You should have children in your 40s | Hacker News Reader

You should have children in your 40s

systemoflife.substack.com

7 pointsdilanj13 comments

> Children are an amazing experience, but one that does not have to be on someone else’s schedule.

Good luck with that attitude when your child is born and requires ALL your attention ALL the time.

Probably true regardless of when they are born, and probably easier if you happen to be older and wealthier ;)

I think the author presents his points from strongest to weakest.

People have different priorities in life. Just how much someone cares about career, financial, social success really feeds into how they'd weigh these points. I would say the author wants children, but desires money and success more.

The point about 'energetic 70 year olds' is cherry picking and really quite weak. Many, if not most, people experience serious physical decline beginning in their late 30s and certainly by the 40s - even with some attention to diet and exercise. I certainly have.

Thanks for your input!

I do want money and success, but more than anything, I want to realize as many of my own dreams as possible, and also more time and space to invest in personal growth.

On fitness - you are right about 'most people' and I my point entirely is that you should resolve to be fit a fit 70 year old and work towards it. This decision might help you in doing so.

I think the point about IVF and surrogacy is really quite a good one.

Would it be better to freeze eggs at 18 than 25? Is there a 'too early?'

That is a really good question! Not sure if there's sufficient data. But what I'm certain of is that egg freezing can be so much cheaper.

For example, even today, it costs Facebook about 20k per employee per freezing cycle to offer this benefit, where's if you go direct, it can be 5k.

And this is without scale.

> The dreaded issue of the 'biological clock' is where cryopreservation - or egg freezing - has completely changed the game.

Straight from the intro of Idiocracy.

And say you have your 1st child in your 40s. What about 2nd and 3rd? It takes 2.1 children per woman to sustain a population. How many 50 year old parents with a 5 year old running around will have the energy for a second child?

As I point out, your biological ability to have children doesn't diminish. So I don't see why you can't have your 2 or 3 children. There are of course options like surrogates, and other more cutting edge tech enabled options.

And as for energy, the point is to commit to your fitness so that you'll be a very healthy and energetic 50 year old :)

I agree it's possible, but the developed world already has sub-replacement fertility. Each additional hurdle (freezing eggs, committing to fitness, avoiding other health issues, still having the desire for more children in your 50s, ...) filters away another significant fraction of the population, until what is left has no hope of replacement fertility, or even a manageably slow decline.

You'll hit a population cliff, with all the pain associated with that metaphor.

You are absolutely correct. However as a individual decision maker your options are far limited. We should certainly think about economic incentives to address what you point out.

This is indeed just idiotic. I mean it is good to have it if life doesn't go as planned, but for everyone else this is probably a bad decision. If you do it for your life style, chances are there aren't people wanting to have kids with you anyway.

Don't know, but it is probably also quite expensive.

You should speak only for yourself. I should not have children in my 40s.

Tautologically, indeed :)

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