I think we’re missing the main reason women decide to do things like egg freezing. It’s very rare, at least in the women who have been studied, that women are delaying their fertility to focus on career. Much more commonly they are unable to find a man to marry. This was my story—I met my husband when I was 36. I am highly educated and found dating extremely challenging. We have 4 kids now and it grieves me to think how little time they will have with my parents and that I may never see my own grandchildren, but it was not because I was following my girl boss fantasies.
This debate reminds me of the “childless cat lady” comment that JD Vance made. We can be overly focused on the small intentionally child free portion of the population, but much more commonly the childless women he referred to dreamed of having marriage and babies and have had to grieve it as they aged out of their natiral fertility. I don’t fault them for pursuing education and career along the way.
I really liked Motherhood on Ice (https://amzn.to/3Zswd7z) an ethnography of egg freezing which makes exactly this point.
I agree that it's matching and marriage that drives a lot of the fertility gap, not over-focus on career. I think the big question is what will help people achieve the marriages they hoped for sooner (I think dating apps are pretty counterproductive).
It's normal to strategize about career (and that's good) but less normal to come up with a plan to better your odd of getting married (I did).
This is such a beautiful reflection, and some much of it chimes with me. I have had children later in life - the delay due to factors outside my control, but the years of trying nonetheless were nuanced by all the fears modern society has taught us to evoke about having children and their disruptive effect on life and careers. I find myself, now with them, wishing even more that we had been able to have them earlier, known them for longer, had the time to have more of them. At the same time, all the things that society tells us about the advantages of having children later, are, indeed, true, and have made the experience of parenting particular in ways it would not have been had we had our children early.
But my overriding thought, as someone who does history for my day job, is that a flip side to this is the preparedness to have kids, late and often (the former countercultural in the modern conservative, religious circles we run in; the latter unusual in modern, secular society). I'm always struck reading historical records how much older parenting was historically as much the norm as younger parenting, often visible in the wills and testaments that bequeath to young children, especially from men in their forties, fifties, sixties. So we can lament the short time of simultaneous unspoolings that these documents unveil, but also, I think reflect on (and perhaps celebrate) the courage of having children precisely when we know that those years of overlap may be few.
On my maternal side, my two great grandfathers (born in the 1880s) were 35 and 40 when they had my grandparents. Both maternal great grandfathers died well before my mother was born in 1956. Also, my grandparents were 37 and 35 when my mother, the 3rd of 4, was born. Even when I was born, my parents were both 31.
In my own lineage anyway, my later in life children (born when I was 35 and 36 -- and hopefully more!) are closer to average. While it's not necessarily ideal, it's also not as uncommon as we'd think. No one leaves this life alive, I guess.
Another curious factoid is that none of my great grandparents had more than 2 children. This contrasts to my grandparents on both sides who had 4 (maternal) and 5 (paternal) respectively. So far, no one in each of the succeeding generations, my parents and mine, has equaled my grandparents (an aunt and a cousin have had 3 each). I wonder if this basically coincides with the true "baby boom" following WWII which was a temporary reversal of long-term decline of birthrates in WEIRD countries? There's still time in my generation for someone to get to 4 or 5, but the TFR will likely be well below 2 when extended out to the second cousin level.
I think women have always had babies at 35 or 40, but what's changed is that they aren't having as many babies at 25 and 30 in addition to the late ones. They're getting started much later, but having to end their childbearing years at the same time regardless.
My kids were leaving for school this morning, running out the door to the big van which their oldest brother drives. He’s graduating from high school in two days. The 11yo, fourth in line of our living kids, sprouting into early young manhood, crammed on his shoes and called “Bye Mom!” as he left the house last, shoelaces trailing. I thought of him as a watchful, careful baby, and I thought of how much I want to keep getting to know him as he grows. I love your visual of a ribbon unspooling and blending with others. What a blessing to run and roll and lay and entangle alongside all of these beautiful souls!
My parents had me at the young age of 20. There were more hardships they encountered and stigma as just-past-teenage parents. There were also some small advantages (being mistaken for someone older). My husband’s parents chose (to some extent) the opposite and had him at 40.
We are fortunate in this respect - that we will most likely have elder care responsibilities at different stages of our lives. As basically only children, the burden of care will fall on us primarily to manage care for all four of them.
One of the things we’ve been keeping in mind is that the more ribbons we create, the longer they will get to share life together. It’s likely that we will have a child at 40, but they will be on the tail end of other siblings. They will have others to turn to for help when they need help with a babysitting or have to take a trip to the hospital (or when they have to care for us). My parents get to spend a lot more quality time with their grandkids because of their age than my MIL who is older and now disabled. Frankly, when their time comes, my parents will likely get excellent help from their grandchildren.
