Comment by pkrotich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pkrotich | Hacker News Reader

This hits home for me… my parents are about the same age as yours and I’m 43.

We’re both part of sandwich generation [0] - the link provide general overview of how common it is and tips.

I’ll add that what you can do truly depends on your culture (and even tribe for me) - Americans or Westerners to generalize can simply put their aging parents in elderly care and call it the day - life moves on. If you’re foreign-ish then that a sensitive thing to do and even not an option to consider.

Luckily, for me, my parents live in rural Kenya - so it’s cheap to hire help and provide them with all the care they need in multigenerational setup.

While my parents are relatively healthy- my dad is starting to have recurring medical issues that needs close attention. He’s as stubborn as it gets - I cannot even mention the need to prepare for eventuality with stuff like a will because it a taboo.

My experience thus far has me thinking how I need to prepare myself so my kids don’t get sandwiched as well.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich_generation

I wondered if there was a name for it. It seemed strange to me for OP to be raising a young family while his parents are so old. That means both him and his father had children in their 40s (or perhaps one was even older). It honestly does seem far better for everyone if people have children in their 20s. I wish I could have done that.

My oldest is 24 and my youngest is 2 - I thought I would be done having kids by 30 but life happens (story for another day).

In general people are waiting until they’re stable financially before they have kids.

As for older parents, they simply had plenty of kids spanning 2-3 decades. For example - I’m 6th born of 8… so when I came along they were in 40s.

> It honestly does seem far better for everyone if people have children in their 20s.

There are lots of tradeoffs. On the one hand yes, maybe it means the kids will be out of the house before you start having to deal with parents. On the other hand it's quite likely to be bad financially, as in many cases you'll be down to one income and slower growth in that income during those critical 20s and 30s. That can leave you a bit strapped when you have to pay for college costs and parental-care costs and eventually your own retirement. I had my daughter at 39 and retired at 55. Without that last 10 years of income from my wife and rapid income growth for me, plus the magic of compound interest, I'm pretty sure I'd still be working and none of us would be any happier for it.

It's all very personal, obviously, which is precisely why I don't think one can (or should) generalize about an ideal age to have children.

The negatives are all constructed by the financial system, though. People need two incomes because everyone else has two incomes (two incomes are also usually more tax efficient than one big one). Why aren't people financially stable in their 20s? They're literally in the prime of their lives. Much less likely to fall ill etc. Essentially everyone has to delay their lives until later because everyone else is delaying their lives until later. There are no benefits I'm aware of with having children later (outside of the financial stuff) but there are many, many downsides.

> The negatives are all constructed by the financial system

There are two answers to that.

(a) So what? Financial realities are still realities, and impose yet other realities on those who live them. And those realities are not going to change in any conceivable short or medium time frame.

(b) It's not all financial. Time, energy, maturity are all factors too. I happen to believe the vast majority of 20-somethings are not mature enough to be responsible for another person (barely enough so to be responsible for themselves) but I don't turn that into an edict for others. When I had to help my daughter with something recently it was that decade-plus of extra life experience - not money - that turned out to be most helpful. The list goes on.

If you want to claim that the 20s are the ideal time for anyone to have children, you have to prove it. It's not sufficient to say that "you don't see it" when that could just be a reflection of your own limited circumstances or perspective. The reality is that having kids later works very well for some people. Accept that they're not you.

I’ll concur to a point on financials - but older generation got married at 19 and had stable families, so it’s not truly about responsibilities.

I think the idea of career first is a bigger factor and also we now live in a false “construct” of true love and everyone is waiting on or looking ideal mate.

> older generation got married at 19 and had stable families

Have you looked at divorce rates lately? Rates of child abuse, addiction, suicide? Seems to me that many of those families are not so stable or - even more importantly - functional. Also, if you look at how many of those formerly young parents in my generation and before have conducted themselves since their nests emptied, the picture's even grimmer. I suspect that they - and the rest of us - would be better off if they'd had children to help guide them into modernity in their later working years. Winding down any connection to the younger generation - and through them to changes in technology or society - at barely 40 doesn't seem to lead to a healthy 60, 70, or 80. The appeal to tradition fails.

"Americans or Westerners to generalize can simply put their aging parents in elderly care and call it the day - life moves on." That's quite a dismissal. Reading it sound like 'westerners and Americans just don't care about their elderly ones'. I assure you that's not the case and in general every generalization it's wrong almost by definition. Be well.

It’s sloppy on my part… I meant it’s more acceptable culturally to do so… not that they don’t care.

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