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.

We get it. You’re surprised more people haven’t had kids younger. When you’re a bit older and have experienced adulthood away from motherhood, you may see why people don’t want children. Freedom when you’re young is a gift and fun. Most people don’t want the responsibility of a baby before the security of a spouse and home. Even then, this generation is choosing to be child free by choice.

I think your mum must be in a different demographic to my friends who are 50ish. Then had kids around 30, not 20/25…

47yo and only one of uni couples chose to have kids by 25. The married fast due to religion. But think they separated.
One girl got pg in year abroad so about 19.
One school classmate was aboyt 16 but otherwise mostly around 30. We tried for 29yo but took 3 years so mine should be 17 and 15 rather than 14 and 11.

It is expense of nursery but mainly trying to get a few years of work in after uni.
i do think most should ttc by 29/30 as later babies is pushing up the sen rates a lot. I know several mums who were late 30s-40 and have asd/adhd kids.
And several others who have had expensive ivf and all that stress

Culture change. I'm 40 and several girls had children when I was at school but then there was a lull until we were late 20s/ early 30s. Those who had children very young were still living with their parents and were helped through the early years. These days grandparents both work, sometimes beyond 70, there's a lot more awareness of how much some people have materially so people want to own homes and cars and have holidays, and two people need to work to afford that. It's just not as appealing to a couple to have one not working at the expense of not owning a home, and there is less social housing, so it makes it impossible to save for your own home on one wage for a house to rent. If you both work full time it's exhausting and expensive to put any children into childcare. Both your generation and mine also experienced high rates on parents divorcing which has made us less likely to marry early, as we have less faith it's for life... And people judge unmarried women still. My eldest is younger than yours and I still had someone tell me they were doing it "the right way" when I announced my pregnancy but was not married to my partner. Some other cultures are more of the belief "have children young, and then they are a old enough to be more independent around the time you have the best opportunity to progress your career" which actually makes sense. Our children would be far less spoilt if we had them at our poorest, and we'd learn to be more frugal. Also, I have a lot of friends at my age who have chosen not to have children. They have realised that they would have to sacrifice holidays, nights out , gym time and more and are happy just with their spouse and friends.

So if you're 25, you're a millennial or your late millennial, or your early Gen. Z for our generation, for that generation, actually they are having children, but they're tending to have them later, and it tends to be married. Couples who are older professionals. You do have some younger ones who have kids outside of marriage, but it seems to be that people that are Only it seems to be that weirdly enough that people are older. They are having kids, but they're marrying later, and people that aren't marrying are tending not to have kids. Does that make sense? So depending on the marriage rates in the people that you see around you, it kind of affects how many babies you see for me, all of my friends began to have children post 34, and they've all got 3 or 4 at the moment. One thing that I think

Average age of having first child in uk is now 30.

‘Boomers’ ‘gen z’ why do you all use this atomising language?

These are the generation names that have been given socially for different groups of people born at different times that's all

We wanted to travel, get married, buy a house and we did all of that first. We still travel with DD but I’m so glad we had those years just the two of us.

Someone on the thread is reporting my very boring s.Posts what's going on

You are posting on Mumsnet, which is predominantly middle class and therefore the expectation and aspiration is university.

Go pose this same question to Netmums and see if you get a different response.

Back when I was 16 getting pregnant would get you a council flat, these days kids are expected to buy their own house, build a career - so OP who pays for your housing? Or did you get pregnant at 16 and still hold down a job, not claim benefits and not be a burden on the tax payer?

long term investment with high risk on return on investment ?

Economics. Women now aged 16-45 work much harder for much less.

Two adults are required to
service a mortgage or rent, social housing won’t take you and if you don’t start trying till you’re late 20s it’s often too late to fix lurking infertility.

We’ve been starved out.

Women have noticed. The big exceptions are new female immigrants, who make up for shy breeders by having three DC to the standard 1.4. Saving everyone’s bacon.

So in the early 90s when your mum was 29, her first child had been 7 years earlier, in the mid 80s?

I was pointing out that OP was incorrect in her belief that her parent's generation generally had babies before they were 25? Given that when OP was born, age at first child was about 27.

Could you explain how your post about the experience a decade or two before that is relevant? Are you suggesting it somehow shows that actually most women were having babies before 25 in the early 2000s?

I have no idea what your point is

What this documentary. I just finished it. Birthgap. It talks about the vitality curve. Britain and the West are going through a dire population replacement crisis. The only people who benefit are left wing politicians.

Women might well want to not have the early years be so crazy, that isn't the same as them only wanting to be a mother and not have a career or other role in the world.

(I also think trying to divorce the decision making about careers from finances misses an essential driver in wanting a career for many women, which is to not be dependent on a man financially and unable to make the choices they could if they had equal economic power in a relationship.)

ONS graph of average age of 1st time mother

Not to the information I drew that from. It's a very abbreviated summary of some work I did a couple of years ago for a policy document for a charity when I had access to academic libraries and time to do a proper literature review. But it's a mainstream finding so you can google and see plenty of supporting links for it. Here's one on the impact on children's education from the Social Mobility Commission: socialmobility.independent-commission.uk/the-role-of-families-in-the-educational-outcomes-of-children-and-young-people/#parental-education

I agree totally! Lol

Honestly OP you don’t sound very smart. Maybe finishing education before having a baby would have done you some good.

Women are having kids later because they want to enjoy their 20s and find the right person to build a life with. I assume you’re no longer with the baby’s father?

OP, must 16 when she started! Teen pregnancy.