I am reminded of the adage “a cord of three strands is not easily broken.” The more ribbons we create, the more we generate an anti-fragile family structure that can ensure all members are cared for during times of need.
My mom is one of 11 and my dad was one of 8, they were able to share responsibility of care for their moms as they got older, even just email chains and talking to each other about "this happened today when I visited Mom, have you noticed this behavior when you've visited? Do you think she might be getting dementia?"
I'm one of five (2 kids and then a 14 year gap and then 3 more kids!). I really think the best things parents can give their children are 1. Parents who love each other and love them and 2. Siblings.
One of my friends is an only child and is helping his aging parents, and in addition to the time and physical toll, there's just no one for him to call and discuss things with, besides his own wife.
And outside of caring for aging parents or crisis situations, having siblings means there are people who "get" your family culture in a way no one else could. My siblings and I don't see eye to eye on a number of things, but have we all been together and gotten rowdy and sung along loudly to the background music at a nice restaurant? Yes! (No alcohol needed, we're just always loud and ready to sing along off key. 😅)
Another upshot of siblings is the potential for cousins for your kids. My eldest brother is 16 years older than me and lives far away, but he had a daughter in his 40s and I had a daughter in my late 20s, so we feel closer in age than ever before, because he's only a few years ahead of me kid-age-wise. (I say "This age is so much fun." And he'll say, "Just wait a few years, it gets better!") And my younger brother lives three blocks away from me and has a son 11 months younger than my son. These two boys will grow up together! The older they get, the smaller their age gap will seem!
Thank you for your ribbon analogy. I thought it really honored the babies lost too soon. Mine was a real part of our family even if just for a tiny bit of our lives.
I was 46 when I had our youngest and with G-d’s help, I will be 92 when she is the age I was when I had her. She has a treasure trove of older siblings, and I know that I help my younger siblings who came of age when things were already getting more difficult for our parents. But still, that is heavy, heavy stuff. I find it consistently glossed over.
If she would have her first child at the age I had her, I am reasonably likely not to be there to see it.
In our circles, that would very much an outlier.
I don’t know.
It’s a huge thing that seems to be an extra, but isn’t it the main thing?
I had our first at 22. She would have been the age I was when I had her when I was 44! Crazy young.
Oh, I love this piece. You so beautifully paint the big-picture view of life that will free us to make the best decisions today. Our short-sightedness is usually quite limiting, despite our tendency to think the opposite. I just wrote on the gift of children on my Substack, so this word is particularly on my mind, but I do think it is *prudent* to invest in children “early and often” so that more life can be shared with more people. Thank you so much for this beautiful piece of art. I can see that a lot of life and loss rest behind it; I’m so thankful you’ve shared with the rest of us the wisdom which was likely costly to gain.
"What’s turned out to matter a lot to you, simply because it became part of your life early?"
I'm grateful to have met my husband when I was 17. We've been influencing each other's sense of humor - something we both value that lightens our day considerably - for more than half our lives.
We didn't end up marrying until I was 28 and having kids until I was 33, for a variety of reasons: some I controlled and regret, some I controlled and endorse, and some I didn't control. Still, having had my husband as some part of my life for so long has been a joy to look back on.
It's easier to shape each other at earlier ages. At 40 now, I can feel my habits and values contracting and calcifying into a sort of "best of" collection. It would be hard to swing open the gates again if I had to radically change now.
This isn't a huge reason in favor of sticking with the boyfriend you have at 20 rather than looking for a better one. He and I actually spent several years apart before reconnecting. But frankly, it is a small reason in favor.
My husband and I married fairly young (early 20's, which was rather scandalous in the NYC suburbs), but didn't start our family until our early 30's - which was about the earliest "respectable" age for young professionals in our area.
While there is something to be said for waiting until you are reasonably financially secure, for most people that point is a bit of a moving target. The definition of "financially secure" varies a lot from one couple to another - does it mean "we can afford the necessities and maybe a few luxuries now and then," or does it mean "we own a 3000 square foot home, have two newish vehicles, annual vacations and the kids attend private school?" The goalposts keep moving...
One thing that I didn't factor into my timeline was that our parents were going to get older and older, just like we were. My husband's parents married young and had children right away, so when they became grandparents in their 50's they still had plenty of energy for their grandchildren. However, I was a late-in-life surprise to my mother, who was in her early 40's when I was born - by the time my children came around, my father had already passed away and my mother was in her 70's. At that point, she was hard of hearing and getting a bit crotchety, so she had fairly limited energy for toddlers and preschoolers - and then she suffered some ischemic strokes and developed vascular dementia, which meant half the time she didn't even recognize her grandchildren (when we visited her, she'd often ask me "whose children are these? why did you bring them here?").
