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When I was in high school/ college, I would map out when I would like to get married and have children.
Thought I would get married at 23 and have children by 25. Well, for me it's been pushed back. I got married at 26 and looks like I'll have children when I'm 28 ish.
Wonder if nowadays, the age to have children has gotten later or earlier.
We're estimating around 32-34. We'll be in grad school till 30/31, and we want to wait until FI's got a tenure-track position and I've got some stable employment as well, plus we've had some time to actually enjoy being financially stable and out of school without the burden of a baby. It's so hard because if we push it any further back, I'll be out of eggs! :X Ugh.
The age has definitely been pushed pack (actually, I wonder where you live?? In NYC it's been pushed waaay pack).
I'll be married a month before my 29th bday (we'll have have been together since college), and plan on children in a couple years, around age 32.
BUT we only want 1, so that could make a difference to someone who wants a cast of many.
@Mrs.Crawford
Good points. I used to live in Philly but now I live in Seattle.
Also, yeah, the number of children you want will also affect it.
Both my fiance' and I will be 23 when we tie the knot. After the wedding we will make our big move to Austin and then get jobs and work. Then we will get a puppy...finally!!!!!! and then I will hopefully get pregnant after a year or two...
see, I still have the plan :) haha but i think it will work out pretty well for us...
i had my daughter when i was 20, it was a great surprise but i was really young! at least that is what i think
I had no intention of having kids!! I was 24 when I had my oldest. And I had actually just gotten my foot in the door at a dream job, not kid friendly, when I discovered that I was pregnant. I just didn't see myself as the Mommy type and I didn't see the father as someone that I wanted to be with long term as it was a relationship based mostly on physical attraction. I assumed that if I had a child, it would be when I was in my mid thirties, by myself, after I had accomplished some really important things on my own. But it wasn't important to me. I grew up as one of six children, so as an adult, I was very protective of my independence. The second I found out I was pregnant, my world was me and that baby, who is now my beautiful 8 yr old daughter. I'm now a mostly stay at home mom with two daughters and one on the way. Who knew??!
Growing up, my goal was not to get married or have children any earlier than 25. I wanted to be different than a lot of the girls in my surroundings and family members that chose a different path. And being so young back then, 25 seemed old enough for me. Actually, it seemed old to me, lol but again I was so young. As I got older, I was OK with everything happening at 30.
Well I made it some where in between. I got married at 27 and we will be welcoming our first child while I am 28 1/2 years old.
i'll be 1 month shy of my 29th birthday when we get married... we still don't know if we want kids but if we do, i'd say 31 or 32 for our first child. 2 would be the most we'd have so the second shortly after i'd bet.
who knows!
I'm thinking it'll be 26-27 for us. We want our first by the time DH is 30, which puts me at 27. Likely TTC at 26. But with me having endo, it could easily be 28/29. If we hit 28 and I still haven't conceived, we'll be doing IVF.
i had pretty much the same time line as you, graduate from college get married and have kids. but i chose grad school instead. (thank god, my bf at the time was not for me!) so kids will hopefully happen at 27-28.
Where I grew up a lot of people got married young...during undergrad or right after....um, yah...I moved away after HS and didn't get married until 29. Luckily we got pregnant our first month of trying, so I will be 30 and hubs 32. Sometimes I wish we were a little younger, so I wouldn't feel as pressured to have ALL of my kids ASAP, but at least now we are financially set and in our career fields, etc, so hopefully that will counterbalance some of the other concerns. I'm 4 mos, and my age hasn't affected anything so far...everything looks GREAT.
I had my daughter 3 months shy of my 22nd birthday. She is 12 years old now and it's weird to think abotu starting over. FI and I plan to add 2 more kids to the combined 3 we have now. His two kids are grown 19 & 24 so it will be just my daughter and any kids we have together actually in the house.
I'll be almost 25 when I get married but we probably won't start trying for kids til I'm around 30. We're both finishing grad school and after we'll need some time to get settled into jobs and a new location, etc. Plus, we want that time to spend with just us.
Probably 32 when we have our first child... if all goes well! :)
I'm glad to see how many first time moms there were around the 30-35 age mark! I actually never wanted kids. I did think I'd get married really young. Like 20 or so, I had always hoped I could hold off until I was 21 but that seemed like FOREVER... haha. I'll be married at 26! I hope that we start trying for a kid when I'm 28 or 29. I'd like to have 2 probably around the 30-33 age mark. My biggest concern is making sure we have them early enough that my parents are still in good enough health to really enjoy them. My parents are 51/55 now and I'd kind of like to have one before my dad hits 60.
I can't speak for myself, since I don't intend on having children, but I can say that for my crowd of friends, 28 is still pretty early. Most of my friends are 26-30 and there's only two kids and one friend expecting (this is out of 75 or so individuals and couples). There's a couple married couples who will probably start having kids by age 30, but I think on average, people are aiming to start having kids around 30-32 if they're married/engaged now. I think part of why people are waiting so long is grad school - I can count on my fingers the number of people I know (including myself) who DON'T have a graduate degree.
I'll be 24 when I get married and would like to get a dog soon after :)
We'll probably try when I'm close to 30.
I'd like to have my first child before 30, so we will probably start trying when I'm 27-28 just in case it takes a while to conceive. I'm 22 so that will be 5-6 years after getting married, which is what we've always talked about. We're young and have only been together a year and a half, so we want to enjoy being a young couple for a good long time before we become parents.
