Should we all be having our babies in our early 20s?

[Coldtits]

read here

What do you think?

I got pregnant instantly with both of my eldest. At 31 and 34. And then at 37 . Can't say it was instant as it wasn't planned.

she also seems to forget that pre-the pill women would be having children in their 20's, 30's, 40's.... my Grandmother had a 4 year break from childbirth when her husband was a prisoner of war and then at the age of 42 when he gor back, wham bang and another kid on the way.

Well I moved out just before my 18th to live with DP, so we had 4 and 1/2 years of doing what we wanted before the DC. We went to Crete, Wester Ross, Dublin, Barcelona, Macedonia, Paris, Cornwall, loads of festivals. Spent most of our student days in a haze of hangovers. Couldn't have coped with more of it tbh.

Yes, both of my grandparents had babies in their late 30s. Given that there tended to be larger families in the past, surely it's hardly a new thing to have children in your 30s and 40s.

i wish there hadn't been so many unsuitable blokes and hangovers. i don't look back on all of that with too much fondness at all.

I'm bored with being respectable now.

Without reading the rest of the posts, I don't think she is saying that we should be having babies in our 20's because we don't live in an ideal society. We live in a society where, as a woman, you are required to be career minded and ambitious at the time when you are at your most fertile. I think she is imagining a society where you could have time out to have babies in your early 20's and then start on the career ladder when your children are a little older, presumably in a job that would fit flexibly around school hours - or maybe you start training to be a doctor when you are 35.

Its unlikely that this society will ever exist because a) everybody would have to meet the father of their children in their early 20's and b) despite some women suffering fertility problems, most people do still find it possible to conceive in their 30's.

I'm not attacking women for having kids later in life. Far from it. I say do what you want to do in life (and get on with life the best you can when things don't go your way). I also know that plenty of women do get pregnant quickly later on in life (my ow grandmother had a child at 44).
But fertility does decline as you get older, and no matter how much things change for women, that is a biological fact we can't escape.

But we do know that. In fact if you believe the hype, no single ovary over the age of 35 is in working order. I should by rights be snivelling into a test-tube and regretting my right to vote, really.

skidoodle, actually, biologically I think we are 'meant' to be having babies in our teens. I think our reproductive systems assume that we are going to be eaten by a sabre tooth tiger at around the age of 32.

Same as bookthief and agree with expat's last post

I wish I'd been a bit more forward thinking about what I wanted when I was younger

Interesting article.

I had dd 19 days after my 20th Birthday. She wasn't planned and I'm a single mother, I wouldn't have it any other way though. I had no idea about what motherhood would be like, but that's true of any new parent. I was no less, or no more prepared for becoming a parent than anybody else first time around. I have more patience now because I've become a parent and I have had to learn to be.

I'm about to start the second year of my degree, in 3 years time I'll hopefully be a qualified primary school teacher. Money doesn't flow but we have enough. It's been tight recently because I've moved but we're ok now. I've just moved into my flat and I've decorated and furnished it all. It's lovely and dd has a fab little room.

I partied hard between 16-19 whilst as college! I have friends regularly come to stay and visit me and we go out. I have a great family who live a 10 minute walk away, who adore dd. I go to toddler groups and have a good network of mummy friends, all of whom seem to really like me, regardless of age.

I know I'm young enough at 21 that in a few years time I may meet someone and settle down, I may even add to my little family. But, in the mean time, I have my daughter who I'm so proud of. More so because I think 'I did that, by myself, at 20.' I am very happy and content, you make the most of what you've got and what you're given.

There is no right and wrong, there's just what's right for you.

'and we all know that in the view of current society the only thing worse than an infertile 30-something career woman is a single mother'

I beg to differ.

thats great for you@motherinferior - but plenty of women who leave it late in life to have babies are 'snivelling into a test tube'.

yes -but we don't need reminding or blaming for it!

I would like to hear about this fabulous high-flying career one can pursue whilst having to look after school-age children.

And the point is, in reality, most of us don't 'leave it' through some Callous Careerminded Obsession. We do not find, or remain in, a relationship in which parenthood is a viable option. Yes, I feel crap enough, actually, at being so substandard and unattractive that I was single and childless while all my friends were disappearing into smug couply parenthood that I don't particularly want to take on another load of inferiority.

'journalist'

Teehee Beanieb -- actually I was assistant editor of a magazine pre-DC, a job that would never have been given me had I small children, nor would I have been able (or wanted) to work the hours required.

I'm currently about to work full-time for a month as features ed of a magazine, leaving every night at around 6.30, I reckon.

That's why you need to have started your career in your 20s meg... that way by the time you're in your 30s you have built up enough experience and credit (for want of a better word) to take a bit of time off or work pt for a bit. I've been doing my job for 15 years, I'm pretty damn good at it, and because of this my employers are keen to keep me so they're quite flexible (never quite flexible enough though, life is still a scramble)

amiwhatandwhy awww

i am still fertile for some reason got pg at 40 first try - sometimes wonder if its cos my body used to being pg

very pleased with the way life has panned out for me after a shitty start
BUT us younger mothers are hardly the most respected group are we???

ok - freelance journalist trotting out articles about your life then a la India Knight and ketherine Flett

Well, quite. It took me til my 30s to have a job that gave anything like a livable maternity benefit.

Well if my career goes well DP is very happy to be a sahd, or work part time.

Only time will tell. It's a adventure for all of us. Things are tough now but who knows what will happen in the future, and happen to us all, as a family.

Motherinferior -- I ran the production dept, for whom leaving on time can only be dreamed of! I regularly worked 10-12hr days, then add an hour's commuting either way, and I don't think I'd be fit for much parenting around that.