Another thing that I don't think younger women realize when they postpone motherhood until their late 30's or early 40's is that perimenopause can start pretty early and last for a number of years. I know women who are dealing with potty training, toddlers, and young elementary kids while at the same time enduring debilitating hot flashes, anxiety, migraines, mood swings, and all the other joys of "reverse puberty." I was quite thankful that my kids were already teenagers and young adults, and reasonably self-sufficient, by the time I went through menopause!
In fact, those two factors - caring for aging parents, and going through perimenopause and the menopause transition - are probably the best arguments for starting a family in one's 20s rather than waiting til 35 or later. My children were in elementary school when my mother's dementia reached the point where she needed round-the-clock care; and that was hard enough - I don't know how I would have handled the stress of that plus a young infant, or if I was in the throes of perimenopause myself.
Yes, there's a lot of emphasis on investing your youth and energy on adventures (and I'm not against adventures) but a lot of the hardest parts of parenting are easier with a younger, stronger body!
I became pregnant on purpose at age 15, because Illinois laws allowed this if and only if the girl was pregnant. I felt great being pregnant (hormones!) and loved being a mother, so I had my son early too; he was born the day before I turned 17. The reason this worked out well and I was able to be a stay at home mother and finish college and then graduate school? Even though my husband left us when my son was just six months old?
Because I had SO much support from both my mother and my in-laws -- AND from the vast array of social services and financial support available back then. And I lived in Illinois.
I was a junior in high school at 15, and after my pregnancy was "showing," a teacher tutored me at home for my last two classes required to graduate. (I'd taken "5 solids" all through what would now be called middle school, and high school.) I was finishing my last term paper in the hospital after my daughter was born. (Yes, 6 days in the hospital back then, a great rest with full care!)
In Chicago, the public city college was free for residents, and almost all classes were available on television twice a day. (If I missed the one when the kids were napping, I could watch it after I tucked them into bed at night.) This was before internet, so we mailed in our papers, and only needed to leave home for two exams a trimester, or for classes in biology and chemistry. I soon formed a neighborhood play group, so I had four mornings completely free.
When my husband left us, my counselor recommended applying for welfare (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and in Illinois back then, the budget was tight but workable with care. I took her advice partly because I knew I wasn't doing a great job as a mother, and realized that if I worked full time, I'd be so tired much of the time that I probably wouldn't learn better parenting. A neighborhood minister led me with great tack to the Chicago's superb (free) Dreikurs Child Guidance Center for weekly group counseling.
Later, thanks to the play group and a day care paid for my welfare, I was able to take in person classes, and then was able to transfer to the University of Chicago on full scholarship. My 4-year-old was accepted to a fabulous day care program right on the way from our apartment to the U of C campus.
At one point, I calculated the number of free social services that had helped me, and as I recall, it was 21! Not all at once, but over the time between I was 17 and 23.
The Clinton administration demolished welfare, and being a parent was diminished to a luxury privilege, but a worthwhile contribution to the whole society. Almost none of the help that enabled me and my children to thrive back in the sixties is still available. Do we need it back? Yes, of course!
“What’s turned out to matter a lot to you, simply because it became part of your life early?”
My first thought, perhaps because today is reminding me of it, was discomfort and infirmity. Anyhow, having this body, and learning expectations for its care that proved unrealistic, has loomed large over the rest of my life.
More upbeat answers could include church choir, composing software. My age had hit double digits, which isn’t all that early, before either captured my attention, and maybe neither really distinguishes me yet. But writing music for choirs is one of the few things I have aptitude for that still matters, at least to me, in the face of infirmity, more so than other skills, like math, that you can’t make much of if your body keeps interrupting the use of them. God knows motherhood isn’t something I feel like I have aptitude for, though I love my children. I am less of a mom to them than they deserve, but also doubtful that being more of one is realistic without lasting security of medical care.
Something I value, especially because it came to me young, is my faith. I converted to Catholicism at age 23 (I’m now 30) and have in theory been willing to have as many kids as God wills, as soon as God wills. However, I have yet to have the opportunity to get married, or even meet anyone marriageable (and I’ve been trying to meet men and be as open as possible). It saddens me that I won’t be able to start a family “young” at this point and am not sure what else to do other than continue praying and trying to trust that God’s plan for me is better than anything I can plan for myself. The ribbon analogy is beautiful, and I hope more people will consider having kids early and often.
I so appreciate you noting that you can't control when children come into your life. After our own fertility journey (not nearly as harrowing as yours, but still painful in its own way), I get so frustrated on both ends of the spectrum: people who say "I'm finally ready to start a family" once they're in the "right" stage of life, and people who say "you shouldn't wait too long to start a family"--as though in either case we can just click our fingers and make it happen. Thank you for helping to make this reality a key part of the conversation about family "planning".
What’s turned out to matter a lot to you, simply because it became part of your life early?
