Your take on having children later in life?

mancunian_lady

Spendless,

Of course I agree with you that not everyone is able to choose to have a child early in life and I did say at the beginning of my post that

First off I would like to say that I think each couple should decide themselves when it is the right time to have children or not as the case may be.

But I still think that a prospective parent should at least consider the child they are bringing into the world and what their future needs might be. I understand that due to life decisions and health reasons that not everyone has the option to have children when they are younger, but with respect to them and yourself, just because the course of life has meant this, it does not mean you should put your own desires and needs before a child who has no choice as to whether they are born or not.

I know I sound a bit off on this subject, but I'm just trying to put forward a point of view from the child's perspective and I'm not trying to say that anyone else's opinion is wrong. Everyone has the right to choose.

Best wishes.

jellyhead

mancunian i do see your point and i think i argued the same thing on the thread about the 66 year old giving birth. i'm not saying people should wait until they're 45 before having children, just that there's nothing wrong with waiting until 30-35. the baby i'm having now at 33 will have lots of grandparents, 3 great-grandparents etc. and will have lots of uncles, aunts, cousins ...

my grandparents ran away to get married against family wishes and were cut off from their families. on dad's side they moved across the country with the forces and we had limited contact with those in scotland. i have to say that my grandparents and their children and grandchildren were all the family i needed, i never felt that i'd missed out. each set of grandparents had 7 or 8 children though and they each have in excess of twenty grandchildren so that's a lot of cousins for me. i suppose it's different in smaller families but some couples don't choose to have an only child, it just turns out that way. i've got a friend whose mother was 40, dad was 60. he doesn't feel that he missed out on anything (he has a couple of siblings though) and his parents are still alive. okay his dad won't live much longer but he lived to be a grandfather in his 80's, he's happy.

i can see there might be problems if the parents become ill in their 60's but it doesn't tend to happen in our family. my grandmother is in her late 80's and she's ill now but although we're close and i see her a lot it's my mother who does the majority of the 'looking after'.

i can see that your situation is different, my children won't go short on family though so i see no reason to not have them.

s@sha

squarecat wrote:

I just had to add my tuppence worth.

Think about what you want, but be realistic. I just imagined that one day I would start trying and it would happen. Now nearly 5 years later I am just starting down the road of invasive fertility treatment (IVF late 2005/2006). I always maintained I would like at least 2 children, now that has gone out the window.

I've just seen your post & thought I would wish you good luck for your treatment later this year. I've just been through my first IVF cycle & am currently 11 weeks pregnant. (See, it can work first time!)

Back to the issue at hand, I'm now 37. We started trying to concieve when I was 27,and then discovered I had a problem & have had various fertility treatments on & off over the last 10 years. But we never let it take over our lives, and we still enjoyed our time as a couple.

Personally, I would prefer to be having (possibly) my only baby at 27 rather than now, but I don't really feel that I will necessarily have a worse pregnancy/birth or that my child will be somehow worse off because I am that bit older. In fact I feel amazed that I've been given this chance, when I had really got used to the fact that I probably wouldn't have any!

I think that whatever your age, you have to feel ready in yourself before trying for a child, but as you get older there comes a point when I think you do have to take your age into account for your own health & way of life & the welfare of the child. Much as this baby is wanted, I personally don't think I would have tried for children much longer...certainly not into my forties, because it wouldn't have felt the right thing to do for us, or a possible child. I think you can get too used to life on your own...I still wonder sometimes if we've done the right thing, and are we too 'set in our ways' to make good parents. (My mum says it's the hormones talking)

jellyhead

i know it's off topic, but CONGRATULATIONS!!

hmmm ... i know i'm saying there's nothing wrong with waiting until your late 30's but to be perfectly truthful this pregnancy of mine is much much harder than the one i had 9 years ago, i do feel old because i'm really really tired. there's a friend in the playground who's 42 though and she's finding her pregnancy a piece of cake (mmmm, cake ....) so maybe it's because i'm fat and she's not. i personally wouldn't try for a baby in my 40's but i think late 30's is fine if you're healthy (and thinner than i am lol!).

i still don't think anyone should have a baby if they don't feel ready though, and nobody should be made to feel that in their 20's their biological clock is ticking. it can be very difficult if you didn't want a baby but concieved anyway, hoping you'd change your mind when it was born.

reen_3

i'm 24. been married for 3 years, and we both really want kids. sadly, we cannot afford them. my husband and i both strongly believe in the can't-feed-'em-don't-breed-'em philosophy. i'm just finishing my BSc this year and doing my MSc next year. I will be almost 26 by the time i'm finally out of uni. my husband is just going back to uni next year. we'll both be almost 30 by the time he's done. and then, of course, there are jobs.

i don't see how other people can afford children. we can barely make ends meet as is, despite working full-time. without the uni expenses, we'd be a bit better off, but then you have to take into account maternity leave, etc. i cannot imagine living on just his salary. and children are so very expensive...

