Wish someone told me about having kids early!

[MissEacek]

I am 36 and I had 2 kids in the last 4 years, only started having kids after 32. I used to think I want to be child free and at 31, the urge to have baby kicked in.
Previous to that I was all focused on going to uni, working, going up the career ladder etc. I was more of competing with peers and sometimes with my DH to get ahead. I was at conferences multiple times a year, drinks with colleagues every Friday and weekends. Having kids never crossed my mind.
Now at 36, I am dealing with a baby and toddler and I desperately want to have a third DC but I feel so exhausted and career has taken a backseat.
I really really wish someone had nudged me earlier about this and I wish I had them earlier then I would have loved to have more, may be 4 who knows. I never knew I would feel so much in love with them and it would like the most wonderful thing in the world.

Having kids is totally shit from the point of view of career and tiredness, regardless of age.

Having kids young = zero career building, no money and always tired but maybe a bit less tired than when older.

Having kids mid 30s = career suffers temporarily, always tired but have a bit more money to buy childcare to give you rest.

There's no perfect time.

Also, did you know your DH at 22? I didn't. I met him at 29.

If its any consolation having kids younger isnt easy either LOL.
Your doing fine, this is a phase of life and you will be out the other side soon

I remember a married friend berating me when I was 34 that “it gets harder after 35, you should focus on having one!”

I said “cool - with whom?” 😅🤷‍♀️

I think your logic is a bit faulty here. If you’d got pregnant early 20s you wouldn’t have an established career that you can go back up when you choose to. How would you have afforded these 4 children as even your DH likely wasn’t at same earning potential as he has now. Why do you assume you’d have more energy. Those who I knew who had kids young were knackered too! Just poor and knackered for the most part and many had to go back to work early just to afford the children they had!

Didn't have mine until my 40s. Not planned that way, just how life worked out.

There's never a best time. You play the hand you're dealt.

Sounds like you had a good hand. You never know how things would've been. My hand's worked out pretty well too!

Indeed! I was the youngest too and late 30s!

It’s too late now to wonder what if, if you’re exhausted at your young age then I would say it’s more to do with just having young children, so you may have been exhausted at 20 also!

Maybe look at your diet and exercise? My MiL has and is the fittest she has ever been and could probably run rings around me!

Your OP makes absolutely no sense given that you say you wanted to be child-free until you were 31. If someone had told you that it was better to have children in your 20s than your 30s you would surely have thought 'well that's entirely irrelevant to me, I'm not having them at all'? What sort of nudging could you have wanted? Child-free women, quite rightly, don't often like being 'nudged' that 'you might change your mind'...!

I didn’t plan to, but I had mine young and I don’t regret it.

My friend had hers late. She’s now 48 with still quite small kids and she is permanently exhausted. She’s also in full perimenopause and really struggling.

I’m 44 and beginning a whole new exciting phase of my life.

Weirdly enough, I do re
our biology teacher telling us to. Or at least not to rely on fertility after 30z

Whether you are 18, 28, 38, 48, living on a budget or blessed with good finances, the love for your baby is the same, all situations are stressful for different reasons.
You don't necessarily love your baby more because you had the chance to travel and build a career, nor do you love your baby more if you started younger with more energy.
That powerful love comes in all those situations, or it doesn't, age and financial status doesn't matter.

Well, I had my first at twenty and my second (and final) at thirty-five, so I've had the worst of both worlds!

Women most were told lies that they could have it all. Not many actually get the huge high flying career the husband and the amount of children they want especially at times they might of envisioned.

You either sacrifice early career and have them younger and hope to build
up once they hit school or you build it up first to them hope your still fertile by the time you’ve reached the right time by your own plans but then maybe don’t have as many children as you’d like. But you’ve got the career and home behind you.

Some women are knackered at 30 others still got the energy of a teen at 40.

