Everyone is different. I was 34 with my first and 39 with my second. No fertility issues, fairly easy pregnancies, easy deliveries. My sister had her 2 when she was in her late 30 also relatively easily.
In both cases we were financially and emotionally ready.
A woman’s chance to have twins increases after 30. My wife said every woman but one seeing the doctor who handled multiples was over 30.
@Gourmetmom very true! People do live longer!
@Leigh22 true, but nothing is ever guaranteed in life. I had a friend whose mom had her at 20 and her mom passed away in her 50’s from cancer…
The best way to avoid childhood poverty is to have parents with a high school diploma and married.
The easiest time for a woman to get pregnant is before 30. A few decades ago having a child after 30 was considered old.
It also can cost a million dollars to raise a child through college.
It would depend on what best is meant to cover.
Ideally you’d want to be mature enough to raise a child, healthy enough to raise it to adulthood and stable enough to provide for them. Not sure that’s a specific age.
Advanced maternal age brings health risks to both baby and mother. Better to have them young.
My son is 24 and DIL is 25 and due in July. Yikes! They seem young. They will have been married 3 years and have good jobs, but I still worry. Didn’t a recent study point out that full maturity is around age 30?
@toledo That was DH and my age at birth of DD, and it worked out fine for us. We enjoyed our kids and were young and didnt’ need much, and we learned as we went…
I will chip in to this thread and say that 49 is not the right answer. That is the age that my wife’s classmate from HS and one of her best friends had her first. $70K worth of IVF. We went to their house recently, the kid was 18 months and still hasn’t said his first words yet. Not sure if the advanced age has anything to do with it but I have a strange suspicion that the answer is yes.
My two were born when I was 29 and 38. I have two friends who wanted to secure their careers before having children. Securing their careers also delayed their relationships and ultimately their marriages. Neither was able to get pregnant in their late 30s/early 40s and now find themselves childless in their late 50s. I think that is heartbreaking. And yes, adoption is always an option but neither went that route instead hoping and wishing and trying for years to have a biological child and time just got away from them. I have a niece right now who is 34 and single and wants a baby very badly. Personally I think she should have one by herself before time gets away from her as well. She has a great job (for our area) and a nice small house perfect for her and a child and is surrounded by family.
What I’ve told my kids is that you can have your babies in your early 20s and enjoy travel and such in your 50s or you can travel and have experiences in your 20s and not so much freedom in your 50s when you have kids in high school. Life is short. And not everyone will ever become so financially secure that money should be the deciding factor to wait. It is okay to have children if you can put food on the table and clothes on their backs. Young couples make it work all the time and their kids are just as happy as those who are taking private ballerina lessons at 3 years old or attending the prestigious preschool for the wealthy, maybe happier.
I joke that I spent my 30’s pregnant and lactating. My first was born 2 months after I turned 31 and my youngest 2 months before I turned 40. I have 5 total, as well as an abortion when I was 22 and 2 miscarriages at 30 and in between kids 3 and 4.
Career and finance wise, I am glad that I waited till I was past my 20’s. I had already established myself in my career and because I had experience, I was more able to juggle the demands of my career (trial attorney) with motherhood. However, I sometimes feel jealous when I hear about people who had their kids young. I am turning 60 with no grandchildren in sight. I feel sad sometimes when I see people I know with grands. However, most of my friends are in my situation and I am actually one of the youngest of my friends to have had their first kid.
I am hoping to have some spare cash soon and then I am going to try to broach the idea to my D of freezing her eggs (she is 27). I will offer to pay some of the costs if I can. She says she doesn’t want kids and if she does, she will adopt but I don’t want her to foreclose her options. I always got pregnant easily, but that doesn’t mean she will. I also never felt the desire to be a mother until I was turning 30 and I kind of hope my D feels the same way.
I was also a single mom when I gave birth to my first. I had given up on finding anyone to spend my life with, but I felt the pull for a child and I could support one on my own. H was a friend who agreed to help me out. The second he saw our son, though, he was hooked. When I unexpectedly became pregnant with D when oldest was about 5 months old, he insisted that we marry so he could be a full-time father to the kids. He is a full-time father and I am the breadwinner. If D hadn’t come along, I would probably be a single mom of one son who would have been spoiled and lavished with everything. Instead, he is one of 5 and is definitely not spoiled or lavished upon.
This is so true. My wife’s aunt, a now retired ob-gyn, strongly recommended having babies ideally before 30, and definitely before 35. She had told her about her first-hand experience with seeing difficult pregnancies and birth defects from older mothers. We had our children when she was 28 and 31.
I had my daughters at 32 and 37. In both cases I was very lucky to got pregnant immediately and had uneventful pregnancies. I love being 61 and having D’s in their 20’s…but I am hoping that they have children earlier than I did so I can enjoy grandchildren and see them grow into adulthood.
I vote for 28-38. My last at age 40 took a toll physically and I did not recover as quickly. It was much harder on me than my first and second and I was 30 when I got pregnant for the first time. Someday I hope to be a grandparent…but those boys have to get married first!
When they are wanted and loved.
Well, D is 29 and not in a relationship, so no idea if and when she will ever decide to have any kids. She’s be an awesome mom and a wonderful aunt. S is 31 and no marriage or kids on the horizon.
I tend to believe most people will never have enough $ (especially when they are teenage girls!) My vote is when you have the most quality time to devote to raising them. They need you. Always. Love on them lots. The time flies by so quickly.
I had mine at 27 and 32. I’ve encouraged my Ds to target early 30s at latest. I knew a couple of women who waited til their late 30s (one a close relative) to try, and could never conceive. I’ve also told them it can feel like there is never a perfect time, so a time that is “good enough” should be considered. Honestly, I’ve also told the unmarried one that if she wants kids and hasn’t found the right partner by her early 30s, I’d be supportive if she decides to have one without a permanent partner.
I don’t think this is a good assumption at all. First of all, you don’t know whether or not there is an actual problem. One of mine hardly spoke at that age and is incredibly bright and verbal now. Secondly, young parents have children with special needs all the time. It is cruel in a way to try to place blame on parental age.
One of my relatives didn’t speak at all until age 4 and then spoke in complete sentences. He’s extremely brilliant and graduated from Stanford and then got into all the Med schools he applied to. He’s finally retiring from his illustrious medical career. Agree that kids can start talking at the age they decide to, regardless if parental age.
My mom is 19 years older than I am and had 3 children before she was 24. She thought there were many advantages to doing it that way, but here’s a disadvantage: her kids are nearly seniors themselves now, when she needs our help as she ages. If she’d had me at age 40, I’d be a mere kid of 43 right now and have more energy for the challenge. But then if I’d had my first at 40, I could have a 2 year old child and an 83 year old mother - not easy.