DO NOT have kids until your sh!t is completely straight

This is probably the most practical reason to have kids. Having experience in Senior care, i can attest to this. This is why people have 4, 5, 6 kids plus. If you are very wealthy and save a ton of money, even then you will eventually be unable to care for yourself physically. Then you will have to pay for some kind of service like living in a nursing home for example. That will make your well dry up real quick...

and during all this time, you might be lucky to have some friends that visit and care for you in your old age, but NO ONE will care for you like your own children would. You know, as long as you raise them right.

Bottom line: yes, if you stay single and don't reproduce, you will have lots of saved money to hang on to. whoopdy-doo. But you will never experience the joy of raising children, watching them grow up, or even having grand children.

But hey, your life. do what you want.

this is true wrote:

This is probably the most practical reason to have kids. Having experience in Senior care, i can attest to this. This is why people have 4, 5, 6 kids plus. If you are very wealthy and save a ton of money, even then you will eventually be unable to care for yourself physically. Then you will have to pay for some kind of service like living in a nursing home for example. That will make your well dry up real quick...

and during all this time, you might be lucky to have some friends that visit and care for you in your old age, but NO ONE will care for you like your own children would. You know, as long as you raise them right.

This makes no sense.

The cost of having 4-6+ kids is far greater than the cost of living in a nursing home. Also, why would you sacrifice 20 or so years of the best decades of your life in order to make the last year or two more tolerable?

Besides, the "have kids to take care of you when you're old" thing is a huge gamble. If you're unlucky or treat your body like crap, you'll die from a heart attack or a car accident before you even reach old age. If you have a good diet and remain active, you're not going to be in a nursing home. You may not be running 3 hour marathons at age 70+ like Ed Whitlock, but you'll be able to take care of yourself.

And what if your kids live far away and are too busy with their careers to care for you?

Waited until I had a house, built my business and found the right partner.

I was 44 when I had a son.

He's now 16 and the girl is 12. It's good and we love it. But it's still an insane undertaking!

My advice: With your spouse, the #1 job is to be really good friends and communicate openly. This is the groundwork you build on.

There will be rough patches of many stripes. If you are besties, again it helps a lot.

NOTE: Financial security is great! We are lucky/smart enuff to have it, but if you are not friends it don't mean a thing. Side note: avoid consumer debt and be careful with heloc spending. Don't be stupid!

Keep working out/running. We are both fit, the wife and I. It helps in many ways, not the least of which is in the sack (dudes, be sure to be generous there, not greedy. Wait your turn. And you'll get all you want and need.)

Arrange your life / work to spend a lot of time with your kids. If you hang with your kids growing up, it's the best investment for everyone's future, including yours. Because you will know your kids and won't have regrets about missing their childhood.

As I'm a professional cartoonist, it has been frustrating to lose a lot of work time to parenting, but let me say I took my time to build the career and went into parenthood eyes wide open.

I'm out, don't want to be too big a bore! Cheers.

People have kids because their lives are not "completely straight". They always hope by having kids that this will solve a lot of their problems.

So you’re 60 with a 12 year old? Seriously, what is that like? (Not being sarcastic) It sounds like you’re in better shape than most 40 year olds, but is it weird being that old with a young kid? Do you get mistaken for being a grandparent? Is it weird interacting with younger parents with similar age kids? You seem happy so I guess things worked out well.

I agree, having kids is not guarantee anyone will take care of you. The only exception is you have at least 2 daughters who are not crazy...odds are good at least one will take care of you. With sons, don’t count on it. I work in healthcare and when parents are dying/declining, it is usually women who will step up.

I used to think the same as the OP, I'd see these people having kids when I knew they could barely make their car payment and think they were idiots (and they were) but...

Nature and biology can only be fooled so long by our advanced medical technology. Nature dictates that you should have kids in your youth for a reason, and when we stray too far from that basic premise, things go astray. The women that had their kids young, are much happier as adults. By the time they are 40 their children are fully grown and leaving for college, military etc.. That means that the kids were pretty self sustaining for 8-10 years prior to that, so mom's 30's were dealing with Middle and HS, not changing diapers and all that.

If having kids in your 20's means you don't have the greatest job, so what? No job is great, and very very very few people really get that much out of their job other than the means to live, if you have to back off the lifestyle but have long term happiness, take that trade every time.

Some factual errors above. Everyone agrees Boomers born 1946-1964.

Gen X born 1965-1980. Millennials born 1981-1996.

Everyone also agrees that Boomers (aka the Entitlement generation) are the worst, most irresponsible generation in American history.

