NYTimes: "women delay having kids until it's too late"

pointmetotheunicorn wrote:

And there is one giant flaw in your example, this woman will never, ever make it to date number one with this guy, no matter which way he presents himself. The vast majority of high income earning, career driven women will not slum it with a lower earning male, end of story.

.....Depends. There are other ways ladies measure their prospects.

SirCharles wrote:

pointmetotheunicorn wrote:

And there is one giant flaw in your example, this woman will never, ever make it to date number one with this guy, no matter which way he presents himself. The vast majority of high income earning, career driven women will not slum it with a lower earning male, end of story.

.....Depends. There are other ways ladies measure their prospects.

There aren't. You'll never see a high-earning woman get married to a working-class man.

red pill giver wrote:

SirCharles wrote:

.....Depends. There are other ways ladies measure their prospects.

There aren't. You'll never see a high-earning woman get married to a working-class man.

Depends on what you mean by working class:

- A guy who is a humanities professor at Columbia and who earns $50K - Yes

- A guy who does residential construction and who earns $50K - All else equal, likely not

If you're just going by income to define working class, I think you're off base. If you're also including the larger set of cultural and social norms typically associated with blue collar workers in your definition, then I'll concede that you have a point. Though I would point out that this is largely also true about men and their social circles.

Personally, my friends span the income spectrum from nothing to seven figures per year. However, save one good friend from high school, none of them are "culturally" blue collar. Nothing against that type of person, but we're unlikely to live or work in close proximity and likely have few shared interests. We're definitely a divided country and all live in our own bubbles.

Correct, I agree with all of the above.

Nobody wants to look at the causes of this because everyone is "do me now."

Look back in time.

Divorce was rare in the 1950s. Two-parent homes were common even among the poor people.

Then came No Fault Divorce. Before that you had to be able to place Blame to get a divorce.

Following that quickly came Feminism.

Recently we have passage of The Gay Marriage Act. (Whether you realize it or not this is already having an impact.)

Marriage is not valued anymore. "Let's just live together Martha," is a common theme.

It doesn't end there but that is the general theme.

redistic wrote:

Bread Face wrote:

Then I had kids at 54 and 56. It is so much easier this time around. I have no career concerns. Still working but the level of flexibility that I have now is 100x greater and everyone in the household benefits.

But if you had them at that age they must have been retarded or autistic, right? Because that's what letsrun says.

If you had two kids at age 54 and 56 it's not the kids that are retarded.

Someone on this thread earlier said they didn't regret having kids at 38 for a male. I ask is that really that old? I work with a guy who is 57, full head of hair, in good shape, could probably pass for 40 (maybe even 35 in some states) and just ran a 3:55 marathon. This guy would theoretically have a child in college at this point (57 - 38 = 19). I really don't think that is all that strange. I can only imagine the stress of keeping up with an infant / young children but is it really so exhausting that a 40 year old healthy man could not actually do that (you do realize that is the same age Bernard Lagat made the U.S. Olympic team and that Tom Brady won a super bowl) My grandmother is 87 now, doesn't seem to be slowing down. If this guy theoretically died at 90 that would mean his child would theoretically 52? Again is that really that sad / uncommon?

There are obviously some biological constraints on the female side.

LactateAbusers wrote:

Nobody wants to look at the causes of this because everyone is "do me now."

Look back in time.

Divorce was rare in the 1950s. Two-parent homes were common even among the poor people.

Then came No Fault Divorce. Before that you had to be able to place Blame to get a divorce.

Following that quickly came Feminism.

Recently we have passage of The Gay Marriage Act. (Whether you realize it or not this is already having an impact.)

Marriage is not valued anymore. "Let's just live together Martha," is a common theme.

It doesn't end there but that is the general theme.

While marriage is definitely on the downward slope, I would argue a lot of the benefits seem less attractive. Needing to get the law involved if you want to split up, dividing assets, etc is kind of daunting. I got married at 20 and have no regrets, but there are benefits too that I think people forget about like automatically gaining power of attorney and next of kin.

But on topic, I had kids at 23 and 26. I was in college and started grad school at those time, respectively. My wife is the same age as me and had just finished college and was in law school. While the kids have made things financially more strict that when we were kidless, neither of us wishes we had them later and have found the flexibility offered by school has been a boon. Sure we'll be in a weaker financial position than people our age without kids, controlling for everything else, but I'd rather get the hard stuff done young and enjoy my 40s and on than enjoy my 20s and never really get my life back. But to each their own.

For what it's worth, none of the women in my professional program have kids. But I'm only like 75% sure since there are some people I've never met in my cohort. But currently, I'm like the only one with kids when the ages range from 23 to about 36.

SirCharles wrote:

pointmetotheunicorn wrote:

And there is one giant flaw in your example, this woman will never, ever make it to date number one with this guy, no matter which way he presents himself. The vast majority of high income earning, career driven women will not slum it with a lower earning male, end of story.

.....Depends. There are other ways ladies measure their prospects.

Bottom line here: broads is devious. Don't trust 'em.

Yeah because males are such shining beacons of light.

LactateAbusers wrote:

Nobody wants to look at the causes of this because everyone is "do me now."

Look back in time.

Divorce was rare in the 1950s. Two-parent homes were common even among the poor people.

Then came No Fault Divorce. Before that you had to be able to place Blame to get a divorce.

Following that quickly came Feminism.

Recently we have passage of The Gay Marriage Act. (Whether you realize it or not this is already having an impact.)

Marriage is not valued anymore. "Let's just live together Martha," is a common theme.

It doesn't end there but that is the general theme.

The real reason divorce is more common is because women have less of an economic incentive to stay married. For most of history women had no economic opportunity. They couldn't get good jobs. In order to have a decent standard of living, they needed to get married and live off their husband's income. Their choice was get married/stay married, or live in abject poverty. Of course, this forced a lot of women to stay in unhappy marriages, abusive relationships, etc... because the alternative was worse.

Now that women do have economic opportunity and can support themselves independently, they simply don't need men like they used to. Therefore there's less of a reason to stay in toxic marriages.

Americans should not be breeding at 20 or 25 or 45 or at any age. Period. You're the dumbest, noisiest, rowdiest fattest, most violent society anywhere and a waste of 10 million square km.

Career First wrote:

You can always freeze your eggs in your thirties and easily get pregnant when in your early 40's. So there is really no rush and it makes sense to focus on your career first as a woman.

You should never make a conscious decision to delay having kids until age 40. Kids born to older parents are usually brats for 2 primary reasons. One, you are at the height of your earning's potential and tend spend too much money on your kids, which is partly due to guilt brought on from the demands of being at the height of your career. Two, when your kids are in their teens and really need discipline and your involvement in their lives, you are middle-aged and don't have the energy and time needed to parent a teenager. - It's best when your kids can grow with you, career, financially and as you mature as an adult.

The problem isn´t that a fit 55 year old can't raise a kid, he can. The problem is that when the kid is 15 he dies.

SuperEuro wrote:

Americans should not be breeding at 20 or 25 or 45 or at any age. Period. You're the dumbest, noisiest, rowdiest fattest, most violent society anywhere and a waste of 10 million square km.

This is completely unfair to Finland.

the construction guy is working 12-16 hr days and weekends to get the overtime to make the 50k, the professor not only has less demanding hours, is also not exhausted by the end of day. that s the difference of working class.

But why would he die in his 50s? Most people on this thread will die from heart disease and if you are fit / keep weight done you stave off a lot of aspects of hear disease.

The longer a woman puts off having kids the more probable it becomes that the baby will be born defective in some way, including autistic. Perhaps, the increase in autism has more to do with women waiting too long to have kids.