Why does barely anyone my age have kids?

[Quietterry]

I’m 25 and had my first young so she’s 9 now and yes I was very young having her but I’m no longer a spring chicken and looking at my cohort who went to school with me out of 200+ people I can count on one hand who’s had kids.

Im not judging them for it I’m just curious on what changed when my mother was my age practically everyone she knew had kids by 25!

I know there’s different theories on this and they probably all have some merit but I’m leaning towards thinking it’s phones. I heard recently some people spend 8 hours a day on their phones.

I was young in my circle of friends, I was 26 with my first, it was unplanned and ideally I would have preferred to wait a few more years but life happens.

The women I know who had babies before 25 tended to have mums who were very young themselves or from deprived backgrounds.
The majority my age (early 40’s) waited until they were in their early 30’s.

Everyone i knew in my 20s (30 years ago) was working, saving (for weddings travel houses)
No one wanted to be tied down with children at early to mid 20s. My youngest friend was 27 when she had her first. The rest of us were 30s, a couple of over 40s.
My DS is 17, I would be devastated if he told me he was going to be a Dad.
I have several friends who have no children by choice, as does my brother. The women are all too old now but have no regrets that I know of.

@OP - also I'm assuming that you didn't plan to get pregnant at 16?

If you'd not got pregnant accidently, how do you know you would have met the person you wanted to start a family with by 25?

In my early 20s I wasn't socialising to find a partner to settle down with, I was socialising to have fun with my friends. I was determined not to get pregnant during those years.

In my later 20s I was open to a long-term relationship, leading to marriage and family but I didn't find the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with until I was in my 30s, and we didn't have smart phones back then so that wasn't hurting the search. So it took me about six years to find that person.

How do you know you would have had kids by now if circumstances were different?

I'm very old but even in "my day" 16 was considered far too young to have a baby. My generation tended to have our first between 26 and 32. Different times but when I look back I think 26 is very young and if I could go back I would have waited. 25 is a spring chicken, one day you will look back and realise how very young you were.

It’s because more women are highly educated and have independent careers than was the case in my mother’s generation, surely? I had my children in my thirties and smart phones hadn’t been invented in my twenties, so don’t blame phones!

The amount of waffle people come here to spout is absolutely ridiculous. Suddenly, nobody knows a single young mum, and everyone was well established before having children!
Personally OP, I feel it's because there are far more opportunities available to young women these days; more work prospects and opportunities, alongside social media platforms that offer a glimpse of the glamour life could be, if you don't have dependents to pay for. More and more young women wish to live life without having the family ties.
My mum had 4 sisters, all besides my mum were married by the time they were 25, and most certainly mothers by the time they were 28. This was back in the 80's so yes, before phones.
I work for social services, and those who believe young mothers are only found in lower class, poor backgrounds have lived an exceedingly sheltered life. Just as children who are reported to social services are not only exclusively parented by poor, working class, teenage parents. Neglect comes in various forms.
I hope yourself and your child are living a happy, healthy life. You have raised a very reasonable question, with many sensible and thought provoking responses. If every answer was polite and reasonable, this wouldn't be MN.

Maybe they’re spending some of their time on their phones researching the realities of raising children and deciding it isn’t for them, rather than blindly doing it without really asking themselves whether they want to, like people did in the past.

I'm 44 and none of my friends intentionally had children until we were in our 30s. We all wanted to establish our careers and buy houses first.

If I'd got pregnant before 25 I would have had an abortion. It simply wasn't something I was interested in at that age. By 25 I was in a happy, settled relationship and we'd have made the best of it, but it certainly wouldn't have been ideal.

Oh and we didn't have smartphones when I was in my 20s, so it wasn't anything to do with that 😂 And 25 is ridiculously young. A baby. Your brain has only just fully formed at that age.

You are absolutely still a spring
chicken 🤣💕

What a vile thing to say. There's every reason to wait a bit before having children, but not everybody needs to or wants to do so. Everybody's life is on a different trajectory. You clearly don't like being judged for having your children at the age that you did, but will dish out the condescending judgemental comments to those who had them earlier? Hypocritical much?

Implying those whose children who have kids before their late 20s are failures is preposterous and outright nasty. What if your kids have children at age 25? Are you going to tell them that you have failed as a parent? Pathetic

Because they wanted to live their lives first?! Isn't it obvious why anyone wouldn't want a child in their early 20s?

Times have changed, people tend to have children later if they have them. Nobody I know personally could afford children at 25, they were still establishing their careers and saving to buy houses.

i took a uk job at 42, met ds' dad, pregnant at 44. Ds arrived at 45.
Now I'm 63, ds is off to uni and I can retire

That all sounds brilliant. I'm in awe.

There is some proper academic work on this (spoiler - its not phones) Expert comment: Why are people in the UK leaving it so late to have children? | Oxford University

In 2013 the compulsory age of education was raised to 17, then in 2015 it was 18, all of that was when you were at school. Staying st school longer raises educational outcomes and the chance of starting a career. Young people have been less likely to leave school and have kids for a long time. I was a teen in the 90's, I just about old enough to be your mother but I think it was uncommon in my age group to have kids s
young.

Most people my age had kids late 20's or early30's and we have teenagers now. Even the ones who didn't stay on for college did other stuff like travelling.

Women are better educated, use contraception and aren't indoctrinated into the need to have children anymore. Women are more than breeding machines.

It was very rare for teenagers to have children in my school year. Most are either childless or were late 20s/early 30s so still have young kids now.

I don't think that anyone is saying only poor people have children at a younger age but you can't deny demographics accross the wider picture.

If you go to university, the majority of women will not plan to have a baby before they graduate at 21/22. Many of those who accidently get pregnant will have an abortion in that situation.

Then they graduate and need to establish a good job/career - that doesn't work with starting a family for most people. So you are looking at 3-4 more years on top of that.

By the time I was 25 I had been working full-time for 5 years (worked FT since I turned 18. I wanted my own money for driving lessons, buying a car, moving out) and had just finished a 2-year full-time apprenticeship. There’s no way I’d have felt able to raise a child in amongst that. Hats off to those who do, but it would’ve been terrible for my mental health.

This is my observation. I am from an underclass background so almost all our mothers finished having kids by mid to late 20s with a few “oops” babies again in 30s.

Whereas for my middle class circles they think having a child at 27 is “young”!

Because historically having children was a way of women getting to financial security through a man and a family relationship. Women don't need that now as they can become financially independent themselves.

Because the anonymity of the internet has enabled older women to speak openly about how they wished they'd never had children. It remains a taboo subject openly ('I love my children but...') but previously no one ever had access to this information in as much detail.

Because there are huge physical life long problems that may be caused by pregnancy and child birth as campaigns around treatment of women giving birth tell us.

Because having children is very expensive and people either can't afford it or don't want to sacrifice a quality of life.

Because life has always involved suffering, at some point people you love will die, you will probably get old and have pain or illness, but now society is worse then ever because of social media addiction, isolation, mental illness - and people are choosing not to bring a child into this world to suffer.

Because they don't want kids ever.

Because they don't want kids at such a young age and miss out on life opportunities only available to those with time, youth and energy on their side.

Because everyone is different.

@wordler that is absolutely implied in some of the responses on this post.

I agree Yikes101. I was 27 when I had my first child in 1994 and was - by several years - the first one in my group of friends to do so.

One of my friends had her 3 children 10 years apart at 21, 31 and 41.

It’s genuinely true. That’s what I’m trying to get across but people are acting like it was also that way in the past when it definitely wasn’t