how can you afford children? i don't get it. any advice would be appreciated. we'd like to have 4 eventually, but just one would be lovely now.

jellyhead

depending on your circumstances there will be tax credits and child benefit to help with the costs. breastmilk is free and washable nappies are cheaper than disposables. clothes and equipment don't have to be new. when you have a baby you just find yourself living within your means, everyone spends what they have. there are childless people on this board who've said they're poor with an income of 50 thousand and others with children who manage very well on 12.

i can't see this baby costing me any more per month than other people spend on SKY TV and if we can't make ends meet i'll no doubt find a job as an avon rep or something similar that i can do with the baby in a buggy. i don't know anyone who could afford babies in their 20's, especially with student debts. 30's is more realistic.

Spendless

We never got used to 2 incomes me and husband. That's cos we both owned a property when we met and we only sold one of them just before our eldest was born, so we had 2 incomes but 2 mortgages also.

I was given a lot of things for my eldest, cot,steriliser,moses basket,bedding,towels,clothes.My sisters SIl had had a baby 8 months previous and passed a lot of things on. my pram was a gift from my parents, and the car seat a pressie from my SIL.

There has also been an element of luck as husband has had several payrises and promotions since we've been together.

Things haven't always been rosy though, getting stuck in France when the petrol strike was on and our son was 6 months old meant spending several days travelling thru France stopping where we could and we ran up a big bill. I had to look for a part-time job (which i found - working evenings and weekends- then found another working evenings only).

Our house was realy too small for 3 of us but was in negative equity, but we found a biggerhouse in a better area and bought in husbands name, and rented mine out to some acquaintainces. Again we were lucky we bought this house before the property boom and by the time the tenants left, we could sell my house for a profit.

Look to see where you're spending your money and see what changes you can make.

Good Luck.

Lillibet_2

reen wrote:

i'm 24. been married for 3 years, and we both really want kids. sadly, we cannot afford them. my husband and i both strongly believe in the can't-feed-'em-don't-breed-'em philosophy. i'm just finishing my BSc this year and doing my MSc next year. I will be almost 26 by the time i'm finally out of uni. my husband is just going back to uni next year. we'll both be almost 30 by the time he's done. and then, of course, there are jobs.

i don't see how other people can afford children. we can barely make ends meet as is, despite working full-time. without the uni expenses, we'd be a bit better off, but then you have to take into account maternity leave, etc. i cannot imagine living on just his salary. and children are so very expensive...

how can you afford children? i don't get it. any advice would be appreciated. we'd like to have 4 eventually, but just one would be lovely now.

I felt just like you, determind not to get pregnant until we could balance the books! For me it is important that I give up work for at least the first 3 years, if not longer and with no amount of number crunching could we ever manage on my husbands salary alone. Eventually I found an answer for us : to live on the post pregnancy budget whilst both still earning full time & save the difference. This will supplement my husbands salary over the next 3 years to make up the shortfall although we will be on a very strict budget. I don't see any point in planning beyond 3 years as so many things could change but we are comfy in the knowledge that for 36 months after my maternity pay ends we can meet our obligations, still afford to eat & have a bit in the bank for total emergencies, although we won't be going on any exotic holidays, driving 2 cars or splashing out for quite a while.
I'm now 30 & I know I wouldn't have been disciplined enough to think this through & stick to the plan in my early or mid twenties. Now I am confident!
It's all a matter of compromise & I'm sure when the time is right for you, you will find a way forwards, whatever that may be.
Good luck x.

pickle

Hi,
I've been reading this thread and while i don't have any particular views about any moral right or wrong about what age to have children please be aware that after the age of 38 years it is quite difficult to concieve, so don't leave it too long or you may not have a choice anymore. I got pregnant within a month at the age of 36, then had a miscarriage and haven't been able to get pregnant since. I'm now 38 and from what i've read i've a slim chance at this age of getting pregnant at all. I'm not too worried if it doesn't happen, there are other things in life which also interest me but I was unaware that the chances were so low, so i'd hate to see others put it off for financial reasons only to find out later that they can't have children at all.

jellyhead

hi pickle, i don't mean to be intrusive but you may find there are things a doctor can do to increase your fertility, depending on the reason for it being diminished. i tried for 3 years after being told i was probably infertile and then i got pregnant after having an operation on my endometriosis. if you have pcos there are a couple of things they can do to increase your fertility, if tubes are blocked then sometimes a hysterosalpingogram (?) can unblock them. fertility drugs and treatments aren't always needed, sometimes a simple procedure can help. have you had a scan, or do you have a diagnosis of anything? with pcos, endo and retroverted uterus my chances of concieving were pretty slim but i managed to concieve 3 months before my appointment for fertility drugs because the operation on my endo helped enormously. good luck.