Also a good point, trade offs all around to consider!
I had mine in 30 to 35 range, but if I could go back in time and had found my spouse, I think I would have opted to have them in 25 to 30 range. However, no one in my social circles has kids in their 20s and barely anyone is married by 30 so we also may have been socially isolated if we had chosen to do that.
But I try to think back to what I did in my 25 to 30 range that I thought was worth delaying starting a family and I can’t come up with anything, other than being a little bit further ahead in the rat race. But all the other rats are thinking the same thing, so who is really benefiting?
So it would seem the trend is very much to settle and stabilize in your 30's. I do hope we figure out even better and safer ways to allow women to give birth a little later, if they so choose.
It also seems useful to become a parent with that extra decade of life experience. And if we incentivize exercise in the later years, it could offset the "feeling tired at 70" thing? My fiancé's grandpa runs marathons and honestly has more energy than I do!
Most of what we do in our 20s doesn’t seem that important after the fact (unless you’re an Olympic athlete or otherwise very lucky) but I think it’s an important part of growing up and feeling secure — in yourself, your career, and your relationship. All three types of security are very important to being a good parent.
You can't have kids when you are in your 20s if you are a man who cannot find a woman willing to date you who also wants to have kids while you are in your 20s.
The bottleneck is the same as it is for any issue regarding children.
I had mine in 30 to 35 range, but if I could go back in time and had found my spouse, I think I would have opted to have them in 25 to 30 range. However, no one in my social circles has kids in their 20s and barely anyone is married by 30 so we also may have been socially isolated if we had chosen to do that.
But I try to think back to what I did in my 25 to 30 range that I thought was worth delaying starting a family and I can’t come up with anything, other than being a little bit further ahead in the rat race. But all the other rats are thinking the same thing, so who is really benefiting?