I’m curious because I’ve had kids early. Will I ever be able to catch up with peers who’ve decided their focus would be on their job and forego having children later in life?
Maybe. Maybe not. But no matter what those other people do, they’ll never ever be able to get more youthful, energetic years with their children and (hopefully) grandchildren. All that money and even Elon can’t buy time.
I had kids relatively young for a yuppie male (27) and while that was 100% the “right time” I would have done it earlier if I had known how great they are.
I’m turning 33 next month and really want children. I have endless memories of my dad and grandfathers teaching me amazing lessons and being best/strongest men I have ever been around. I want to fulfill that role that for someone! We didn’t have much money but camping or diy building is something fondly reminisce on and made me who I am.
My partner is 25 and is not decided on children yet due to also growing up poor and and having a rougher realationship with their fam. We’ve lived together a year now but she recently got an IUD and was happy about the ‘10 years of freedom’.
To her kids is a ‘probably after I finish all my goals/traveling’.
We were recently vacationing in Barcelona and met 3 young boys at the hotel and played a game of uno with them in the lobby. They lived in the Bay Area and I imagine their parents were techies, they were indian, 6-12yrs, long hair, well spoken, had skateboards, and wearing tie dye.
I CANNOT stop thinking about them.
I’m considering an ultimatum but I love her so much.
Sorry for the rant HN, I just needed somewhere to say it.
Let's say you stay together now, and 10 years from now she still doesn't want children (which, for the record, is very much her prerogative). What will you do?
If you don't split up at that point, this difference is likely to become a source of resentment. You may also regret not having split up earlier so that you could meet someone who is a better match for you sooner.
This is the kind of thing that people really need to be on the same page about for the relationship to be viable long-term. Attitudes towards money (how much to spend, save, etc) is another.
The worst thing you can do for yourself, your partner, and your future kids would be to pressure your partner into having children when she’s not ready or doesn’t want to. Her path is her own, and it’s completely valid.
My advice is to have an honest conversation where you try to understand where she’s at on this and why, without trying to change it.
And then if you determine that she really doesn’t want kids, or may not ever, you might have to make a very hard choice to either accept that and let go of your dream of having kids, or to follow another path without her.
But own it as your choice, without resentment. She doesn’t owe you a child.
I met a guy who was ~ 45 or so. He had been with his (then ex-) partner for 15+ years. She had wanted kids, and he kept saying "next year", "not ready yet", etc. Finally, at the age of 43 she gave him an ultimatum to make up his mind, and he replied "nah... don't want kids". She dumped him right away.
I met her too a little bit later, and boy, the resentment was strong with her. I couldn't blame her.
With things like kids, please don't be wishy-washy; make up your mind and set specific goals, timelines, etc. Kids are an expensive investment of both money and time.
I'm 32 and my wife is 33, we've been together for 12 years. I started having the itch to have kids when I turned 30, but my wife 100% doesn't want them. Choosing between a life without children or leaving the person I've shared my whole adult life with is intolerable.
All I can say is you're not alone and I wish you the best.
> I’m considering an ultimatum but I love her so much.
Dictating, forcing things is not the way to go for such things. You cant force children onto an unwilling mother. Its best if such things are handled amicably and with consensus.
It's a binary choice. Either who you're with will want kids, or not, and if you're determined to have them but they simply refuse despite all appeals of any kind then what consensus are you talking about? In other words, there has to be a point where you say you're leaving someone unless they also want kids. This is an ultimatum whether you want to call it that or not. Beating around the bush politely about it doesn't change or resolve anything.
Surely an ultimatum is not force but choice, you are asking what the other person's final choice is?
I want chips for tea (deep fried julienned potatoes for your evening meal), you don't want chips, I say "I'll go out for tea then", you decide how important it is for you; you're literally in control.
Clearly the stakes are very different but it couldn't be further from dictatorship.
I don't think avoiding hard choices helps either party in the long run.
I know the feeling. I think your best bet would be sharing with her gently and honestly, and if that doesn't go like you hope then looking into some couples' counseling/therapy to resolve this if she's agreeable.
Family baggage is tough and there may be stuff she needs to work on within herself too before she's ready. Encouraging that is a good way to be supportive and work towards the goal of kids together.
Not necessarily. There is almost always room to have a discussion and to see if there can be compromise acceptable to both sides first.
