That’s how it was done for most of history, and how it is still done in many places today, so I’m sure you can justify it genetically if you try hard enough.
I would think the choice isn’t restricted to CEOs and truck drivers.
One advantage of getting attached at a fairly young age is that you can grow into money and good jobs together. If you (generic you) only want to get attached to someone established, that set of people might be taken already or have flaws.
My wife’s best friend was only interested in men who were established, and spent a lot of time with a charming guy with a Rolls and a great job. He dumped her as soon as she wanted to move to the next level. She wound up marrying a very nice teacher long after she could have kids. She could have married any one of a number of similar guys who liked her, and who were not trogs. She thought my wife was nuts to marry a poor grad student.
That many of a population who “raise their standards” are going to wind up disappointed is just math.
Of course, it could be that your experiences have been particularly unlucky. The marriages in my family – those of my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. – have all been very happy. In my entire extended family, including all aunts, uncles, cousins, there has been only one divorce ever. And we are not a religious family. We just get along easily.
Even though the likelihood of complications increases, it still does not become probable. According to your own figures, if the mother is 45, the chances that her baby will not have Down’s Syndrome are still over 96%. So it’s not worth going in panic mode over.
I feel like this thread has turned into a phone call between** even sven **and her mother (treis)?
I don’t need an excuse should I become a single mom by choice.
The number of kids raised in objectively optimal situations is basically nil. Each one of us does any number of things that, by the numbers, isn’t the absolute best thing. Hell, the number one thing you can do to put your kids life in danger is to put them in a vehicle. Parents are increasing their children’s chances of a bloody death by the millions- often for really unnecessary care trips! Who will think of the children?!
Most older, established, single-parent-by-choice single parents are not going to end up raising crack whores and gangbangers. The things that make kids go tragically wrong are related to a lack of love, affection and stability in early childhood. A stable career-minded 35 year old yuppie is generally not going to be abusive, neglectful or mentally ill. The kids will be okay.
In my extended family for the last few generations almost everyone has ended up divorced (except my parents actually but they haven’t been a true married couple for a decade - no sex, often separated, my dad is disabled), but usually after 20 years and a couple kids together. My family is all women, and they didn’t usually suffer much from ending up single (except my great-grandmother, who left my great-grandfather with her 5 kids during the worst of The Depression… but he drank most of what he made and they were in poverty before anyway, and my 16-year-old grandmother was able to make enough that all survived), being smart women who are capable of finding and keeping full-time employment (in fact only my mother ever took much time at all out of the work force to raise kids). I for one don’t consider a long-term marriage ending in divorce to be a failure or necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it is very bad for all involved, of course.
Single parenthood is indeed very hard even if you are rather wealthy. Divorced people with young kids are often not very happy, I agree - even though I know a lot with much higher than average incomes they, and their kids, struggle day to day. Money just doesn’t help a lot of problems in life, that I’ve been able to see anyway.
I’ve invested a lot from an early age in a marital type relationship. One thing I really love and value about my fiance is that I feel as 99.999% sure as you can of any human being that he will never betray me and would never, ever shirk his responsibilities to our future children and family unit. If you want to have a family (and I always have) things like being intelligent and interesting, good with kids, trustworthy, and moral jump to the top of ‘the list’ (or should). Things like wealth, ambition, career focus are very low down on mine. We’re average income so ‘staying together for the kids’ is something I’m prepared to do with good cheer, even if we grow so far apart we choose to divorce in the end. Having a family is about a lot more than feeling ecstatically in love with your husband all the time or having loads of money. I’d like to be in love with my husband always, and I’ll admit that a big item on my ‘list’ has been that I’m very picky about physical appearance/shallow; but it’s always been clear to me that pursuing only the most beautiful men would be a huge waste of my time and totally unlikely to fulfill my goals (happy family life)… there just has to be some element of ‘settling’, or prioritizing as I prefer to think of it, if you want a nuclear family.
I don’t think it’s a problem at all that more women are living their lives as they please and thinking like even sven; “if it happens, it happens”. From what I’ve seen single, childless older women, or those who married for the first time late, usually seem perfectly content.
Panic mode? No, but Down’s Syndrome isn’t the only increased risk factor. I know Autism is as well, and I’m sure there’s a plethora of other genetic diseases as well. I don’t know about you, but a 1/20 chance of giving my kid Down’s Syndrome is something I’d avoid.
But hey, giving someone Down’s Syndrome because you felt like partying it up in your 20s. Nothing selfish or immature about that.
A ridiculously stupid argument. Because super parents turned their baby around in the car at one doesn’t mean that deliberately becoming a single parent is ok.