Having said that, I would have no problem having kids in our early 30s. Our second child will most likely be born when we're in our early 30s. We just don't want to push it close to 35 because that increases risk, and we also want to have our kids when our parents are still young and can enjoy them. Having grandparents for our kids is really important to us.
I'll be 31 when we likely get married, so 32-33 hopefully. I am a bit worried about it, but as Corgi said, it is really comforting to see how many bees are around that mark. Plus I live in NYC, and that really is the norm around here.
I voted 24-26 because that's what I hope for, but there's no way of knowing for sure!
I will be one week shy of my 28th birthday when we get married. We will probably start trying in 3-4 years, so around 32.
I'll be at least 38. I'm 36 now and I turn 37 in late summer and I really don't see us trying before the Fall.
i keep saying atleast 10 years...so that would be 35. BF wants them sooner, like when he's 30, so I'd be 31. It will probably be somewhere between then!
we don't have any kids yet. we are both 25 now and plan to start trying shortly after the wedding. but I know for sure we will stop before I hit 25. with the rate of autism being exponentially(!!!) greater as well as a plethora of other health concerns for the baby when a mom reaches the age of 35, I would def. not risk it with my babies. I'm surprised there are so many people who keep pushing the envelope.
Aug8Bride,
When you don't meet your husband until age 34, you can't help but to be an older mom. It's just not always that simple. We've only been married five months and we have a few things to settle before we have a baby, so we'll hope for the best being older parents. My college roomate has a child with Autism and that baby was brn when she was 24. So you just never know.
For the over 35 moms to be.
I recently ready a very good book about older mooms called "Ready".
When I was little, I didn't want kids at all and said that if I hadn't had one at 30 that I definitely wouldn't. Here I am at 38 with Miss First, Last and Only!
While the risk of DS does increase exponentially after the age of 35, when you look at the actual risk categories for each age, it may scare you less. 38 is not that much worse than 35 with an age adjusted risk of less than 0.75. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trisomy21_graph.jpg
The increased risk of autism that you referred to is both a maternally and paternally related factor. Here is a good article using administrative data. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/559935
I just don't think it's productive to marginalize the over 35 moms, not just because I am one, but because I think a lot of people distort the risks.
I had my first son, who is mildly autistic, when I was 24. He just turned 10 last month and he's the love on my life... well, besides my FI! Most of my friends had their kids between 22-28; however, I've had some that waited until they were 32 to have kids. I guess it all depends on your situation. Attached is a pic of 'My Lil Man.'
Malachi.jpg (35.7 KB, 34 downloads) 1 year old 
I had my daughter (my one and only) at 28. I honestly had this construct in my mind that I had to be married and have children before age 40. If I'd waited until I found a really good man to marry (instead of the one I chose), I would have been better off. BUT, she makes the years I spent with her father so worth the while. *sigh*.
My daughter is also autistic and I had her when I was 24. I will have this baby when I am 33, and I will possibly have another baby at 35 or 36.
I know a girl who had a son with Down Syndrome when she was 19.
I certainly don't think anyone here is pushing any envelopes. There are so many variables that affect the health of a child. I've said it it in other posts, but seriously, anything could happen to anyone.
my FI and I had our daughter when we were 24, she was a surprise, but of the most wonderful kind. She has made us closer than I could ever dream, we had talks about marriage and kids but thought that was a long way off for us. Now here we are at 26, our wedding 7 months away with a beautiful 2 year old girl. I think that everyone has their dreams, hopes, wishes, and then there is reality. Everyone wants to wait until they "have money" or "stability". Your life is what you make it, who cares if you have a huge home with a 2 car garage and $100,000 in the bank if your not happy. We don't have that. And maybe working towards that with a child is a little harder, but its so much more fun. I'm in school STILL, but you know what makes it all worth it for me? My family. My fiance and our daughter make the time I spend at work and school so worth it. Everyone also talks about being married for a while before they have kids..I honestly don't think that marriage should change your relationship so much that you should "have" to wait a while. If you want to thats one thing, but getting married is just showing everyone else how committed you are to one another and your relationship. (unless you never lived together before the "big day"!! then please wait!
Miss Starlet- yes, there are alot of factors. but age is one that you CAN control.
I'll be 25 (my husband will be 24) when we have our first baby in June. I do think a lot about timing children has to do with when you meet/become committed to your partner. If I had met my husband later in life, I probably wouldn't be having a baby this young. In fact, as a kid/teen, I thought I wouldn't get married until my late 20's/early 30's and not have kids until my mid-30's. Surprise!
Like some other PPs, I had a "timeline" for having kids...mine was based on the reproductive issues that I saw my maternal aunts & cousins having (breast reductions due to biopsies/benign tumors, hysterectomies, etc.): wanted to have 1st child by 30, so be married by 28 (to be on the safe side). While FI & I have been together for 12 years, when 28 & 30 hit, my priorities had changed (even discussed the possibility of NO kids - FI let me know that was a dealbreaker for him). Now, we'll be married when we're 33 & hoping to conceive ASAP, so, God willing, 34 when we have our first child.
Aug8- you can't always control the age factor. I didn't even meet Mr. DG until I was 34. I don't think there was any feasible way we could have done this any sooner!
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