In this case, it may be acceptable to have kids at a later age; in addition, there could be other related concerns not mentioned in the comment (a lot of information is lost when writing about something online), which could make having kids acceptable.
Then if it's truly a red line issue (one partner absolutely does not want to have kids, while the other does), both people will know that they at least tried very hard to work it out, and reached an understanding that there could be long-term unhappiness or resentment if the relationship persisted. Then there can be few to no regrets with moving on, which is difficult after being in a relationship for a long period of time.
There is no compromise on children. Some people want them, some don't. This is one of the biggest sources of relationship strife and needs compatibility quickly or folks should agree to part and stop wasting time.
It's not a black-and-white issue. There is compromise if a person doesn't want children right now, but is genuinely open to it when there is more career stability. Some people may also be open to children, but not at the expense of giving up one's career (some couples have worked it out by having the man de-prioritize his career for a while).
I do agree that people can waste time if a person says they "don't want children right now," but really mean that they "don't want children ever." In either case, there is no harm to clarify this before going right to breaking up over hesitations.
But let me still respond to this, as freedom of speech:
Leave a message for the top female executive at the company she most admires. Ask your wife then leave the message. Just tell them leave this message. I've heard of similar messages. That executive will talk to your wife and will try to give her the message you want to give her.
Apparently for women once you realize you're a fertility-dead-end your body takes its toll on your failure. Not for men as much because a man is fertile much longer, and more uncertainly, and it's more reasonable for him to be a fertility-dead-end because men are better and worse than women, they are a gamble by their very nature.
Stop waiting. This may not be popular with the hive mind, but if you want kids and she doesn’t: move on.
I love my wife more than anything outside my family, but the kids are on another level. In 20 years you may not remember your current partner’s face. But you won’t pass a moment without thinking about your children, if you choose to have them.
The biggest concern is that there doesn't seem to be a concrete end goal for when you can have children. From what you've written, your partner is 25, has an IUD, and communicated that she doesn't want children for the next 10 years. The endpoint of "probably after I finish all my goals/traveling" is so vaguely defined, that it could never happen. One can spend a lifetime pursuing goals and traveling.
You likely already considered the fertility odds, but to add context, according to a resource approved by the department of health for Victoria, Australia [0], the odds of having a child increasingly drop from age 35 onwards. There are also likely risks for men trying to have children after the age of 40, according to a balanced article on WebMD [1].
Negotiation is an option besides an ultimatum, and I actually think most opinions on the internet about relationships go for breakups far too soon. You have valid concerns that you can address with negotiation; in specific:
1) There is no clarity for the timeline of having kids (10 years plus after a vague goal of reaching all other goals of your partner).
2) From the tone of your partner, it's possible she doesn't seem to be taking your valid concern with seriousness, though perhaps serious conversations may just didn't come to mind at the time you wrote your comment.
3) Your partner hasn't seriously discussed the fertility implications of having children that late, at least from the contents of your comment.
To compromise, consider the red lines. Would you be willing to stay in the relationship without kids? If the answer is "no," it's almost inevitable you will be resentful and the relationship is likely to have a very negative effect on your life.
Would your partner be willing to have kids? If the answer is "no," it's also almost inevitable she will be resentful if she reluctantly goes into it; if the answer legitimately is "yes, but after a certain point of time," then you have room to work it out. The compromise solution is to have a specific endpoint when you will try for kids (with a clear "yes" for trying for children at that point). If there is none, moving on may be a hard decision but the right one for personal happiness for both people in the long-term.
As with any online advice, please take this comment with a huge grain of salt because there is an enormous amount of information and nuance lost when communicating a situation over text (or even over a conversation in person). However, the main principles of compromise—knowing each others' red lines, and account for possible long-term resentment due to agreements favoring one side disproportionately—may hopefully still be helpful. Best of luck to you.
Are there statistics for this type of thing (average age when first child arrives)? I knew I was an outlier (I had my first kid at 20, and yes it was a conscious decision), but 27 being relatively young makes me feel like an even greater outlier than I had predicted.
Do you feel like there is really anything to "catch up" on?
I'm in my mid 30s with no kids - while I can see that my career happens to be more advanced than close friends who had kids early, the signal to noise ratio is pretty high.
