Many women who are busy in their thirties and early forties building their career or enjoying their single life style are opting to delay having children by freezing their eggs. Will this be fair to the children that they are having in their fifties and sixties?
By freezing your eggs before you turn forty, you are decreasing the risk for birth defects if you are planning to get pregnant later in life. No question that this is a huge benefit to the health and well-being of these children. But what about raising these children that you had later in life. Some individuals believe that we become more patient in later life and are therefore better able to deal with parenting issues, I am not sure that I agree. We have phrases like "grumpy old men" for a reason. Another thing to consider is the energy required to really participate fully in your child's life. As your body is starting to show some wear, are you going to feel like keeping up with a toddler.
As a baby boomer, I am facing the prospect of dealing with aging parents. I am better prepared to do this financially and emotionally in my forties and fifties then I ever would have been in my teens or twenties. If you put off having your children into your fifties or sixties, your child may be facing these problems just as they are graduating high school.
Just some food for thought. I believe that the best years for starting a family are between the late twenties and forty. You have experienced enough of life by that time to be able to accept the responsibility of parenting and will still be young enough to enjoy all the stages of your child's youth. I will confess to you that I gave birth to our first child at twenty-two and I do believe that we would have been better prepared if we had just waited a few more years to start our family.
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