I know this is directed at women, but had I (a male) not married and had kids, I wouldn't have shit at this point in my life, including motivation. I'd guess I'd have slept with a couple more women, but everything else seems kinda meaningless.
Friends turn into acquaintances, hobbies and travel are neat but ephemeral. Different strokes I suppose.
I met my wife when I was 17 ... And she was 14. We started dating when I was 19 and she was 17 and (soon) we'll celebrate our 38th anniversary. I guess it's easy for me to say but isn't it more about finding the right person? Like you, we complement each other but we also support each other. It's is against the world and we're making our own ride count!
I think a lot of it is you have a chance to grow a bit together before your habits, desires, and life goals have calcified. I'd really have a hard time dating now in middle age, as I really have little enthusiasm to "meet in the middle" like I did when in my 20s.
We were young and flexible when we met. We’ve grown together like two trees planted next to each other. We’re all tangled up and leaning on each other.
From a modern society's logistic point of view, marriage is not a religious arrangement. It is the recognization of a contract entered into by 2 parties which will dictate myriad events in the future, especially regarding property/child/estate/healthcare/etc disputes.
Neither me nor my wife are religious, but pooling our assets together and having children together means we are now intertwined to the level that third parties may need to intervene (in the event of a dispute or death or something) and it helps sort that out more easily.
You certainly don't need to get married if you don't wish to do so, and you can still live a fulfilled life with or without a partner. But marriage has never been simply a "religious arrangement". Yes, marriage has been much co-opted by religion, but non-religious people have always existed and have always married each other outside of any religious arrangement.
Living in a country where atheism is the most common religion amoung my age group, I'm not sure that I've ever seen marriage as a religious arrangement.
I think for most people it's more of a costly signal of commitment. Although some people prefer a civil partnership instead, to codify a defacto relationship.
It’s not necessarily costly. You can have a cheap wedding and in the US for example you get access to “married filing jointly” tax treatment which can lower your taxes and increase your retirement savings in many cases
I can't speak to the us, but where I live there are no tax or legal benefits to being married vs being a defacto couple (apart from it being slightly easier to prove if it ever goes to court)
I got together with my now wife at 20. We didn't get married until we needed to for a visa. Getting married didn't change anything, and we acknowledged that we were a couple for good well before then, had kids. It helps that the country we're in recognizes defacto relationships so there was no incentive.
I (male) married in my early twenties and just celebrated my twentieth anniversary. Wouldn’t trade it for a thing.
I suppose I might have had more “adventures” if I’d waited but honestly every time I hear a dating story from someone I know who is single I feel very lucky. When I look at the dating scene today it feels like I caught the last flight out of a war zone. Seems like it’s very easy to hook up but way harder to really connect.
Advice: no matter your age if you find someone you really love who has compatible values and goals, go for it. Obviously give it careful thought first but don’t pass it up thinking you’re going to miss out on (insert imaginary partner that probably represents something you want to improve about yourself).
If you are with someone and going through a rough time, work on it and don’t give up easy.
I also married in my early twenties (21 actually) and am still happily married over a decade later. No regrets for me; I was lucky to find someone compatible early on and we were able to grow together. Yes undoubtedly you sacrifice some experiences choosing this path but I cherish that bond and antidote to loneliness. There's something comforting about having someone so close for important parts of your life spanning a long time. A real partner to the challenges so you don't have to do everything alone.
I was hesitant to share but I thought it would be better in the end. We often hear of negative experiences (divorce, abuse, etc.) but I regularly hear about couples quietly enjoying their long relationships together. Feels right to offer a counter-point to those stories to say it's not always a mistake.
My last partner was in the process of a second divorce. One of my family members has been through 3 divorces. Unpaid child support abound, which he'll never pay.
Honestly I'm just happy to have a place to live, and a great career. First girlfriend dumped me right after I got fired.
I do wonder, hypothetically she met me a few months later when I was doing much better. We marry. We attend church. Our kids are bilingual in Korean and English with hints of a South Central dialect.
But that's just a fantasy. Just as easily we could be divorced, no kids and I'm just paying alimony.
I guess if VR gets advanced enough in time I can plug into an ultra realistic version of the Sims...
What if there is only an illusion of choice? The article nicely argues about the advantages and drawbacks of a lifestyle centered around collecting experiences. And that way, experience is presented as the alternative to getting married early. But as one of the examples in the article so eloquently points out, marriage might not be among the options offered to you. If your character is too annoying, you'll be shown the door (called One Man's Thrash in the article). If the guys that you would marry don't want to marry you, then "collecting experiences" is your only choice. Which would turn the question into: do you regret having an unpleasant character when you were young?
My experience has been the opposite: my emotions have gotten deeper as I've grown older, and I feel more bonded to the people I'm close to now than I did when I was younger. Part of it is probably that I'm better at relationships than I was when I was younger. But even that is a sign of emotions not getting blunted.