I'd think about it this way: enjoy the path you've set yourself on and savour the years where you have both your kids and your health. When they become less dependent on you, the option to lean in to a career is still available, and with a few more grey hairs you probably won't have to work so hard to prove yourself to begin with.
This reads as somewhat mean spirited, which I hope you didn’t intend. I thought his advice was supportive – they very clearly acknowledged not being a parent but then pointed out that there isn’t a clear cut productivity gap. That kind of reassurance seems useful since people can easily tell themselves they’re irrecoverably behind and worry far more than is helpful.
Nothing about their advice is specific to the role of parenting itself, but more about perspective on life choices in general. If they were telling you how to be a parent, sure, but there's nothing wrong with trying to learn from each other's experiences.
Not having kids may afford some advantages in some circumstances, but in my experience, the decision is often made for reasons that most people don't see, and not just because of career goals. I know plenty of parents and non-parents, and if there's one thing I can say about non-parents, rarely is career progression a sufficient form of purpose / satisfaction in life. Most parents I know would never trade their decision to have kids for a slightly faster trip up a career ladder, but that faster trip isn't necessarily real either.
I'm in my mid 30s, and I personally will never have kids. I made this choice partially because of the environment I grew up in, where I was a defacto parent for younger siblings for most of my formative years. I love my siblings, but simply put, I'm done parenting, and have enough of my own baggage I'm still dealing with after that experience. This baggage is heavy enough that work is still a struggle. I may appear unencumbered to those around me, but that doesn't automatically equate to more bandwidth to advance my career.
I've found career success, yes, but not because I don't have kids. If anything, my career focus impeded my personal growth, so I'm working on that in my 30s.
Ultimately it's a tradeoff, and while some people may occasionally find themselves at an advantage in some way, it's unclear if this is an advantage to aspire to, or if it leads to any improvement in life satisfaction.
If there's one thing I can say, it's that work and career progression isn't really what it's cracked up to be, and isn't "enough" for long.
Coincidentally, you are seemingly the least mature person in this discussion right now. Speaks somewhat to your “anyone who doesn’t have kids isn’t an adult yet” comment holding little weight. One would expect a parent to have more empathy, not less, but here we are.
If you continued reading, you'd see the context behind why I made that decision. At this point, you are not making any attempt at a good faith conversation here, and that's unfortunate.
But since I'm curious, is it the age that made you stop listening?
I see. It's really unclear why you're engaging in such a hostile way throughout this thread, but it's really not in the intended spirit of discussion here.
Apparently you did continue reading, but in case it wasn't clear, it was an abusive environment, and sharing my personal decision not to be a parent again is just my attempt to share one perspective on what it means to have or not have kids when working through one's career.
Based on what you've written elsewhere in this thread, I hope you find some peace.
This is a bit crude way to put it, but maybe you're right.
At least for me, becoming a father changed my perspective on everything so much that it's almost like I'm not even the same species anymore as I was before having them. Sometimes people without children feel like they're not even proper adults even if they are older and/or more senior at work or whatever.
FWIW, This doesn't sound like a healthy place for you to be.
Childless people giving parenting advice to people with children is on average going to be just as off target as most times where humans try to give advice without any personal lived experience. It doesn't indicate anything else though, prima facie.
> Spot on, I’m so different now than I was then I disregard anything anyone without kids says.
I would posit this is universally correct. Us not-parents can "believe" we can accurately imagine what you go through or what we would do in your place. Theoretically speaking, the theory matches reality :)
Yet imagining is literally not enough! People without children do not viscerally know what it is to parent, 24/7 for the rest of your days for the foreseeable future. How the accumulated indescribable-joy and the mounting exhaustion that you simultaneously carry influences slash impacts your decision-making and relentlessly molds the options you'll choose to make for the rest of your life.
Good luck explaining how different this parenting experience can be for every person and child, even within the same family in the same environment two children can be polar opposites with no obvious reason other than "life finds a way".
> I feel like they’re not real adults too.
I say this with all my empathy: the fact that for you parenting is such a core part of the adult experience is not only correct but beautiful, and anybody who tries to invalidate that is extremely wrong.
That said, there is another layer of unkindness in your position that you must unpack yourself, if you wish to have adult-level relationships with people with a different set of adult-core concepts.