My faith! Cradle Catholic who was memorizing the Baltimore Catechism in the 1970's, far after it was fashionable. I'm so grateful for the early foundation.
What (if anything) did you choose to go all-in on earlier than you could know if it was “optimal”?
My marriage - I got married 8 days after I graduated college, 29 years ago. He was in grad school and I moved 2000 miles away to where he was, without a job myself.
Having kids - he was doing a postdoc and we were 2000 miles from family.
What advice about pacing family did or didn’t resonate with you?
I love "have kids early and often". I think it's so sad that so many people wish they'd had more children. I have four and I still wish I'd had more. I wish I'd been more trusting in God's providence and in my own resilience. Thank God Mary had a Child in her non-ideal circumstances.
I was blessed to meet my husband early. We started dating at community college when I was 17 and now we've almost been together more of our lives than we didn't know each other! My husband has been one of the greatest blessings in my life and I'm so grateful we have overlapped for so much of our lives. He never got to meet my dad when he was healthy, but he met my dad before he died of brain cancer, and he asked his permission to marry me and my dad understood the question and said yes, which means so much to me.
We got married after college graduation (6 days after), and I waited until I finished my masters for us to start trying for babies. The thing I didn't know and couldn't predict, was that I'd experience secondary infertility. There's a five year gap between our two kids. Occasionally I have someone tell me how smart we were to space the kids by five years. But that was absolutely not the goal! I have friends with the opposite cross, where the babies come in unexpectedly quick succession, and I know that has challenges too. Maybe we all just wish for a cross that isn't ours sometimes! Every kid has their own personality and I want to have more kids and meet them and see who they will be! So we're praying for more babies and thrilled with the two God has given us so far.
(And I love your, we can't control, but we can take action to increase probabilities. We host an open invite dinner twice a month in this season, for the last eight years it's been every week, with six month gaps when I have a baby. We found some Catholic friends eventually after moving to this city and we were so thankful that we wanted to help other people find friends. Years of hosting open invite dinners have given us a ton of friends and connections and a neighborhood where friends all moved to live within three blocks of each other, and we've seen conversions and marriages and job opportunities and housemates and, and, and...! So many blessings! I feel so incredibly blessed that this gets to be my life. But we also didn't take the approach of Lazy, lazy, lazy Jane in the Shel Silverstein poem who was thirsty so she "waits and waits and waits and waits for it to rain." 😅)
My older children were 4, 2, and 2 when my youngest was born. There are years of my life I don't remember when they were young because it was just a haze of barely meeting needs all day every day. It was certainly a cross. And yet. I'd do it again, and I'd do it better, and I regret not having more.
I appreciate your thoughts on looking at your timeline but as you point out so much is beyond our control. We can't just schedule marriage and baby making on our calendars, nor does society encourage that now. Once upon a time women married young and had babies young because that was the only option that was socially encouraged. I was part of the first cohort of women who were allowed into medical school in significant numbers. There was absolutely no conversation about how we would blend medical careers with having a family. I recall one classmate who got married during medical school and got pregnant during residency. She had a supportive spouse but I have no idea how she did it. I got married in my 30's and finally got pregnant with reproductive technology.The fact of the matter is that careers are satisfying and rewarding in ways that raising children are not. I love my children and am grateful that I was able to have them but society as a whole says that what men do through their careers is more important and valuable in spite of the lip service paid to motherhood. In the past women had to have children because there was no other choice. Now many young women are saying why
should I choose that? How are you going to persuade them? In my opinion, there needs to be deep structural change in society. I also think that there should be two paths for women, that those who really love babies can have more to compensate for those who do not want children and let both choices be accepted.
I am also a physician and the training needs to change to accommodate the growing number of women (and men with working wives/partners). I had to sit my boards 2 weeks postpartum. The test was given at a large testing center and ballooned to 10 hours with pumping breaks. I sat on a pillow and got up midpoint to find a huge stain on it. Some of the changes will need to be large, but some can be immediate—there is just no reason for some of these things.
I am a licensed professional engineer and our timeline for licensing exams recently changed. When I was in undergrad engineering students generally sat their first 8 hour exam senior year of college and you were not eligible to sit the second 8 hour exam until you met the experience requirements (4 years of relevant work experience with a BS, 3 with an MS or PhD). This meant most people studied for and sat that second exam between ages 25 and 29, and I know several women who sat through those long exams pregnant or nursing. Now you can take the second exam anytime after passing the first one and you simply can't apply to the state for licensure until after you've met the experience requirement. SUCH a difference! So much more flexible for many situations, not just pregnancy/nursing!
I think we’re missing the main reason women decide to do things like egg freezing. It’s very rare, at least in the women who have been studied, that women are delaying their fertility to focus on career. Much more commonly they are unable to find a man to marry. This was my story—I met my husband when I was 36. I am highly educated and found dating extremely challenging. We have 4 kids now and it grieves me to think how little time they will have with my parents and that I may never see my own grandchildren, but it was not because I was following my girl boss fantasies.
