Sometimes I look at the craziness and chaos surrounding me and think to myself “how the heck did we get here?!?!”
When asked in high school what I’d be doing in 5, 10, 15 years, I don’t know that I would have guessed this.
I fell in love at 18. Was married and pregnant at 23. And will have my last child this year at 31. It all happened very fast and what many would probably consider very early.
But the truth is, we chose this life. Every step along the way was planned and deliberate.
I met hubby my first week of college and I won’t say it was love at first sight, but it didn’t take long. We said those three magic words less than two months after we met and just weeks after deciding we only wanted to date each other. And it was only another 2 months before hubby asked me if I wanted to marry him (you know, maybe…someday?)
I said yes and while that wasn’t the official proposal, we knew from that moment on that our lives were headed down that path, together.
We waited almost another five years before getting married, but when we did finally say our dos, we knew we’d be starting a family right away. Honeybun wasn’t an “accident” or surprise, she was a deliberately planned decision.
We were married, out of college and had both been working and supporting ourselves (together) for two years. We knew we wanted to travel and see the world. We knew we wanted to work hard when we were young so that we could retire easily and enjoy our golden years.
We also knew those things weren’t within reach of two twenty-somethings just starting out. We had little money and even less vacation time. So we decided to start our family.
To a lot of people it seems weird that we chose to have kids because we didn’t have money, but for us it made the most logical sense. Most any parent will tell you: you never have enough money to have kids. But you always make it work.
We weren’t (and still aren’t) the types to sacrifice our financial security for luxuries like vacations, fancy cars or big houses but we also knew that we could make small sacrifices to start our family.
We also knew that if we continued working hard and saving, despite having multiple children, that we could make our life dreams come true.
I won’t even be 50 when baby #4 graduates high school and all our children should be done with college by the time hubby is retirement age. This will leave our retirement years free to travel, enjoy our “old” age and even spend time with our grand children (fun fact: if Honeybun has her first child when I had her, I will be a grandma at 48 and still have a child in high school!)
We chose to start our family young so we could enjoy their childhoods AND our adulthood. We chose to have our children close together so they would have each other in life and so that we would be “done” with the baby years while we were still vibrant and healthy and so that we could enjoy every stage of their growing up.
We could have waited and saved more money and “lived” while we were young (but we were never big partiers anyways). We could have waited for our careers to be “established” but our children certainly haven’t stopped hubby from achieving his goals and I didn’t really have a career to begin with (but now I’ll have the time to start one). We could have waited for a million reasons but none of them were good enough to outweigh the future we saw with starting our family early.
I know having children young isn’t for everybody and that it’s not always a choice. But it was the best choice for us and I wouldn’t change the way we’ve done things. It has worked for us and has yet to stop us from doing the things want to do in life, we just have three more people to share our adventures with!
It might not be the life I would have imagined or expected to have, but we chose this life and there is no going back (not that I’d want to!)
I’m kind of torn on this. I had my first child at 23 also but wasn’t planning it. We also weren’t really prevent it either since my husband had cancer. Now that I have 2 kids – I kind of wish I did wait about 2 years. I never got a chance to travel with my husband. Just me and him. We really didn’t get a chance to be a married couple. I know we can do that once the kids are older but I won’t be the same – young and full of life (I hope so of course). There are things that I feel I missed out on by being a young mother. Growing up my parents were very protective (who wouldn’t be when you lived in the boroughs of NYC) so i didn’t get to so a lot of things. I would have loved to travel to Europe or South America. Yes, I can do it with kids but I miss out on potential excurions or dining venues. Just being able to say, “honey let’s go away for the weekend” or “let’s catch a late night movie”. I can’t do that with kids.
BUT I also see the side where my kids will be out the house when I’m at a younger age as opposed to being 50 and still having kids at home. I can’t change anything now and my little family is complete. Everyone is happy and healthy so it’s not so bad…
sometimes I do long for that alone time with my husband though.
Felicita, I can totally relate to your feelings! It is definitely not always easy having little ones but I’ve always been one to look to the future and know that we will get to have those experiences when our kids are a little older and we actually have the money and time to do nice things! (Plus I’m not sure I would have had the energy to do this when I’m older!)
Great post! We didn’t have our first baby until I was 33 and while I think it was the right decision to wait (we were not partiers by any stretch but also not mature enough to be parents yet I think), I also wish we had started earlier because I would have like to have more than two and not sure that can happen at this point. I think it is different for everyone but it is great that you are able to look back and know that you made the best choices for you and your family!
Nicole, it absolutely different for everyone and I’ve met few parents that are really, truly disappointed with the way things worked out (whether planned or unexpected).
Good post. I had both of my kids before age 30, by design, mainly because I lost my mom to early onset Alzheimer’s disease and wanted to lower my chances of not knowing my grandchildren.
My mom was 30 when she had me, her oldest child. She started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s when I was still in high school. And regardless of my family history, I think there are definite physical advantages to bearing children younger, which was normal in previous generations.
You are so right, Lauren! I had my first daughter at 24 and loooooved being pregnant but this time around (at 31) it is not so easy on the body. We are definitely designed to birth earlier than most women do these days!
What a great post! I would have loved to have started my family earlier than I did. My oldest who was three weeks early was born just 5 days before my 30th birthday and number 2 arrived 20 months latter. I love having my boys close together in age as I hope they will always be close to eachother.
That is our hope too, Tennille! Our oldest will have just turned 7 when #4 arrives, there will be 25-33 months between each and we hope they all get along well through life!
This is a really interesting post. I was 28 just when I had Boo, which I feel was young enough to grow up with her so to speak but also it mean that I got to go to uni, work a little, live abroad for a year and meet my husband. I haven’t really made a career for myself, I have had a job all of my life but not one I have enjoyed, I am now a stay at home mum to Boo, and I love it, and I can focus on looking after Boo and working towards retraining for my career when Boo starts school.
I think that each person/family has their own best time to have children and it’s different for each of us and that what makes like so amazing. I understand your reasons for starting a family early, it makes lots of sense to me =)
Jenni, I think a lot of people look at having kids early as an end to their lives as they know it but we have made it a point to keep doing all the things we’ve always done, just with more people along for the ride. We both finished our master’s, lived abroad and traveled as a family and it hasn’t affected our careers (I’m not convinced mine was going anywhere even if I hadn’t had kids!)
People can always find 101 excuses to not have kids but the truth is when that child comes along you will do what you need to make it work. Our first definitely came earlier than expected. While we knew we wanted to have kids quite early, we thought it would take a much longer time to conceive. So he was a year early but we made it work and wouldn’t have it any other way. Thanks for stopping by the #ConfessionsLinkUp
It’s so true, Amy! You are never really prepared for kids (whether your first or your fourth!) but somehow it always just works out…
I had my first at 28 and my second at 32. It was a good age. I suppose there are pros and cons with having kids young and having kids when you are older.
I definitely think there are pros and cons to both but so far I’m glad we’ve done it the way we did.