How do you decide when to have children?

thriftylass

Em88 wrote: »

It is really. We would need to use our savings to buy the business. Plus it feels like a really rubbish thing to say yes I will buy the company but oh by the way I'm off on maternity. It's only a small firm so it will make quite an impact if I go off on maternity leave.

Kids don't cost much at the start esp. if you can get loads second hand or hand me downs apart from the car seat. So money isn't really an issue. Plus how long would you say you couldn't go on maternity after buying the business. Have you thought about a timescale. Once you bought the business it might even be harder to make the decision to have a baby. Just a thought. Do whatever is right for you. 30 is not too old. We started at 30, had one MC and then 2 healthy babies but the time I was 36. Yes it took a while but I don't feel like an old mum. Most of my friends started closer to 40 even.

Good luck

[Deleted User]

We focused on family. After we got married in 2008, we didn't use any 'active precautions' because my wife had PCOS and we didn't know how long it would take for her to get pregnant.

Turns out it was only 3 months! Our little boy arrived 2 days after our first wedding anniversary. The second one showed up just before my wife's 30th birthday.

I'm sure we'd have more money now if we'd left it, and having 2 kids is really rather expensive. I'd guess about £20k a year when you factor in childcare and loss of income from my wife working part time. I'm pretty sure that when people are on their deathbed, they're more interested in thinking about their family than what holidays/cars they had. That's my view on it.

HOWEVER - we're quite young compared to the other parents at the school gates (I'm 34, wife's 33). There's plenty of older parents.

Em88

thriftylass wrote: »

But then your husband would be able to stay home. Kids don't cost much at the start esp. if you can get loads second hand or hand me downs apart from the car seat. So money isn't really an issue. Plus how long would you say you couldn't go on maternity after buying the business. Have you thought about a timescale. Once you bought the business it might even be harder to make the decision to have a baby. Just a thought. Do whatever is right for you. 30 is not too old. We started at 30, had one MC and then 2 healthy babies but the time I was 36. Yes it took a while but I don't feel like an old mum. Most of my friends started closer to 40 even.

Good luck

If we wait until I have brought the business then my husband can stay at home as we would have the money. If we had children sooner then we wouldn't be able to afford for one of us to stay at home. We would only just be able to pay all our bills on one salary so even if children don't cost a lot we still would not be able to have one of us at home all the time.

If we wait to buy the business then once we had owned it for around 12-18 months we would start trying.

I know that realistically 30 isn't an old age to start trying and that we would be much more financially secure if we do it that way. I think it is just I don't know many people who have waited. Practically all my family have children before they are 20 but they also don't have a career to consider. My best friend is the same age as me and just had her third!

thriftylass

Em88 wrote: »

I know that realistically 30 isn't an old age to start trying and that we would be much more financially secure if we do it that way. I think it is just I don't know many people who have waited. Practically all my family have children before they are 20 but they also don't have a career to consider. My best friend is the same age as me and just had her third!

It doesn't matter what other people do. Do what's right for you. People have their kids at different ages for different reasons. And as you say you worked hard to built up this career and now have this great option. To me it sounds you know the answer and it seems to wait would work better for you especially if you definitely want one of you to say home.

Mrs_Soup

As you are only 26 then I would wait as 30 is no age to start these days. Is buying the company a certainty though?

fairy_lights

Em88 wrote: »

Practically all my family have children before they are 20 but they also don't have a career to consider. My best friend is the same age as me and just had her third!

Does she have a successful career though, or a house?
Don't let the decisions of the people around you sway you, just because a lot of people you know have had children very young it doesn't mean it's the 'right' way.

Snakey

Sounds like you know what you want to do but the people around you have gone for the kids-asap thing and so you're not feeling "normal".

