Tbf my gynaecologist told me half the time its men and insisted Dh got checked out before we bothered me with any tests. Good woman.

To be fair though, children were never a must for me. I didn't want them at all but obviously changed my mind and then when we did decide to try, I got pregnant the first month.

If it didn't happen then it didn't happen was my attitude and I feel the same again as this is our first month trying for a second baby. If it happens, great but if it doesn't? That's fine too.

This later birth thing does have its own problems.

What if you never get financially stable does that mean you never have kids.
Don't have kids if you can't afford it, circumstances change and it's more likely to be middle class women who think this way.

Whilst the middle classes are clinging on to having children later in life the working class and upper classes are churning them out.

It's worth watching the film Idiocracy to have a laugh

I had mine at 24, 26 and 28. For years we've been able to do things without worrying about childcare.

“This post was talking about the people who don't seem aware that there are possibilities like having issues when TTC, needing fertility help, and so on - as I've mentioned, I do know several people who decided not TTC but don't feel like they had the full picture and wouldn't have left it. As you've mentioned, nothing is certain with TTC, I feel that it's important that people know the possibilities of TTC and that it isn't always straight forward.”

ffs who the fuck doesn’t know this? I’d love to know which women you’ve met who haven’t been reminded subtly and not so subtly of this since they were about 28 cos then I could go an join them wherever the fuck they are where women can live without people constantly going on about it.