But the children you love wouldn’t be here today if you’d of had children at any other time. I think the same about my losses. Sure it was sad but if I’d of had those babies I’d never have the children I have and I wouldn’t change them for the world or it’s riches.

I take it as she just means she wishes someone had convinced her that children are actually a wonderful joy and that she would want heaps of them. But I also don’t think OP is really serious as we all know how very irritating the constant questions about when kids are happening are and how we roll our eyes in our 20s when older relatives tell us we will “change our mind someday”

But you knew. It’s not something that needs to be said. If someone had nudged you you’d have laughed, you saw people,having babies, saw their lives, you knew, you just chose different, so need to take responsibility for that, not make it someone else’s fault.

I had two, first at 31 so very similar. I am also too tired for a 3rd, but am really glad I had my twenties without. I did the partying and the dating and the travelling thing. My sister had her children young at 22, and she felt she missed out on a lot. She has a lot of regrets about not doing any backpacking type travel which she feels too old for in her 40s and she never got much beyond entry level in her job. I think 28 and after is best honestly, although appreciate its different for all, who would they have been to tell you what would be right for you?

YANBU.

I had my children at 31 and 35.

My sister had her children when she was 23 and 25 and I look at her life with envy!

She’s 40 and has a stress free life that isn’t dictated by her children anymore whereas I’m 42 and fucking exhausted with at least another decade ahead of me where my freedom is curbed.

If I could go back in time I would definitely have children younger!

😂😂

I I had on6e as a teenager and last one in late 30s. Trust me the exhaustion was no worse at 38, if anything I found it easier. Teenagers need their sleep.

Enjoy this phase of life as you enjoyed the other phases. It really is a waste to worry about it, you can't change it.

Me too. We were lied to and mugged, weren’t we.

Regarding the kids timing there is never a good time to have them. If you’d had them younger you would never had had any career at all. As someone who has had a career it is extremely frustrating to watch ypu work come to naught while the men just carry on, no doubt laughing at all the lies about equality and men becoming worthwhile equal partners that they told us. But it is extremely hard to start from nothing later on, and probably impossible in most parts of the country where the housing market is broken utterly.

You are struggling with the Motherhood Penalty as we all are. It’s the largest Motherhood Penalty in Europe. There’s never been a good solution to the issues of how to combine modern work and family, and we are certainly not getting it right now.

I haven’t got any good solutions in my back pocket without social / political will to bring real change to this broken economy, just wanted to express solidarity and sympathy. And reconsider having further kids, this is not a time or place for them to make a life.

The nudge wouldn’t have helped.

I really really wish someone had nudged me earlier about this

Why is it up to 'someone' to tell you pretty obvious stuff?

You were an educated adult and made choices which served you well at the time. It's not up to some random 'someone' to 'nudge' you about life choices, and in any case it seems you were happy enough in your professional life.

Pay-offs are a part of life for everyone. (Often) doing one thing means you can't do another. You managed to have a career and to have children too. I would say you've done pretty well for yourself and it seems a bit churlish not to take responsibility for your own choices.

See, my own mother keeps doing this to my cousins on our family WhatsApp and she just comes across as nuts hahaha so I think people really just have to figure it out for themselves.

Also even exactly the same children might not be as much fun if you are wondering how to pay for the next pack of Pampers and folding the nappy wipes to get maximum use from each one.

Money isn't needed to love your dc, but it definitely makes it less stressful.

Mum can I just have, can you buy me, I’ve seen, have you seen:.. 💸

I don’t think a day goes by the 16 year old doesn’t ask for cash or something costly.

You wouldn't have listened 🙂

There is no perfect time or way to have a child. I think I would like more energy too but if I'd had my daughter younger I wouldn't be half the mum I am and that's the truth. I would most likely have repeated the mistakes of my parents. Not that I'm not making my own - but I'm not repeating someone else's.

A woman I went school with had her two children much younger and now she's in her 40s and doing all the things I don't in my 20s, and I'm doing all the thing she done in hers. I think we're both happy with it.