When it comes to reasons to wait to have kids, everybody has an opinion. And if you are looking for reasons to wait to have children, you are not alone. How long you wait is a tricky one – there is never really the perfect time and if you take too much time, it might be too late. It’s all about the right time for you, and if you think that your 20s and 30s are too soon, here are some great reasons to wait to have kids.
This is one of the biggest reasons to wait to have kids – money. Kids cost a lifetime’s worth of money. And to put it in perspective for those who don’t have kids yet, imagine owning and running a top of the range convertible, brand new out the showroom. That is pretty much how much each kid is going to cost you – and there are no cutting corners; you couldn’t get out the driveway with only 3 wheels on your Mercedes. When you are older you tend to be more financially established, which helps.
If you have kids later in life, (hopefully) you no longer sweat the small stuff and have learnt along the way how to pick your battles. And when it comes to surviving child rearing 101 – this is a pretty important aspect of parenting. Having a toddler will test this to the absolute, soul destroying limit and if you get through that unscathed, you will be in for a treat when they hit the teen years. Patience gives you control and is a very valuable parenting tool to have.
Having a baby in your 20s or earlier changes your life forever. The natural rites of passage, like partying all night, all weekend and all week with new friends in strange places, get pushed aside. Once you have kids, you can just tear out that page entirely - you won’t need it anymore. As a parent you are far more emotionally and psychologically together in your head when you have had time to explore the world and meet new people, and as an older parent, you will have already acquired this.
So often, as society used to dictate, people got married early. They then had babies early. Trouble is – hit 45, and divorce! There are not many people who can grow up with a partner who don’t find themselves growing up with them. If you postpone having children you will have the time to find somebody you want to share your life with.
People find, and often way too late, that they have not discovered enough about who they are and what they want out of life, and perhaps still need some time to carve that special niche out for themselves before having kids. Delay starting a family to allow you and your partner to establish who you are as people with a bit of life experience on the side, which will set you in good stead before you need to show another human being the way.
You will have had a few years, if not more, to build a career and go places that will allow you to shift responsibilities when you decide to make any changes when you have a baby. If you wait until later in life to have children, you can build your career, build your company, build your brand and then get to the point where you can step back a bit if you wanted to later on.
Traveling with a backpack and just enough coins in your pocket to get you a nice cold beer and traveling with a baby are just two different things. Without kids, you and your partner can travel the world, see and experience different things before knuckling down to having children and building a family together.
Bringing up a child in a one bedroom apartment is not how we all envisaged our life to be. When you are newly married, working hard and still making a name for yourself, that is very much the reality of your living situation. One of the most practical reasons to wait to have kids is to have the time to buy the home of your dreams with a garden and swimming pool; all you have to do is add kids.
In this current financial climate, further education is more important than ever. Trying to do a serious degree in between feeding a baby and childcare responsibilities is just insane – something is going to suffer and, either way, you are going to hurt yourself. Finishing your degree and waiting to fall pregnant after you have completed your studies is very sound advice.
There are some fundamental reasons why you should wait to have a baby and it’s a very personal decision. And, none of them mean that you shouldn’t be or can’t be a successful parent when you’re young – in any shape or form. If you are thinking about delaying pregnancy in your marriage, which one of these great reasons to wait to have kids meant something for you?