Me too, I was more emotionally stunted in my 20s still. I would say having kids and the experience of parenting finally gave me access to the full spectrum of emotions
I don't know that I'd say I was "emotionally stunted" when I was younger. I still felt emotions strongly then; I just often didn't know what to do with them.
I think more important would be for me to have kids when younger - when you have more strength and stamina, a longer amount of time you can be with them and your grandchildren.
Of course the most important thing is to do it (marry & start a family) with the right person, otherwise your life can actually get much worse than previously.
Kids younger. You miss out on parties and travel but then your brain will get likely rewired to not care/regret that when you are older. Plus then at 40 you can start your startup. One tip is to make the 20 years of work lead to the unfair advantage for that startup.
Hard to pay for a family on a 20 yo salary for most though.
We had kids younger (very early in our 20s) and while it was difficult financially for a time, I definitely wouldn’t change it. Especially after seeing friends who waited. I think having younger kids in your later 30s and 40s put some hard miles on you.
I have young kids mid 50s. it's tough, but keeps me young, active and I believe more enjoyable as a person (not that I'm much of that lol).
I've spent all my 20s coding and learning and actively decided against relationship, as that would have completely eaten my time and I wouldn't enjoy how that time was spent.
If I could choose an age to start having kids, it would be 33. Still enough appetite for other stuff, but also a good amount of desire to procreate.
I’m late 50s, having kids younger means I now have young grandkids. The nice thing about them is they keep me young and active, but when they smell funny, have snotty noses, or when I’m just tired—-I can hand them back to their parents.
The best thing about grandkids, is no one really gets mad when you do the old “pull my finger” trick. You’re an old man and it’s expected of ya.
Late 20s or early 30s depending on how stable the rest of your life is would be my recommendation. But any time that works is better than no kids at all
> have kids when younger - when you have more strength and stamina
I remember chatting with our midwife, and she commented how well (physically) young women (<~23) handle birthing and after. Economically, culturally, and emotionally it's not a great idea these days though.
> I remember chatting with our midwife, and she commented how well (physically) young women (<~23) handle birthing and after.
Probably that's around the age when women had children for most of humanity's existence and what works best.
> Economically, culturally, and emotionally it's not a great idea these days though.
Maybe changing that should be the main focus of our governments? There is a clear quantitative signal (birth rates) that show our current approach to culture and life in general isn't working.
I don’t think the government can change it. At the most basic, women, like men, desire financial freedom, and that requires being valuable in the workforce (or having passive income from investments).
Straight paying women to have that financial security is also a problem, because you don’t want to incentivize someone to just have kids, you want to incentivize them to have well raised kids, and that is impossible to measure and a political quagmire.
Heck yes, imagine having 20 year old kids in my 40s instead of 0-5 year olds! If you want to have kids don’t wait around if possible, not only will you have way more energy but all the sooner they will be able to contribute to the household and just in time for your energy to start waning, BUT there’s a much bigger benefit I never noticed before:
The biggest gain of all is the extra 10-20 years you may be giving yourself to spend with your kids and grandkids, the opportunity cost is immense, I can’t emphasize this enough.
I had kids who were in their 20s when in my low 40s and now have a five year old at 60. I am convinced my energy level continues to be good because I'm spending it interacting with her. Last week I even fell off the slide at the playground while playing tag :)
Energy and health are personal. Age correlation with health is just statisical. I had a 75 year old come and drive miles and fix my air conditioning. Fit as a fiddle.
I definitely feel this too, the motivation is there to be ready for anything, because you really have no choice even, like dad reflexes as therapy.
There’s something to this for sure from a biological survival standpoint, having kids is naturally the completion of puberty, and the growth you experience raising children has so many more dimensions than the growth you experience while you’re still the one being raised.
It may very well be something more fundamental to health than we currently appreciate in modern life. Or perhaps it’s some kind of “law of equivalent exchange” where we have merely traded poisons from one cause of death to another, in terms of life expectancy.
It seems we can more easily avoid war and disease and famine today but modern living can end up being a trap that causes a significant number of people to experience a “failure to thrive” of sorts.
I married at 22 and moved to nyc. I lived through meeting peers that thought we were freaks (“you two are definitely gonna get divorced”), to the gradual normalization as we got older and more of our friends married. I knew lots of people that transitioned from young and invincible and definitely never going to get married to dismayed at coming up on 40 and feeling like they hadn’t quite started “real life” yet. I don’t like the article’s depiction of the guy “taking her under his wing” had they gotten married earlier, but I will say that there is something great about sharing your youth with someone unequivocally on your side, if life gives you the opportunity.
Every single “experience” brought my an opportunity for growth given the circumstances around said “experience”, where foregoing the “new experience” was, imo, getting stuck. I don’t regret having my experiences, but I would regret if I got married young
Given the no. of divorces, I think it is better to marry young, only if you have the commitment for marriage of course. Getting married at, say 40, divorced at 42 (let's say without kids) and starting another relationship at 45 meana you'll be over sixty when your child is in college. Thats a lot of responsibility on old shoulders. The same cycle is much more manageable if you get married at, say 26.
