Need advice

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Fluminator
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Need advice

#1 Post by Fluminator » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:59 am

My folks are saying I work too much and if I don’t settle down and have a family while I can, I’ll regret it when I’m older.
But having a family would essentially force me to get a stable job and it would not let me take any risks with my profession (like maybe working on a project or invention). I would essentially be stunted for 20+ years until the kids move out since I’d need to support them.

I’m not completely a robot though and I see the merits to starting a family though. There’s more to life than work.

I just don’t want to have regrets whichever path I take, I know my father had to give up most of his life plans to have kids (although now he’s finally getting back to them at around 55 yrs old) and I guess I just want to know if any of the older people have any advice. Its 1 am so maybe I just needed to out my thoughts somewhere.
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Re: Need advice

#2 Post by Octavious » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:32 am

Regrets are more about the person than the actions they take. If you're the sort of person who has regrets you will have them regardless of what you do. If you're not, you won't. Back in the good old days we had tradition to take care of most of these decisions for us so we could happily get on with making the best of it and enjoying ourselves. These days the call is ours, and that tyrannical freedom means that everything that doesn't work out is partly our fault. It's a bugger and no mistake.

My advice is toss a coin. If you look at the result of the coin toss with a mixture of horror and dread, or merely a deep sense of disappointment, you know it's best to override it and pick the other path ;).
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Re: Need advice

#3 Post by Restitution » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:57 am

If you grow old without kids you will regret it. So if you don't plan to grow old you don't need kids.
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Re: Need advice

#4 Post by Senlac » Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:18 am

I’ll give you my father’s advise that worked well for me. He said there are 3 things in life that require a large income;

1. Responsibility for others (ie. the family you are referring to).
2. Living in an expensive place (for us London).
3. Being in debt (for most folks their mortgage).

He said try & only do 2 at a time. Try & get all of this done between 30 & 50.
Those are the years where for most, making money is easiest, so the best time to have demands on your income.

I followed his advise, started having children at 30, retired at 53. It wasn’t that difficult & I’m very happy to have my sons & now their families.

Before 30 the dreams & aspirations make everything other than career building difficult. After 50 I found the motivation to compete in the rat race dries up. As usual my father turned out to be right. The older I get the more amazed I am at his words of wisdom. He gets smarter as each year passes...

Good luck to you, Senlac
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Re: Need advice

#5 Post by PRINCE WILLIAM » Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:41 pm

Try to estimate the gravity of a family in your life not only with in the form your life has now but also with the shape it will take in the future. As already mentioned, the urge to work and achieve things professionally calms down with the passing of years, and at some point, you'll retire. What will you do then? How do you picture your life? Without a family, this time may come to be a hard one, a lonely one too.
I have no family, I chose not to have one, and I am okay with this. We are retiring late here, and I have many years of work ahead of me, and I am confident that I will be able to handle the loneliness of a life without my profession. Can you say the same? In the end, this is the question you have to answer.
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Re: Need advice

#6 Post by Jedi Jack » Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:45 pm

Look at old people and their life situations. Are they happy? Are they grumpy? Are the full of life or resigned to go back and forth over the same plow lines on the field every day until they die. Are they successful? Are they desperate living on handouts? Now. Which one do you want to be? Figure out how they arrived in their situation or predicament then apply those lessons to your own life
As for raising a family, that will happen when you choose or not choose to do so. Many are happy starting a family latter in life. Many are happy without having a family. What ever you do choose, it will define where your efforts and money go. If you decide to go solo or with a significant other you can focus on your self. If you have a family, the significant portion of your time, effort and wealth will be toward your family, but you will have lots of love and support as you grow old. If you have a family and do not put your effort into it, you will probably end up in divorce and kids who do not want to be near you.
You can still have all the things you want in life and be successful, but you will have to work your ass off to get it. You can still be happy while you do it, but if you do not work hard for it, you wont get it.
A lot of kids i mentor say Bill Gates never went to college. I tell them yup. He was also the first one in the office every day and the last to leave. Are you?

Good luck, dont overthink it. Most of life will happen no matter what you decide. Once in a while you get to pick the direction.

One other piece of advice I wish I had learned.
Exercise, eat right, save and invest 100 bucks each month, take a little time to live in the moment away from screens each day. You will be healthy and a millionaire by the time you are 50.
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Re: Need advice

#7 Post by diplomat61 » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:15 pm

Life is full of opportunities so there will always be choices that you can look back at and ask "what if …". You can't follow them all; that's life.

The danger is that later you regret decisions you made, or worse, criticise yourself for them. I think the best way to guard against that is to make choices for "good" reasons, for example because it's something important to you and not because you are comfortable as things are, or even too lazy to bother changing. But, there may still be some choices that don't work out; if so, too bad. Giving your "future" self a hard time for something your "then" self did or didn't do won't change them.

Choosing to have children should be the biggest decision most people ever take. A 20 year commitment that you ought never walk away from. An awesome undertaking that no-one who thinks about it will ever feel truly ready for.

It is also deeply rewarding, and something that most people manage to combine with a career. Would having kids really limit your career choices?
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Re: Need advice

#8 Post by Senlac » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:51 pm

A quick comment on the superb quality advice I’m reading here. So often I read “advise” & think the author should not be allowed to potentially damage the lives of their listeners!

Here we have some great principles.

Life is too short to base all your decisions on your own mistakes or successes.
The mistakes/successes of others provide excellent direction for good decision making.

Making challenging decisions based on good motivations/reasons. A superb guide to the correct decision making when faced with a new situation previously not experienced.