This debate reminds me of the “childless cat lady” comment that JD Vance made. We can be overly focused on the small intentionally child free portion of the population, but much more commonly the childless women he referred to dreamed of having marriage and babies and have had to grieve it as they aged out of their natiral fertility. I don’t fault them for pursuing education and career along the way.
I really liked Motherhood on Ice (https://amzn.to/3Zswd7z) an ethnography of egg freezing which makes exactly this point.
I agree that it's matching and marriage that drives a lot of the fertility gap, not over-focus on career. I think the big question is what will help people achieve the marriages they hoped for sooner (I think dating apps are pretty counterproductive).
It's normal to strategize about career (and that's good) but less normal to come up with a plan to better your odd of getting married (I did).
This is such a beautiful reflection, and some much of it chimes with me. I have had children later in life - the delay due to factors outside my control, but the years of trying nonetheless were nuanced by all the fears modern society has taught us to evoke about having children and their disruptive effect on life and careers. I find myself, now with them, wishing even more that we had been able to have them earlier, known them for longer, had the time to have more of them. At the same time, all the things that society tells us about the advantages of having children later, are, indeed, true, and have made the experience of parenting particular in ways it would not have been had we had our children early.
But my overriding thought, as someone who does history for my day job, is that a flip side to this is the preparedness to have kids, late and often (the former countercultural in the modern conservative, religious circles we run in; the latter unusual in modern, secular society). I'm always struck reading historical records how much older parenting was historically as much the norm as younger parenting, often visible in the wills and testaments that bequeath to young children, especially from men in their forties, fifties, sixties. So we can lament the short time of simultaneous unspoolings that these documents unveil, but also, I think reflect on (and perhaps celebrate) the courage of having children precisely when we know that those years of overlap may be few.
This is a great point, Alice.
On my maternal side, my two great grandfathers (born in the 1880s) were 35 and 40 when they had my grandparents. Both maternal great grandfathers died well before my mother was born in 1956. Also, my grandparents were 37 and 35 when my mother, the 3rd of 4, was born. Even when I was born, my parents were both 31.
In my own lineage anyway, my later in life children (born when I was 35 and 36 -- and hopefully more!) are closer to average. While it's not necessarily ideal, it's also not as uncommon as we'd think. No one leaves this life alive, I guess.
Another curious factoid is that none of my great grandparents had more than 2 children. This contrasts to my grandparents on both sides who had 4 (maternal) and 5 (paternal) respectively. So far, no one in each of the succeeding generations, my parents and mine, has equaled my grandparents (an aunt and a cousin have had 3 each). I wonder if this basically coincides with the true "baby boom" following WWII which was a temporary reversal of long-term decline of birthrates in WEIRD countries? There's still time in my generation for someone to get to 4 or 5, but the TFR will likely be well below 2 when extended out to the second cousin level.
I think women have always had babies at 35 or 40, but what's changed is that they aren't having as many babies at 25 and 30 in addition to the late ones. They're getting started much later, but having to end their childbearing years at the same time regardless.
This is so fascinating!
My kids were leaving for school this morning, running out the door to the big van which their oldest brother drives. He’s graduating from high school in two days. The 11yo, fourth in line of our living kids, sprouting into early young manhood, crammed on his shoes and called “Bye Mom!” as he left the house last, shoelaces trailing. I thought of him as a watchful, careful baby, and I thought of how much I want to keep getting to know him as he grows. I love your visual of a ribbon unspooling and blending with others. What a blessing to run and roll and lay and entangle alongside all of these beautiful souls!
My parents had me at the young age of 20. There were more hardships they encountered and stigma as just-past-teenage parents. There were also some small advantages (being mistaken for someone older). My husband’s parents chose (to some extent) the opposite and had him at 40.
We are fortunate in this respect - that we will most likely have elder care responsibilities at different stages of our lives. As basically only children, the burden of care will fall on us primarily to manage care for all four of them.
One of the things we’ve been keeping in mind is that the more ribbons we create, the longer they will get to share life together. It’s likely that we will have a child at 40, but they will be on the tail end of other siblings. They will have others to turn to for help when they need help with a babysitting or have to take a trip to the hospital (or when they have to care for us). My parents get to spend a lot more quality time with their grandkids because of their age than my MIL who is older and now disabled. Frankly, when their time comes, my parents will likely get excellent help from their grandchildren.
I am reminded of the adage “a cord of three strands is not easily broken.” The more ribbons we create, the more we generate an anti-fragile family structure that can ensure all members are cared for during times of need.
I love this note about siblings!