Awesome, everyone did you hear? We can ignore scads of peer reviewed studies because even sven says it’s going to be okay.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Down’s Syndrome is detectable in utero with 95% accuracy. There is no reason to be “giving Down’s Syndrome” to anyone.
It is impossible to raise a child in 100% optimal conditions. It is possible to raise a child in a safe, loving, secure environment.
Studies actually show that a three generation household (i.e. parents and grandparents) is best. Are you ready to move in with your Mother in Law? How could you do that to your kids?
If you can find me studies that control for age, income level, reason for being single (i.e. are you single because you’ve prioritized career, or because you are so batshit crazy nobody will come near you), supervision (I will, most likely, have access to a live-in nanny and other household staff), and factors such as the stability and environment of the household, you might have something.
But a lot of single parents are young, undereducated, extremely poor, in unstable situations, lacking social support and prone to bad decision making (as shown by getting knocked up when you are young and poor). All of these things contribute to problems that children of single parents have, and none of them apply to older career-focused single-parents-by-choice. It is not reasonable to lump the 37 year old corporate Vice President in with the 17 year old high school drop out.
I hope my children’s grand parents are a part of their life, and I hope to be a part of my grand children’s life. As opposed to, y’know being dead when my grandkid is 15.
It’s your claim, you back it up.
I’d rather my kid have a stable home life (food, shelter, education, educated and mature parents, etc.) than have a relationship with grandma. Sorry. Don’t get me wrong: in an ideal world you have both of those things, but if one has to be sacrificed, it’s pretty clear which one it ought to be.
I’m kind of astonished that someone on this board is actually advocating a woman pumping out babies early in life instead of getting educated before having children. Perhaps I’m colored by my own life experiences, but I want to be able to give much more to my kids than I would have been able to at 20. Having a mom that can literally show you the world, instead of scraping money together to pay for dinner, is so tremendously valuable on so many levels. Not only is the kid going to gain from those experiences, but they also have a strong female model. That counts for so much.
FWIW: I’m 25. In a serious relationship but I’m not sure when things will get. . .seriouser. 
I’m not rushed. I want to save up money and buy a house before I pop out babies anyway. I can’t imagine having a kid at 20 like my mom did— or even having been married then! My mom often tells me that she’s envious that I got to do things like go to college and travel the world. Oddly, while I appreciate what she did for me, I certainly don’t envy what she did.
I’d be pretty astonished if I read that too. Where exactly did you read it?
Perhaps I’m misreading your point here, but it seems to be that you’re advocating women not waiting until later in life to reproduce, yes?
Not past 35. But that’s a far cry away from pumping out babies before being educated.
And I’m not just saying it to women either.
Thank you. Reading articles like that are disappointing because they make me realize I’m never going to live up to the kinds of standards women like that are asking for (then again those women seem to be asking for the top 10% of men as the bare minimum and pragmatically I am not in the top 10%).
Yes indeed. And IMO 25 is a much better age than 18 to be having babies.
Most women are not uber-professionals. You’re sounding like one of those disillusioned women who think all guys are looking for a Calista Flockhart-type just because that’s the image you see on TV all the time. We both know this isn’t true. And it’s also not true that all women have unrealistic standards.
I’m not in the scene, but I had a co-worker once ask me if I would date a guy who works at McDonald’s. When I made a face, he pointed at me and said he didn’t know that I could be so shallow. This is a guy who’s constantly talking about how fat women are and how ugly they are for it. Why is my reaction evidence of shallowness and his isn’t? I think everyone has standards and screening criteria that are based on prejudice (justified or not).
I think all this tossing of the word “selfish” is crazy. As is all the tut tut tutting about how people choose to live and at what age they do so. Why do people care so much? If a person says they are content, why not believe them?
FWIW, I’m sure that it’d be almost as irresponsible for me to have children right now as it would have been at 18. I might’ve gone to college, but I’m a far cry from where I’d like to be before I start adding to the world’s population.
I’m happy with my life and I’m far from over the hill- no need to rush reproduction so my hypothetical future kids can have a few extra years with grandma. Having kids when I’m not ready would be a disservice to me, but also to the kids.
Good grief. I wasn’t partying in my 20s. I was working on my Ph.D in physics. That’s one of many reasons it took me longer to find the right woman to get married to, and to have children with. One can make all the plans one likes, but life happens in the way it does.
And we specifically DID decide that we were willing to take the 1 in 100 chance of having a Down’s Syndrome baby (at the ages we were at the time). He turned out to be perfectly healthy. You can live your life, let us live ours.