The number of times I’ve heard people regret a decision that had a negative impact on the family, but a positive impact on their bank balance. When asked which they consider important they always say the “family”. Why then did they then sacrifice the important in their own opinion even, for the comparatively trivial? A recipe for regrets.

Diplomacy players look to be people who have lived & learnt, unlike so many others I encounter. Thanks to all, you’ll reinvigorate my faith in humankind at this rate!
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Re: Need advice

#9 Post by Fluminator » Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:46 am

Thanks everyone! Quite useful stuff, and it is more than I’d ever hope from a niche online internet community lol. I have read every response a couple times now.
I had a gut feeling a lot of people here would have been in a similar position in the past, and I didn’t want simple hogwash like “Live for yourself, kids aren’t worth it” or “It’s a sad life being single” which is all I feel I get looking at today’s culture.
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Re: Need advice

#10 Post by dargorygel » Tue Jul 16, 2019 2:33 am

I was about to write: "Live for yourself, flum... kids aren't worth it." Followed by "It's a sad life being single."
But I changed my mind in the nick of time.


And flum, I think you DID get some good directional advice here. Good thread.
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Re: Need advice

#11 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:06 pm

How old are you? If you are in your 20s don't worry about what other people say. You have plenty of time to make a decision.

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Re: Need advice

#12 Post by Restitution » Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:24 pm

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:06 pm
How old are you? If you are in your 20s don't worry about what other people say. You have plenty of time to make a decision.
Unless you're a woman, in which case you might actually not have plenty of time.
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Re: Need advice

#13 Post by diplomat61 » Tue Jul 16, 2019 7:55 pm

I would add that there are two things that limit your flexibility: a mortgage and kids. The former you can escape from, the latter you should not.

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Re: Need advice

#14 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:11 pm

Restitution wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:24 pm
flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:06 pm
How old are you? If you are in your 20s don't worry about what other people say. You have plenty of time to make a decision.
Unless you're a woman, in which case you might actually not have plenty of time.
I don't know. I know women's fertility is highest in their 20s...but I know plenty of women who have had their first child in their late 30s/early 40s. I don't think 30 is a hard cutoff for women either.

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Re: Need advice

#15 Post by Restitution » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:15 pm

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:11 pm
I don't know. I know women's fertility is highest in their 20s...but I know plenty of women who have had their first child in their late 30s/early 40s. I don't think 30 is a hard cutoff for women either.
Almost women are infertile by 40 and fertility drops off rapidly after 30. Plus, health outcomes for children of older parents, especially older mothers, are pretty significantly worse.

You might know some lucky women, but those are anecdotes and not statistics.
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Re: Need advice

#16 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:22 pm

Restitution wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:15 pm
flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:11 pm
I don't know. I know women's fertility is highest in their 20s...but I know plenty of women who have had their first child in their late 30s/early 40s. I don't think 30 is a hard cutoff for women either.
Almost women are infertile by 40 and fertility drops off rapidly after 30. Plus, health outcomes for children of older parents, especially older mothers, are pretty significantly worse.

You might know some lucky women, but those are anecdotes and not statistics.
It isn't luck. The average age of women having their first child in places like NY and San Francisco is 31 and 32 meaning there are lots of women that have babies older than that (I live in NY):

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... e-gap.html

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Re: Need advice

#17 Post by Restitution » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:32 pm

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:22 pm
It isn't luck. The average age of women having their first child in places like NY and San Francisco is 31 and 32 meaning there are lots of women that have babies older than that (I live in NY):

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... e-gap.html
Those stats don't include women who don't have any children, lol. Yeah, obviously the average age women are having their first child is increasing a lot. This stat says nothing about the millions of women who waited until they were 35 and then discovered they were infertile.

I also seriously doubt that the first child age distribution is a bell curve.

If you look at the stats for the surviving birth rate of couples over age (the relevant statistic), there is a drastic reduction over the course of the 30's from 91% to 64%.

So yeah, you'll probably be fine if you wait through your 40's... but there's a 30% increased risk. That is a risk worth worrying about.
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Re: Need advice

#18 Post by Restitution » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:38 pm

Not to mention the increased risk of many genetic diseases. For 45 year old mothers, *1 in 32 babies* have a birth defect.
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Re: Need advice

#19 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:40 pm

Restitution wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:32 pm
flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:22 pm
It isn't luck. The average age of women having their first child in places like NY and San Francisco is 31 and 32 meaning there are lots of women that have babies older than that (I live in NY):

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... e-gap.html
Those stats don't include women who don't have any children, lol. Yeah, obviously the average age women are having their first child is increasing a lot. This stat says nothing about the millions of women who waited until they were 35 and then discovered they were infertile.

I also seriously doubt that the first child age distribution is a bell curve.
Do you have any real numbers to back that up...or are you pulling that millions of women number out of your posterior? You can't complain about me not giving statistics...then not give real stats to backup your own argument. And you can't just ignore facts you don't like because they don't align with your opinion.

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Re: Need advice

#20 Post by Restitution » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:44 pm

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:40 pm
Do you have any real numbers to back that up...or are you pulling that millions of women number out of your posterior? You can't complain about me not giving statistics...then not give real stats to backup your own argument. And you can't just ignore facts you don't like because they don't align with your opinion.
Given that 15% of women are infertile by 35, yes, there are many millions of women who have discovered that they are infertile by this age. I don't know how many there are in absolute terms, but it's certainly increasing since people are waiting longer and longer to have children.

This means that out of ~4 billion women on Earth, 600 million were or will be infertile by the age of 35. I don't know how many of those women wanted children, how many had them before 35, or what. But that's definitely 600 million women at risk for a pretty unfortunate event.

One third of couples are infertile and that number has been going up.

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