I'm 42 and so 26 seems young to me! Seems old to you because you've never been that age before. I wouldn't want to be having kids now, but ten years ago would not have been an issue at all. I work in a professional environment (central London) and here it's the norm to not even be married until you're thirty or so, although people tend to get on with pushing out kids within a couple of years of that so that they can be finished by 35. I would consider someone who has kids in their mid-twenties to be a young Mum. So there are other circles to move in - don't look around at the one you were born into and think that this is what everyone does.

Have you looked into the whole PCOS thing so that you know exactly what the possibilities are there i.e. is it definite that you'll have trouble conceiving, and what sort of delay does this usually translate to?

I would leap at the chance to be partner at 29, for the money and the options for the future that the money will give you. To my mind, you'll find it a lot harder to get there if you have a baby at home and have just spent a year out of the workforce, and since you don't know how you'll feel once you have had a baby you can't tell yourself (with any certainty) that you can "just" get a nanny or go back to work early etc because you might not want to! So do it now.

Once you're in there, if you have any sense you will be looking to bring in other partners (bright young things, protegees and so on) so that you can work as a team and cover for one another as and when your respective family commitments crop up and work needs to take a back seat for a while. That's just common sense. So it needn't be the case that (as with some self-employed people) you'll end up never being able to take time away from the business.

The only warning note is that nothing is certain, so keep a close eye on whether this offer really exists - if the deal is to happen in 18 months then in a year's time you should be deep into negotiations, if you get there and they're still saying "soon" and giving you nothing concrete then reconsider your position.

In the meantime, make a list of the remaining things that you want to do before having kids and make sure you get the main ones ticked off.

Em88

I do know that the sensible thing to do is to wait. We would be able to provide a much better life for our children that way. I don't feel that one of us has to be at home but if we could afford it then I think it would be nicer. Plus the type of work my husband does means he would potentially be able to take on freelance stuff to work around child care.

Buying the business is pretty much a certainty. It is currently a question of whether we accept the position as it is in terms of price and time scale or if we increase our offer but buy in 18 months rather than 30 month. This is more down to my future co-owner though as an increase in capital would come from her rather than me.

My friend does not have a career at all and although she has a house that is only due to a- cheaper house prices where she lives and b - he husband having a good job. I wouldn't want her life but her children are beautiful!

Oh and congratulations SingleSue!!

Mattygroves2

Em88 wrote: »

It is really. We would need to use our savings to buy the business. Plus it feels like a really rubbish thing to say yes I will buy the company but oh by the way I'm off on maternity. It's only a small firm so it will make quite an impact if I go off on maternity leave.

You don't need to be on maternity for very long if you don't want to be. When you own the business you'll want to be available for at least contact the whole time you're off I would think if it's a small place. You've got more choices than most self employed people as you'll have staff to continue earning you money but an owner's salary / remuneration comes from them grafting and it's very easy for small businesses to go wrong very quickly if the owner isn't hands on.

So I'd go against the other posters and suggest having the child before buying the business. Or you may find yourself having to wait a long time until you've got a number 2 you can trust at work if you want to have more than a couple of weeks off on maternity.

What's the problem with you both working - I would have thought it was the norm in London to have both parents working. You'd have to factor in the cost of childcare though and it might be cheaper for your OH to go part time. Congratulations on finding yourself a partner who isn't phased by stereotypes - I doubt I know anyone who'd be happy as a SAHD.

Em88

In terms of the PCOS I was diagnosed just after we married and the Dr basically said you've got this it might be hard to conceive bye. I didn't think too much about it at the time as I do know various people who have it and they have had no trouble getting pregnant so I think it is partly luck of the draw.

I think sensibly it is such an amazing opportunity that it would be silly to turn it down as I still have time to do both - children and career.

Part of what makes it hard is that my mum is absolutely desperate to be a grandmother. We were out for dinner for my birthday a couple of years ago when my friend had just had her second child and my mum said she wishes he could swap places with my friend's mum so she had grandchildren already. My dad has also mentioned recently that it would be nice if we had children before he was an old grandad!