My mom is one of 11 and my dad was one of 8, they were able to share responsibility of care for their moms as they got older, even just email chains and talking to each other about "this happened today when I visited Mom, have you noticed this behavior when you've visited? Do you think she might be getting dementia?"
I'm one of five (2 kids and then a 14 year gap and then 3 more kids!). I really think the best things parents can give their children are 1. Parents who love each other and love them and 2. Siblings.
One of my friends is an only child and is helping his aging parents, and in addition to the time and physical toll, there's just no one for him to call and discuss things with, besides his own wife.
And outside of caring for aging parents or crisis situations, having siblings means there are people who "get" your family culture in a way no one else could. My siblings and I don't see eye to eye on a number of things, but have we all been together and gotten rowdy and sung along loudly to the background music at a nice restaurant? Yes! (No alcohol needed, we're just always loud and ready to sing along off key. 😅)
Another upshot of siblings is the potential for cousins for your kids. My eldest brother is 16 years older than me and lives far away, but he had a daughter in his 40s and I had a daughter in my late 20s, so we feel closer in age than ever before, because he's only a few years ahead of me kid-age-wise. (I say "This age is so much fun." And he'll say, "Just wait a few years, it gets better!") And my younger brother lives three blocks away from me and has a son 11 months younger than my son. These two boys will grow up together! The older they get, the smaller their age gap will seem!
Yes to cousins! I grew up reading "Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott and missed them and "Aunt Hill"
I had some, but all the way on the other side of the country.
We have three kids, and the first cousin will be born to one of our sibs this summer.
Thank you for your ribbon analogy. I thought it really honored the babies lost too soon. Mine was a real part of our family even if just for a tiny bit of our lives.
Absolutely. We're wondering what the best time to talk to our living children about our lost big siblings is.
I was 46 when I had our youngest and with G-d’s help, I will be 92 when she is the age I was when I had her. She has a treasure trove of older siblings, and I know that I help my younger siblings who came of age when things were already getting more difficult for our parents. But still, that is heavy, heavy stuff. I find it consistently glossed over.
If she would have her first child at the age I had her, I am reasonably likely not to be there to see it.
In our circles, that would very much an outlier.
I don’t know.
It’s a huge thing that seems to be an extra, but isn’t it the main thing?
I had our first at 22. She would have been the age I was when I had her when I was 44! Crazy young.
It’s a huge difference.
Oh, I love this piece. You so beautifully paint the big-picture view of life that will free us to make the best decisions today. Our short-sightedness is usually quite limiting, despite our tendency to think the opposite. I just wrote on the gift of children on my Substack, so this word is particularly on my mind, but I do think it is *prudent* to invest in children “early and often” so that more life can be shared with more people. Thank you so much for this beautiful piece of art. I can see that a lot of life and loss rest behind it; I’m so thankful you’ve shared with the rest of us the wisdom which was likely costly to gain.
"What’s turned out to matter a lot to you, simply because it became part of your life early?"
I'm grateful to have met my husband when I was 17. We've been influencing each other's sense of humor - something we both value that lightens our day considerably - for more than half our lives.
We didn't end up marrying until I was 28 and having kids until I was 33, for a variety of reasons: some I controlled and regret, some I controlled and endorse, and some I didn't control. Still, having had my husband as some part of my life for so long has been a joy to look back on.
It's easier to shape each other at earlier ages. At 40 now, I can feel my habits and values contracting and calcifying into a sort of "best of" collection. It would be hard to swing open the gates again if I had to radically change now.
This isn't a huge reason in favor of sticking with the boyfriend you have at 20 rather than looking for a better one. He and I actually spent several years apart before reconnecting. But frankly, it is a small reason in favor.
My husband and I married fairly young (early 20's, which was rather scandalous in the NYC suburbs), but didn't start our family until our early 30's - which was about the earliest "respectable" age for young professionals in our area.
While there is something to be said for waiting until you are reasonably financially secure, for most people that point is a bit of a moving target. The definition of "financially secure" varies a lot from one couple to another - does it mean "we can afford the necessities and maybe a few luxuries now and then," or does it mean "we own a 3000 square foot home, have two newish vehicles, annual vacations and the kids attend private school?" The goalposts keep moving...
One thing that I didn't factor into my timeline was that our parents were going to get older and older, just like we were. My husband's parents married young and had children right away, so when they became grandparents in their 50's they still had plenty of energy for their grandchildren. However, I was a late-in-life surprise to my mother, who was in her early 40's when I was born - by the time my children came around, my father had already passed away and my mother was in her 70's. At that point, she was hard of hearing and getting a bit crotchety, so she had fairly limited energy for toddlers and preschoolers - and then she suffered some ischemic strokes and developed vascular dementia, which meant half the time she didn't even recognize her grandchildren (when we visited her, she'd often ask me "whose children are these? why did you bring them here?").
