yeah i decided at a young age that i'm not going to be ready to start a family until i'm at least 35. free time is awesome

this has been my logic for a while, although recently i have been starting to wonder if i'm overrating the value of passing on my genes.

think it will come down to whether i'll get more out of my time raising a kid or YOLO'ing until i die. guessing the former will win out, but i'm only 27 and have time

Super secondhand, but I've seen claims that happiness studies generally find parents are less happy for most of the chunk of their lives where they are actively parenting, and then somewhat more happy in old age. So, a mixed bag.

While it's an unpopular opinion these days, I am usually pretty skeptical of people who decide not to have kids for hedonistic reasons.

EDIT: re: demographic changes, I've also been told that the age shift is major on the coasts but actually not that substantial in red states.

It's not unusual at all to be 50+ at HS graduation even for your first kid.

DAS BOOT:

how old are you? where are you from? i feel like you're the biggest enigma in the world

Not having kids is elite. Worlds overpopulated as it is and it certainly doesn't need another me running around.

Looking at census data (page 4 is the relevant one here) it seems like there was already a pretty big shift between 1980 and 1990, which would be pretty close to the relevant points for when chim and you would have graduated from HS. As suggested before, it also depends where you grew up.

There's no question that it's a lot more common these days.

Not long until the GUN CRAZIES correct that balance amirite?!?

why do people keep saying the world is overpopulated?

also, demographics matter a lot more than raw population imo.

Cars are just a government conspiracy to keep the population in check.

I think we need dkgo to pop in and share his thoughts on overpopulation

I just had my first kid (boy) in August and it's awesome. I was 33-1/2 years old and my wife was 32-2/3 at the time.

So I'll be like 51 or so at his graduation. That shouldn't be weird at all. One thing that does bother me though is the weirdness that will ensue from now until then. I live in what I would call a lower-middle or middle-middle class neighborhood and let's just say the parents here seem very young. It will bother me when my boy has friends whose parents are 10 years younger than us. I'm already not the most sociable person and having to chat with parents who are that much younger than me... I feel like I won't be able to relate to them. But that's not some big obstacle or anything. A family right across the street just had their first kid, a little boy, in December and they are only a few years younger than us. The 4 of us get along real well so I think those 2 will be good friends. And it will be good for him to have a black best friend so he can make jokes on online fora and not get banned.

So far, being a dad is awesome. We are going to have probably 2 kids at the most. I'm 2 of 4 and she's 1 of 1 and so we both agreed 2 or 3 kids is pretty much the only reasonable number.

Also as F60 said, I'm basically the only person in my group of friends who has a kid yet. But they are all college-educated yuppie wannabe types so it's not too surprising. A couple ladies I'm still friends with from college who are in my profession are really the only ones who have had kids and they both started just after turning 30, since it matters for women who don't want downies.

I've heard people say three kids is the sanity breaking point.

Can anyone confirm/deny?

Lol malthusians

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-li...smile/1400225/

2:02 for dkgo's thoughts

Damn, amichele thread deleted. Was pretty much dead anyway.

never had kids, but I'm thinking I'd like 3-5. Definitely not 1 and never two unless they're both boys and even then I probably want one more.

No chance I have over 2 kids.

With 2 kids you still can have at least one parent at all your kids' events and keep some sort of free time. 3 kids and you start having to sacrifice significant amounts of free time to be a good parent.

I grew up as the oldest of four, and it seems like my siblings are all in agreement on the "no more than 2, thanks" front. In terms of difficulty, everything I hear is that 1->2 is worse than 0->1, which is pretty sobering.

the ****? I was still like 6 days behind

Rat's fault.

funnily enough this is true. rat, post the vid here please. I'd like to watch it after work.

I plan to father multiple bastards and have other men raise them. Passing on genes without doing any work ftw

what video are we speaking of

even the atf thread got snap deleted. I thought the whole point of that forum was for discussion of stuff like this.

Sklansky deleting michele threads in ATF. Brandi fallout?

Having more than two kids seems horrible.