[entertainme]

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I am just about to turn 30 in one year, so yeah, I probably have a view-point that you don't have:

During your 20's, you are not emotionally mature. Sorry, but that is true and statistics show that the average person gets married at 24 (f) and 26 (m) and are divorced within 7 years. For the most part, people that have children in their 20s cannot afford to have children, have dreams that are not achieved, and these dreams are unachievable once the kids are in their lives. As much as people don't want to admit it, several people have not had enough life or sexual experience before they are married. Look at the emotional affairs thread and look at some of the attitudes that are displayed there. If 50% of all people cheat on their spouse at one time, what kind of emotional strain is going on at home. Kids think more on an emotional than intellectual level. No matter how much parents try to hide their anger and guilt from each other, a kid knows, and the impact is there. For this, people should not have children too early.

To be honest, no 27 year-old has a grasp of the realities of the world. You may think you know at that age, but you don't. At some point, you will realize that the world is too big for you to attain all of your dreams and for you to understand what things means. A child is only going to hinder that growth. I think that there is a much better chance of creating a happy family after 30 than under 30 for the prior reasons. I don't have the answers to life. I do know that I cannot learn until I recognize how incredibly stupid I am, and right around 30 or so, that wisdom drives home. So no, you shouldn't have kids before you are 30, IMO, because your ability to create the best possible child-hood is hindered dramatically, especially if you have kids at 25 and want to stretch yourself to higher achievement at 29.

Mind that the central thesis of the quote that you LOLed is that we are living longer, aging slower and learning more in a shorter period of time. Paradoxically, this bombardment of intellectual information slows our emotional growth.

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I'm sorry, you guys are really losing me with your generalizations. You'd be amazed at how much maturity having a child before thirty brings to the party. FWIW my kids never lived in an apartment either. NTTAWWT.

IMO it's much more people dependent than age dependent. Also, if you haven't have kids, you really have no idea how it changes your life.