You all are probably familiar with the financial arguments in favor of waiting to have children: save money, establish your careers, etc. Yet there are financial reasons for not waiting as well.
I write this as somebody pushing 40 who had his first kid at age 33 and who currently has #4 on the way. I didn’t get started early on account of the fact that I didn’t get married until I was in my 30s.
But there may be some of you out there who are in a position to get going on starting a family but have not yet done so. If you do intend to have kids at some point, I recommend you don’t wait too long.
Why? First of all, it’s cheaper to reproduce when you’re younger. 95% of women who start trying to conceive at age 25 will eventually have a child, but only 80-85% of those who start at age 35 will. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to try something like in vitro fertilization, which is really, really, expensive. How expensive? Try this:
The average IVF cost is $12,000, but it can be as much as $15,000. It may be as low as $10,000, but it’s rarely lower than that. These prices are for one cycle of IVF.
And if you go this route there’s a good chance you’ll need more than one cycle. Maybe your health insurance will cover this… or maybe it won’t. Not all plans do.
You may get to a point where you decide to adopt a baby, but that is very expensive as well: try $10-$30,000 per baby.
And let’s not forget that both you and the baby are less likely to have expensive pregnancy complications when you’re younger. This isn’t just about the ladies, either: men, you should realize that every year you wait adds an additional 2 mutations to your child’s genome. Which isn’t huge given that there are billions of nucleotides, but still.
You may think that it would help your career to wait to have kids, but keep in mind that you have more energy when you’re young. Taking care of a baby is a brutal contest of endurance, and dealing with four wake-ups per night and a full-time job is easier when you’re 25 than when you’re 40.
And if you decide to drop out of the workforce for a few years to take care of your kids, it’s easier to re-enter the workforce or start a new career at age 30 than at age 45.
Not only that, but I have to wonder if having kids earlier can make retirement easier as well. On the one hand, it’s certainly easier to build wealth before you have kids. But think about college: if you apply for financial aid, you will be expected to contribute up to 5% of your assets per year. If you had your kids young and haven’t built up too many assets, you’ll get more financial aid–and you’ll have more time to build up your retirement nest egg. In fact, your kids could be done with college just as you’re in your peak earnings years:
Whereas if you have your kids later, you contribute more of your wealth to college expenses and your income is likely to be lower when you’re done. There’s less time to rebound from the financial hit and less ability to save.
Obviously, everybody’s situation is different and as with all things kid-related Your Mileage May Vary. All I’m saying is that waiting doesn’t necessarily make things easier and can actually make things more difficult, so please consider all the pros and cons. There’s never a perfect time to have kids.
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