Another thing that I don't think younger women realize when they postpone motherhood until their late 30's or early 40's is that perimenopause can start pretty early and last for a number of years. I know women who are dealing with potty training, toddlers, and young elementary kids while at the same time enduring debilitating hot flashes, anxiety, migraines, mood swings, and all the other joys of "reverse puberty." I was quite thankful that my kids were already teenagers and young adults, and reasonably self-sufficient, by the time I went through menopause!
In fact, those two factors - caring for aging parents, and going through perimenopause and the menopause transition - are probably the best arguments for starting a family in one's 20s rather than waiting til 35 or later. My children were in elementary school when my mother's dementia reached the point where she needed round-the-clock care; and that was hard enough - I don't know how I would have handled the stress of that plus a young infant, or if I was in the throes of perimenopause myself.
Yes, there's a lot of emphasis on investing your youth and energy on adventures (and I'm not against adventures) but a lot of the hardest parts of parenting are easier with a younger, stronger body!
I became pregnant on purpose at age 15, because Illinois laws allowed this if and only if the girl was pregnant. I felt great being pregnant (hormones!) and loved being a mother, so I had my son early too; he was born the day before I turned 17. The reason this worked out well and I was able to be a stay at home mother and finish college and then graduate school? Even though my husband left us when my son was just six months old?
Because I had SO much support from both my mother and my in-laws -- AND from the vast array of social services and financial support available back then. And I lived in Illinois.
I was a junior in high school at 15, and after my pregnancy was "showing," a teacher tutored me at home for my last two classes required to graduate. (I'd taken "5 solids" all through what would now be called middle school, and high school.) I was finishing my last term paper in the hospital after my daughter was born. (Yes, 6 days in the hospital back then, a great rest with full care!)
In Chicago, the public city college was free for residents, and almost all classes were available on television twice a day. (If I missed the one when the kids were napping, I could watch it after I tucked them into bed at night.) This was before internet, so we mailed in our papers, and only needed to leave home for two exams a trimester, or for classes in biology and chemistry. I soon formed a neighborhood play group, so I had four mornings completely free.
When my husband left us, my counselor recommended applying for welfare (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and in Illinois back then, the budget was tight but workable with care. I took her advice partly because I knew I wasn't doing a great job as a mother, and realized that if I worked full time, I'd be so tired much of the time that I probably wouldn't learn better parenting. A neighborhood minister led me with great tack to the Chicago's superb (free) Dreikurs Child Guidance Center for weekly group counseling.
Later, thanks to the play group and a day care paid for my welfare, I was able to take in person classes, and then was able to transfer to the University of Chicago on full scholarship. My 4-year-old was accepted to a fabulous day care program right on the way from our apartment to the U of C campus.
At one point, I calculated the number of free social services that had helped me, and as I recall, it was 21! Not all at once, but over the time between I was 17 and 23.
The Clinton administration demolished welfare, and being a parent was diminished to a luxury privilege, but a worthwhile contribution to the whole society. Almost none of the help that enabled me and my children to thrive back in the sixties is still available. Do we need it back? Yes, of course!
This is an astonishing history lesson, and I am so glad for you and your children that you had that support!
“What’s turned out to matter a lot to you, simply because it became part of your life early?”
My first thought, perhaps because today is reminding me of it, was discomfort and infirmity. Anyhow, having this body, and learning expectations for its care that proved unrealistic, has loomed large over the rest of my life.
More upbeat answers could include church choir, composing software. My age had hit double digits, which isn’t all that early, before either captured my attention, and maybe neither really distinguishes me yet. But writing music for choirs is one of the few things I have aptitude for that still matters, at least to me, in the face of infirmity, more so than other skills, like math, that you can’t make much of if your body keeps interrupting the use of them. God knows motherhood isn’t something I feel like I have aptitude for, though I love my children. I am less of a mom to them than they deserve, but also doubtful that being more of one is realistic without lasting security of medical care.
Something I value, especially because it came to me young, is my faith. I converted to Catholicism at age 23 (I’m now 30) and have in theory been willing to have as many kids as God wills, as soon as God wills. However, I have yet to have the opportunity to get married, or even meet anyone marriageable (and I’ve been trying to meet men and be as open as possible). It saddens me that I won’t be able to start a family “young” at this point and am not sure what else to do other than continue praying and trying to trust that God’s plan for me is better than anything I can plan for myself. The ribbon analogy is beautiful, and I hope more people will consider having kids early and often.
I so appreciate you noting that you can't control when children come into your life. After our own fertility journey (not nearly as harrowing as yours, but still painful in its own way), I get so frustrated on both ends of the spectrum: people who say "I'm finally ready to start a family" once they're in the "right" stage of life, and people who say "you shouldn't wait too long to start a family"--as though in either case we can just click our fingers and make it happen. Thank you for helping to make this reality a key part of the conversation about family "planning".
