It's true that the age of having kids is ultimately an individual preference and choice, and will vary depending on each individual's circumstances.
But it's also true that we can make various general claims about general pros and cons of having kids either earlier or later. And it's also true that the trend has been recently shifting toward having kids later and later as a general 'cultural norm', for various reasons (and it is something I do not agree with). I am in favor of having kids relatively early.
My parents had 4 kids starting somewhere around age 21 (or so); by the time they were 30 already had 4 kids & were already busy paying off a house. This used to be normal.
Nowadays, everyone seems to be: "Oh, but you shouldn't even start having kids until at least 25 but actually only in your 30s or 40s once you are already 'stable'", or whatever. I'm more in favor 'have kids younger'.
If you have kids at around 20, they'll be grown up by the time you're ~40 - this still gives you (if you keep your health, as most people don't anymore) plenty of quality years to enjoy your life after that (e.g. travelling, e.g. my parents travelled around Africa after us kids left the house).
Also, importantly, if you have kids younger, their grandparents may still be young and strong enough (e.g. ~40-~65yo) to
help out with looking after the kids, instead of being a burden. E.g. if each generation has kids at 20, you become a grandparent around the age of 40, and then the grandparents are still not only working and productive and earning money, but also young and strong enough to help with, say, babysitting, or watching the kids for a week here and there - helping with child-rearing tasks, which helps make parenting slightly less of a burden for the parents (e.g. we would sometimes stay with our grandparents for a week, giving our parents a break; in various African communities it's even more common and normal for aunts or grandparents to help.)
The Double Burden
What is happening more often now as we're having kids later and later, is that parents end up with a double burden --- at the very age they're feeling high pressure and demand to take care of their own kids, the kids' grandparents are hitting age 65+ or 70+ where the grandparents themselves become sick and in need of care themselves --- so now a parent today may typically have to take care of their own kids while also worrying about having to take care of their sick and elderly parents, or pay for special nursing care for sick and elderly parents.
Simultaneous Overlapping Generations
I suspect that in our evolutionary history (e.g. in hunter-gatherer societies, or perhaps earlier as we lived in chimp-like communities), probably we would typically have had kids around age 16 or so, give or take. This would mean you become a parent at around ~16, and potentially a grandparent at around ~32, and potentially great-grandparents around ~48, and great-great-grandparents around ~64 .... what does this mean? It means that you have potentially many simultaneous overlapping generations of still-healthy, still-strong individuals that could all contribute to helping with child-rearing activities (e.g. hunting, building shelters, protecting the 'tribe' from neighboring groups or predators, and so on). This strikes me as beneficial. Plus, that would mean less loneliness (as loneliness is another epidemic in today's society).
Today, it's become such a bizarre distance between generations that you might well have situations with e.g. a parent in their 40s, raising young kids, but simultaneously having elderly (and possibly sick) parents in their 70s or 80s. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Increasingly often kids don't even get to know their own great-grandparents, or even their grandparents.
"Brain Still Developing"
One of the strangest arguments I have heard, that I think people have overly 'latched onto' is this idea that 'our brains are still developing until 25, therefore you shouldn't do anything important until after that age' - this is to me ridiculous. It's not about whether our brains are 'still developing', it's about whether we're capable of reason, and at 16 we (for the most part) certainly are. And to me it seems like an advantage if your brain is still "developing" when you start having kids, because it means your brain co-develops with your mating partner (e.g. child-rearing and parenting habits and tasks and disciplines become ingrained as your brain develops as you perform these tasks - e.g. the discipline of working, saving, doing child-rearing tasks, attending to your partner's needs and helping each other - by co-developing during your brain's earlier formative years, you make these 'habits', and discipline toward these habits, more ingrained, as well as your devotion to your partner as you co-develop neurologically together, working together as a team in those years e.g. ~18-25 as young parents.
To me that seems like an
advantage if your brain is "still developing" (whatever that's supposed to mean neurologically). If you want kids, then
let your brain lay down neural pathways for parenting habits in those relatively earlier years (e.g. ~18-25) - that seems like a
good thing.
(I also disagree with the premise anyway that your brain stops 'developing' after 25 also, we don't know enough about the brain yet to speak about that in serious detail neurologically but it's immaterial.)
My/our parents, and thousands of generations before that, could quite happily and capably have kids at younger ages than we do now.
Is this the first generation in human history to suddenly think having kids at only e.g. 30 or 40 should be a norm? It may be. Should we reverse this trend?
Of course nobody can force a choice on someone else and dictate that either is 'right' or 'wrong', and everyone's individual situation varies - but, we can talk about general pros and cons, and we can talk about effects on society in general (and effects on and within families), and each person should think carefully and take these pros and cons into consideration.
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("Does this structure meet 'housing
codes'!? Tear it down!") |
There also various ways society artificially makes parenting more of a burden than it
should be in the first place, which is a separate, but related topic for another day. Having kids shouldn't be quite as "expensive" and burdensome as it has become (e.g. do 5-year-olds
really need big birthday parties, or iPhones?)
More important, regulatory burdens like compulsory car seats, or housing codes that burdensomely affect our ability to provide shelter for kids (e.g. it's illegal in many jurisdictions to erect simple structures to house a child)? Expecting financially struggling dads to
provide child support or face prison, which disproportionately affects the poor? etc.) ... housing codes mean that, e.g. indigenous Americans in many cases may be breaking the law if they simply tried to live the way their ancestors did several generations prior - this seems absurd. Similar situation with housing codes in South Africa, where e.g. traditional housing may not meet legal 'housing codes', a concept brought and enforced by colonialists - there's something absurd about this, and about the idea that an African should have to get "permission" from the colonial-derived government before even putting up any kind of structure at all, and it must meet various often arbitrary "rules", and the process of getting "permission" may take months, so if your wife gives birth in that time you may be out of luck while you wait for the government to give "permission" (or if you can't afford to pay architects to draw "plans" and so on), and government claims the right to demolish any structure you didn't get "permission" for or that didn't comply with every rule, never mind if your kids end up on the street. There are many entangled and related issues. (But I can hear the objections - people say "If you're poor don't have kids" - Really? Should only the wealthy have the "right" to have kids? No!) The majority of South Africans live in dwellings that technically violate building codes created by colonialists or descendants of colonialists attempting to impose "first-world" standards and strict regulatory codes - this makes no sense. "You need to inform government if you build a front wall, and if it's higher than 1.8 meters you need authority from the government and to file plans, and 40% of the wall must allow visibility to your property" (to help criminals case your place and see when you're home?). And the government does demolish houses. Laws should accommodate peoples' reality, and offer reasonable freedom except insofar as it violates the rights of others. I mean, obviously things like retaining walls need to meet structural standards for safety reasons, but most building codes go well beyond these basics.
Other related topics are the (in my opinion) unrealistic cultural ideals of virtue-signaling supposed 'parenting perfection', as well as cultural expectations and views of parenting almost as a sort of 'self-sacrificial martyrdom' that has emerged in Western cultures. Also related are cultural expectations of monogamy.
Please add your thoughts in the comments.
Photo credits: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
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