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.