> Experience, we hoped, would broaden us. The new object seems to be the inverse: the contraction and refinement of the self, within and against the overwhelming flood of external information with which we are in constant contact.
I met my wife at 21, married at 32, I was a hard sceptic about marriage in my 20's after seeing my parents divorce in my late teens, they married too early and I didn't want to make that mistake.
As it was, our pre-marriage relationship was a period of huge growth for both of us until marriage was a natural progression, by which time we were both very different people but better suited to one another. When we had kids our relationship was strong and it got use through some tough times. It's a long road but it's a more stable one.
I wish I had married my wife sooner but I don't think she would have married me. :-). I certainly would have married her. Same thing with kids - I would have liked more sooner but it's a two to tango type thing.
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[ 79.9 ms ] story [ 1784 ms ] threadWe've been great influences on each other and if we had gotten together earlier, we'd be even further than we are now.
Neither me nor my wife are religious, but pooling our assets together and having children together means we are now intertwined to the level that third parties may need to intervene (in the event of a dispute or death or something) and it helps sort that out more easily.
I think for most people it's more of a costly signal of commitment. Although some people prefer a civil partnership instead, to codify a defacto relationship.
Which country? I have only heard about this happening in Brazil
NZ also doesn't have any tax benefits for being married
"Beauty unshared is diminished"
"Experiences" evaporate without being able to revive them with someone who experienced them with you. In my experience, at least
I suppose I might have had more “adventures” if I’d waited but honestly every time I hear a dating story from someone I know who is single I feel very lucky. When I look at the dating scene today it feels like I caught the last flight out of a war zone. Seems like it’s very easy to hook up but way harder to really connect.
Advice: no matter your age if you find someone you really love who has compatible values and goals, go for it. Obviously give it careful thought first but don’t pass it up thinking you’re going to miss out on (insert imaginary partner that probably represents something you want to improve about yourself).
If you are with someone and going through a rough time, work on it and don’t give up easy.
I was hesitant to share but I thought it would be better in the end. We often hear of negative experiences (divorce, abuse, etc.) but I regularly hear about couples quietly enjoying their long relationships together. Feels right to offer a counter-point to those stories to say it's not always a mistake.
My last partner was in the process of a second divorce. One of my family members has been through 3 divorces. Unpaid child support abound, which he'll never pay.
Honestly I'm just happy to have a place to live, and a great career. First girlfriend dumped me right after I got fired.
I do wonder, hypothetically she met me a few months later when I was doing much better. We marry. We attend church. Our kids are bilingual in Korean and English with hints of a South Central dialect.
But that's just a fantasy. Just as easily we could be divorced, no kids and I'm just paying alimony.
I guess if VR gets advanced enough in time I can plug into an ultra realistic version of the Sims...
Of course the most important thing is to do it (marry & start a family) with the right person, otherwise your life can actually get much worse than previously.
Hard to pay for a family on a 20 yo salary for most though.
I've spent all my 20s coding and learning and actively decided against relationship, as that would have completely eaten my time and I wouldn't enjoy how that time was spent.
If I could choose an age to start having kids, it would be 33. Still enough appetite for other stuff, but also a good amount of desire to procreate.
The best thing about grandkids, is no one really gets mad when you do the old “pull my finger” trick. You’re an old man and it’s expected of ya.
I remember chatting with our midwife, and she commented how well (physically) young women (<~23) handle birthing and after. Economically, culturally, and emotionally it's not a great idea these days though.
Probably that's around the age when women had children for most of humanity's existence and what works best.
> Economically, culturally, and emotionally it's not a great idea these days though.
Maybe changing that should be the main focus of our governments? There is a clear quantitative signal (birth rates) that show our current approach to culture and life in general isn't working.
Straight paying women to have that financial security is also a problem, because you don’t want to incentivize someone to just have kids, you want to incentivize them to have well raised kids, and that is impossible to measure and a political quagmire.
The biggest gain of all is the extra 10-20 years you may be giving yourself to spend with your kids and grandkids, the opportunity cost is immense, I can’t emphasize this enough.
Do you have a much younger partner, or are they not your biological child?
There’s something to this for sure from a biological survival standpoint, having kids is naturally the completion of puberty, and the growth you experience raising children has so many more dimensions than the growth you experience while you’re still the one being raised.
It may very well be something more fundamental to health than we currently appreciate in modern life. Or perhaps it’s some kind of “law of equivalent exchange” where we have merely traded poisons from one cause of death to another, in terms of life expectancy.
It seems we can more easily avoid war and disease and famine today but modern living can end up being a trap that causes a significant number of people to experience a “failure to thrive” of sorts.
If people who'd rather have married young write this way, I can only imagine how difficult they'd be to live with.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=T5qalNX5G94
But then at 38 we did divorce lol
This point really deserves its own article.
As it was, our pre-marriage relationship was a period of huge growth for both of us until marriage was a natural progression, by which time we were both very different people but better suited to one another. When we had kids our relationship was strong and it got use through some tough times. It's a long road but it's a more stable one.
So no, no regrets.