I had my first kid at 15; are you that early? It was a rough start. Mom and I are still together 24 years later. We played life on hard mode and I don't recommend it. I got a near full academic ride to a university but had trouble getting books and supplies. My wife worked mostly as a waitress at first. After several attempts at different jobs, I landed as a software developer. I was in my 30s before we could save a penny. I make a couple hundred grand a year now and can buy my (now three) kids what they need and want and my retirement account is healthy
The "mid" positions often require a grind. For example to get a skill.
The "top" positions often are a new set of hoops that you need to jump. First you need to actually get the position: what sometimes is about who you know, sometimes about what you do, sometimes sheer luck (e.g. those above you quit) or by just grinding and applying everywhere. Also at some point a new hoop are sales. Nobody cares that you cant do your job if you can bring in new customers worth millions.
In many ways life is pure luck. If you choose the right company you can get options and become a millionaire while someone better will rot in a failed startup (If you are in Europe you are out of luck - generally no options).
Maybe you start a company while you are still relatively young? Many did. Many failed. There are also those motivational lists who show billionaires who started a company after a certain age.
I was thinking of writing a book about this, but I am not sure if there is a market for that. Since what I wrote above sounds a lot like those sharlatan self help books.
You can write a longform blog post and submit it to HN, I would read it. Ribbonfarm's "The Gervais Principle" (2009) [0] is a top example of a very long blog post split over multiple parts, yet insightful enough to be shared widely on HN and still provoke thought, long after a first read.
I'd like to question the premise that you have to "catch up" with peers, and that comparisons make sense. Especially in the private sector, career growth isn't solely dependent on technical skills.
Some peers can get big career boosts due to nepotism or networking and switching companies. Others leave a large company, giving up the chance of promotions to senior management, and create their own startup or join another at a senior level for advancement. Other people change industries and start at a junior position. Yet others decide to work a stable job for lesser pay, maybe at certain departments or agencies in the public sector.
I honestly don't see where competition with peers becomes a factor, so long as you're working enough to maintain valuable skills that hiring managers and organizations are looking for.
You will get out of your career what you put into it. I had kids at 24/26 and have found success relative to my peers in the field.
Sure there are sacrifices to be made with respect to career options. You can't (or shouldn't) just move cities every three years when a new job comes up, but working remotely can level that playing field quite a bit.
You won’t beat them by absolute number of hours. However, you can surpass your peers by having more focus, being more organized, and thinking outside the box.
Anecdotal evidence: PhDs with children often are just as productive if not more than those without. Most PhD students are inefficient due to not focusing and thinking they infinite time.
I've looked recently at a study of academics based on papers they authored that showed parents are more productive. IIRC, fathers were most productive, mothers less productive during early years of child-rearing but ultimately beat-out non-parents.
In that limited study, if you're female you'd be expected to catch and over-take your peers -- presumably early child-rearing gives you more time after you've overtaken your peers. Again, from the study, if you're male then your output would be expected to be "better" from just after your kids come. Mother's were more productive before they became pregnant, if you follow; perhaps trying to get ahead before pregnancy.
If anyone asks I'll dig out the link. My work shared it, it showed the opposite of what they said it did ...
It's really up to you and depends on what you want your career to look like.
Also, be careful of playing games where people are willing to give up more than you are. For me, I don't derive as much meaning from a career as I thought I would, probably because I put too much expectation that it would provide that.
> "For me, I don't derive as much meaning from a career as I thought I would, probably because I put too much expectation that it would provide that."
"Designing Your Life" is a book based on a Stanford course on career planning that explored this idea very well. A summary is at [0], and a relevant idea is that focusing on one area of your life is likely not sufficient for a good life. For example, over the course of a week, it can be useful to make sure you are hitting goals in "work, play, love, and health." It can sound like common sense, but it's useful to consciously do this, especially for people inclined to optimize for just work, at the expense of physical health and relationships.
An anecdote that stuck out to me was a positive example about a person who rose to a high level at a large company, then kept refusing promotions because he finally struck a good balance between career and having time for family. I'm sure this may not always be the best idea, but I liked the idea behind inclusion of the anecdote, which is that continuously climbing the career ladder may not actually be helpful for one's personal goals.
Thank you for your reply. I will try this out soon.
I'm already at the point where I'm uncertain if I want to progress on the career ladder. Advancement in my career at this point mostly means striking out on my own more through product-based businesses.
