As I blast through many of your articles today here in Salt Lake City in the waning weeks of my second trimester, I feel the need to comment on this one simply with an echoed experience. I'm going to be 37 when this child is born, my first child, and because of my age and some surprise health issues, possibly only child (despite always wanting two.) My mother was also 40 when she had me. This means that she'll be coming up on 80 with a newborn grandchild, and the extent of her role in their life is somewhat of a question solely due to this factor. It also means that she'll likely be needing eldercare as I'm also caring for a young child. My sister also has young children, so this would be heavy on either of us. I similarly focused on career, personal fulfillment, and "finding myself" in my young adulthood, and have some major regrets about that. Mostly because when all was said and done, I've only learned that you find yourself simply through living—not through any particular, solitary, or interior process. In hindsight, to be honest, I view my young adulthood as somewhat wasted on navel-gazing. I think a child, marriage, or at least a generative (rather than personally creative) career would've helped with this—all of which felt both burdensome and uninteresting to me all those years. I'm so happy to be where I am now, but I'm also sort of bummed I waited and truly do wish I'd embraced things earlier.
I had my child at 23 and I regret nothing. I decided to have only one, but my choice was not limited by biology (more circumstance), from a fertility perspective I could have had as many as I wanted. Motherhood has been more life-fufilling than any hedonistic 'find myself' activity I could have done instead. And my child will be an adult by my early 40s, if there are other things I want to try in life with more freedom. But honestly, I enjoy my life exactly as it is. And my grandparents have been able to enjoy having a great grandchild. Don't wait. If you think you want to have children, have children.
My sister waited ten years after marrying to have her first baby, so she was 33 when she had her first baby. Now she has two kids and is 36, and expressed explicitly to me recently that she regrets that they didn’t start having kids younger. It breaks my heart to see it.
As I blast through many of your articles today here in Salt Lake City in the waning weeks of my second trimester, I feel the need to comment on this one simply with an echoed experience. I'm going to be 37 when this child is born, my first child, and because of my age and some surprise health issues, possibly only child (despite always wanting two.) My mother was also 40 when she had me. This means that she'll be coming up on 80 with a newborn grandchild, and the extent of her role in their life is somewhat of a question solely due to this factor. It also means that she'll likely be needing eldercare as I'm also caring for a young child. My sister also has young children, so this would be heavy on either of us. I similarly focused on career, personal fulfillment, and "finding myself" in my young adulthood, and have some major regrets about that. Mostly because when all was said and done, I've only learned that you find yourself simply through living—not through any particular, solitary, or interior process. In hindsight, to be honest, I view my young adulthood as somewhat wasted on navel-gazing. I think a child, marriage, or at least a generative (rather than personally creative) career would've helped with this—all of which felt both burdensome and uninteresting to me all those years. I'm so happy to be where I am now, but I'm also sort of bummed I waited and truly do wish I'd embraced things earlier.
I had my child at 23 and I regret nothing. I decided to have only one, but my choice was not limited by biology (more circumstance), from a fertility perspective I could have had as many as I wanted. Motherhood has been more life-fufilling than any hedonistic 'find myself' activity I could have done instead. And my child will be an adult by my early 40s, if there are other things I want to try in life with more freedom. But honestly, I enjoy my life exactly as it is. And my grandparents have been able to enjoy having a great grandchild. Don't wait. If you think you want to have children, have children.
My sister waited ten years after marrying to have her first baby, so she was 33 when she had her first baby. Now she has two kids and is 36, and expressed explicitly to me recently that she regrets that they didn’t start having kids younger. It breaks my heart to see it.
That comment from the NYT article you included is horrible! Good grief.