Yes, I can shift probabilities, but not control outcomes.
What’s turned out to matter a lot to you, simply because it became part of your life early?
My faith! Cradle Catholic who was memorizing the Baltimore Catechism in the 1970's, far after it was fashionable. I'm so grateful for the early foundation.
What (if anything) did you choose to go all-in on earlier than you could know if it was “optimal”?
My marriage - I got married 8 days after I graduated college, 29 years ago. He was in grad school and I moved 2000 miles away to where he was, without a job myself.
Having kids - he was doing a postdoc and we were 2000 miles from family.
What advice about pacing family did or didn’t resonate with you?
I love "have kids early and often". I think it's so sad that so many people wish they'd had more children. I have four and I still wish I'd had more. I wish I'd been more trusting in God's providence and in my own resilience. Thank God Mary had a Child in her non-ideal circumstances.
I was blessed to meet my husband early. We started dating at community college when I was 17 and now we've almost been together more of our lives than we didn't know each other! My husband has been one of the greatest blessings in my life and I'm so grateful we have overlapped for so much of our lives. He never got to meet my dad when he was healthy, but he met my dad before he died of brain cancer, and he asked his permission to marry me and my dad understood the question and said yes, which means so much to me.
We got married after college graduation (6 days after), and I waited until I finished my masters for us to start trying for babies. The thing I didn't know and couldn't predict, was that I'd experience secondary infertility. There's a five year gap between our two kids. Occasionally I have someone tell me how smart we were to space the kids by five years. But that was absolutely not the goal! I have friends with the opposite cross, where the babies come in unexpectedly quick succession, and I know that has challenges too. Maybe we all just wish for a cross that isn't ours sometimes! Every kid has their own personality and I want to have more kids and meet them and see who they will be! So we're praying for more babies and thrilled with the two God has given us so far.
(And I love your, we can't control, but we can take action to increase probabilities. We host an open invite dinner twice a month in this season, for the last eight years it's been every week, with six month gaps when I have a baby. We found some Catholic friends eventually after moving to this city and we were so thankful that we wanted to help other people find friends. Years of hosting open invite dinners have given us a ton of friends and connections and a neighborhood where friends all moved to live within three blocks of each other, and we've seen conversions and marriages and job opportunities and housemates and, and, and...! So many blessings! I feel so incredibly blessed that this gets to be my life. But we also didn't take the approach of Lazy, lazy, lazy Jane in the Shel Silverstein poem who was thirsty so she "waits and waits and waits and waits for it to rain." 😅)
My older children were 4, 2, and 2 when my youngest was born. There are years of my life I don't remember when they were young because it was just a haze of barely meeting needs all day every day. It was certainly a cross. And yet. I'd do it again, and I'd do it better, and I regret not having more.
I appreciate your thoughts on looking at your timeline but as you point out so much is beyond our control. We can't just schedule marriage and baby making on our calendars, nor does society encourage that now. Once upon a time women married young and had babies young because that was the only option that was socially encouraged. I was part of the first cohort of women who were allowed into medical school in significant numbers. There was absolutely no conversation about how we would blend medical careers with having a family. I recall one classmate who got married during medical school and got pregnant during residency. She had a supportive spouse but I have no idea how she did it. I got married in my 30's and finally got pregnant with reproductive technology.The fact of the matter is that careers are satisfying and rewarding in ways that raising children are not. I love my children and am grateful that I was able to have them but society as a whole says that what men do through their careers is more important and valuable in spite of the lip service paid to motherhood. In the past women had to have children because there was no other choice. Now many young women are saying why
should I choose that? How are you going to persuade them? In my opinion, there needs to be deep structural change in society. I also think that there should be two paths for women, that those who really love babies can have more to compensate for those who do not want children and let both choices be accepted.
I am also a physician and the training needs to change to accommodate the growing number of women (and men with working wives/partners). I had to sit my boards 2 weeks postpartum. The test was given at a large testing center and ballooned to 10 hours with pumping breaks. I sat on a pillow and got up midpoint to find a huge stain on it. Some of the changes will need to be large, but some can be immediate—there is just no reason for some of these things.
I am a licensed professional engineer and our timeline for licensing exams recently changed. When I was in undergrad engineering students generally sat their first 8 hour exam senior year of college and you were not eligible to sit the second 8 hour exam until you met the experience requirements (4 years of relevant work experience with a BS, 3 with an MS or PhD). This meant most people studied for and sat that second exam between ages 25 and 29, and I know several women who sat through those long exams pregnant or nursing. Now you can take the second exam anytime after passing the first one and you simply can't apply to the state for licensure until after you've met the experience requirement. SUCH a difference! So much more flexible for many situations, not just pregnancy/nursing!