Posted by Maria Dimitrova

Read this if: You feel at a crossroads about whether to have children now, later or never

Gain: A mature approach to the question and the confidence that you are in control of your life and happiness

Cost: Maintaining your strength and persistence when withstanding the pressure exerted on you by relatives, friends and society in attempts to intervene with the process of taking such a personal decision

Having a child brings one of the biggest changes in your lifestyle. And it is often a tough and scary decision to take even for people who know that they want a baby. To avoid feelings of frustration, anxiety and regret, it’s vital to try to find the answer to this question: when is the optimal time to bring a new life into this world?

Let’s look at the factors connected with this issue:

• The biological factor

There is a certain age by which it is easier to conceive. Most specialists state it is better to give birth before the age of 35. A study by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) warned couples against waiting. The brutal findings it emphasized are that for women aged 35, fertility problems are six times more common than at 25. By the age of 40 a woman is “more likely to have a miscarriage than give birth”. Up to 30% of 35-year-olds take a year to get pregnant, compared with 5% of 25-year-olds.

• The financial and social security factor

You need to be able to afford at least the essentials for raising a child. Having stable income is crucial. A research done by Hans-Peter Kohler, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has shown that countries with stronger welfare systems produce more children—and happier parents. Danish parents considered their lives happier after having a child unlike parents in other countries which are faced with more financial challenges. The research suggests that if you are no longer fretting about spending too little time with your children after they’re born (because you have a year of paid maternity leave), if you’re no longer anxious about finding affordable child care once you go back to work (because the state subsidizes it), if you’re no longer wondering how to pay for your children’s education and health care (because they’re free), you are much more likely to enjoy parenting.

• Your personal emotional preparedness

To check if you are emotionally prepared to have children (and not just forced to do it by what society, your friends and parents expect from you) you have to answer these questions:

When you create a picture in your mind of having children and taking care of them, is it a positive or negative one? How do you feel when you imagine this – mostly happy or mostly scared?

Do you know who you are and what you want out of life? It’s important to establish your own identity as person before taking on the identity of parent.

• The healthy relationship factor

Contrary to the opinion of many people, a lot of studies show that parenthood rarely strengthens a relationship, just the opposite – it exerts huge pressure on a relationship and it will endure the stress provided that you are compatible as a couple. An example of such a study in the field is the one done by the psychologists Lauren Papp and E. Mark Cummings. They asked 100 long-married couples to spend two weeks meticulously documenting their disagreements. Nearly 40 percent of them were about their kids.

John W. Jacobs, M.D. in his book “All You Need Is Love and Other Lies about Marriage” gives a detailed explanation of the different ways in which having children might jeopardize your marriage and suggests strategies to prevent alienation and frustration from taking over your relationship.

Taking into consideration all these factors, the ideal time to have children is when you are in your twenties or not later than the age of 35, you have a well-paid job, a happy relationship and you feel a strong personal desire and confidence that you want to have children.

Of course, in reality not everything happens as you have planned it. And a great number of people don’t fit in the description above when they are faced with the decision about having children.

There may be numerous variations in which you may have children without meeting all these conditions and be happy with your decision to do it.

Nowadays most celebrities choose to become parents at a later stage in their lives – after the age of 35-40. And it’s not only the celebrities. The IVF treatment has allowed many couples and single women to conceive in their 30s and 40s. It seems that it is not obligatory to be in a relationship to have children. You can do it on your own if you have a strong desire for it and are sure that you can cope with the new expenses which come with the baby.

Here is what Mariella Frostrup wrote for The Observer: “I had my babies at 42 and 43, an age I wouldn’t have chosen, but a decision that has resulted in nothing but the purest form of pleasure. I am neither unique, nor a freak of nature. Yet my then gynaecologist laughed in my face when I said I’d met the man I wanted to have children with and told me I had a 0.0001% chance of conceiving. Thankfully, I took his negativity as a challenge rather than a setback. At present, two of my friends are pregnant in their 40s, one naturally, one thanks to IVF treatment.”

But if one factor has to be selected as the most important to decide when to have children, it should be the emotional preparedness. The decision has to be based on the right motives which exclude the following: to save or strengthen your partnership; to please others, like your parents; because everybody around you is doing it; because you feel bored with life; to prove you’re a real woman (or man); to prove you can do a better job of parenting than your parents did; to have an excuse to quit work. Another common reason for considering becoming a parent even when you are not ready for this or you don’t actually want it is the fear that not having children leads to a lonely old age. But this popular belief is contradicted by a new University of Florida study, which instead found similar levels of well-being among parents and people without children in their later years. At the same time, having children is no guarantee of happiness later in life, said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, a UF sociology professor who conducted the study. You can learn more about this here: http://scienceblog.com/1511/study-remaining-childless-does-not-lead-to-loneliness-in-old-age/.

You need to realize that bringing a new life into the world is a long-term responsibility and the most reasonable aim of doing it is to make your life and your child’s life happy and fulfilling. Surveys suggest that parenting affects the level of your happiness in a positive or in a negative way. Some parents have shared that loving their children and loving the act of parenting are not the same thing. Feeling happy most of the time while parenting is not a selfish desire but a vital condition for ensuring your children’s happiness as you will transfer this feeling to them. Being dissatisfied because of the compromises you have made for the sake of the family doesn’t contribute to a healthy relationship with your children which in turn will affect their emotional state and sense of security.

It turns out that the most significant thing you can do in order to enhance the chance to make the right decision regarding the optimal time for you to become a parent (which is pretty subjective) is to increase the level of your self-awareness and self-knowledge. The more you know yourself, the better you can predict how parenting can affect your happiness, respectively the happiness of your children.

The same applies to your partner. If you both have the desire to become parents, feel emotionally prepared for this and you believe that you are compatible with him/her, then you are ready to embark on this lifetime change as a couple.

Recommended books:

All You Need Is Love and Other Lies About Marriage : How to Save Your Marriage Before It’s Too Late

Committed: A Love Story