I guess this is good advice generally. There will always be kids that succeed even from less than perfect circumstances. Also: I would say that as long as both parents are still committed to raising the kid, it’s not necessary for them to be married.

My parents have been divorced since I was 3 and I’ve never struggled with it/ had any disadvantage compared to my peers from “typical” families.

Eating otters wrote:

[quote]otter wrote:

2) We lived on very little money

3) Hated my job and still do

Used a library card to go to the zoo, aquarium, etc. with kids.

We are doing better financially but are having trouble like 99% of the population with tuition expenses.

You sound like a loser. Poor and hate your job? Sad.

Or poor anymore. Yep, hate my job. Big deal.

“Not”

You guys are hilarious. Who says I work 5 days per week? I don’t like my job, but in the past two months my wife and I have vacationed twice.

We struggled but always managed to spend time with our kids.

Your entire generation doesn’t hate their job because none of you actually work. I’ve tried to hire some of you guys. The day you guys start working I can’t even get you to put down your phone. You ask for a raise within a month of being hired even though you are untrained and unable to make the company any money yet. You have no idea what it is like to put your time in. You will probably deny it but I know you’re under 40.

There was a time that I struggled. Not anymore. When I do work I work really hard to be able to take time away from it and also provide for my family. But the money is better now. The reason for that is just as I said nobody works hard anymore. I can do in a week what it takes my competitors to do in a month. I’m sorry that bothers you.

Sixty with a 12-year old is fine. I am often mistaken for her grandfather.

I'm averaging 35 - 40 mpw so I look relatively fit, maybe that helps in public perception.

I am often on the outside looking in with younger parents, but that's OK. I like people. Part of my self-employment has alwys been sales, so I love to talk to people and hear their stories. If they don't want to connect, I can handle that.

Often people make assumptions based on my appearance that affects their regard for me. I'm OK with that, don't need to impress.

I had a harder time before being a parent. Up to age 40, I drank my weight in beer on a regular basis. Now, I'm a one glass of red (or one margarita) dude.

people are always searching for purpose in this life. well there is only one really clear defined purpose,,,, that is to reproduce. anything else is pointless.

Pretentiously not-so-subtly implying that you own a business *yawn. Somebody seems insecure...

You sound kind of jealous that our lives are better and easier than yours.

You also sound kind of bitter about your job and your life....

Might want to take a look in the mirror, man.

Mostly good advice.

I decided to wait at minimum 5 years after my doc schooling to settle all debt, enjoy the single life and enjoy a nice paycheck for the first time in my life. That was 10 years ago and finally at 42 I'm going to attempt my first child. Wife is my best friend, financially secure, lot's of free time...so I finally feel ready to give it a decent chance to have "the best" to succeed.

not a math major wrote:

Hardloper wrote:

We haven't come close to the carrying capacity of the earth and with technology still improving our ability to make use of land and energy, we never will.

So you're saying that the Earth can support 50 billion people? What about 500 billion?

And if it can, would you want to live in that world? It would be a crowded, congested, polluted, and smelly mess with no room for nature or wildlife.

Hardloper wrote:

Most say the Earth population will level off around 10 billion as fertility rates decline naturally as a country modernizes.

So it is a good idea to (voluntarily) limit the number of kids you have after all.

There are lots of extreme scenarios that will never realistically happen but are hypothetically possible in 1000 years. The planet will never, ever have 500 or even 50 billion, it's absurd to factor that into your decisions today.

I hope your wife is much younger than you...

It's about replacement rate. Right now, many countries, including China and much of Europe, aren't meeting it. In general, countries in the middle east are. The decline doesn't begin in a generation. If fewer babies are born, the older generation still has to start disappearing before any sort of decline is discernible. China tries to control its replacement level by their child policies. The problem is, boys are far more valuable to girls there, and that creates a problem that takes a generation or two to take effect. They've realized they're in trouble and recently changed from a one- to a two-child policy, and will have to create incentives for couples to have more than one kid. It's a mess. In Europe it has nothing to do with the '60's type mentality. People just aren't getting married and that means fewer kids. In the U.S., immigrants are helping with the replacement rate, but Americans in general are not as interested in kids. If the current rate of replacement persists, we'll start to see a decline in the 2050s. It will be a humanitarian crisis that no one wants to think about. Just like the increase is taking a long time to reverse, so will the decrease. The Social Security system will be stressed beyond measure, as one working adult will begin to support more and more retirees/disabled. Obviously, there are short fixes, like letting in more immigrants. But, the only way this is solved is people getting married and having more kids.