| A
female
,
anonymous
writes: I am 22 and my husband is 24. I was talking to him about the possibility of having children soon and he said, "Wait till we're between 40 and 44 years old. Then we will have enough money to raise a family."He is hard-working, but also very affectionate too. At the moment he is making a lot of money from his job as a freelance radio presenter. I can't understand why he wants to leave having children until I'm aged 40-44.What should I do? How should I discuss the issue with him?
View related questions:
money Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, willywombat  +, writes (29 January 2006):
 I think your hubby is trying to put off having kids at all, but you have to remember this, there are TWO of you in this relationship. There is not just one person with needs and wants.If you agree with him (which I have no doubt you do not) then fair enough. But you must tell him that you want kids before this and if he is not willing to comprimise than you ust make a decision about how you see your future, with or without him. I think that he is being selfish. You cannot plan for everything in this life and if you wait that long for kids who is to say you will even fall pregnant then anyhow?
Good luck, you ahve a difficult time ahead of you and I would like to know how it pans out for you when you sit down to talk to him.x
A
female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (29 January 2006):
 I think it would be a mistake to go along with this. For one thing, your husband is basically telling you that he isn't ready to have kids "ever", since I doubt very much that he really even believes -- here, in his 20s -- that he'll ever BE 40 years old...
(I can say this since I turned 44 last year! Certainly in my early 20s I never thought I'd actually ever reach this 'extreme' age!)
Secondly, what makes him so sure that you'll have more disposable income in your 40s than you have now? There's no guarantee of that.
More importantly, though, female fertility takes an enormous nosedive after the mid-30s, and a pregnancy through IVF is much less than certain. In fact, the chances of falling pregnant naturally after age 40 is substantially less than it is after age 35, and up to 2/3 of women have fertility problems at 40.
That's not to say you *can't* start having kids at that age; it's just less likely and if you do have problems, your chances of successful assisted reproduction are much reduced. (Not to mention that IVF costs between $5,000 and $10,000 a cycle!)
You need to enlist the help of a professional to ensure that your husband knows all the facts, instead of just waving you off when you try to talk with him. Start with a discussion with your GP or gyno, ask him or her for some information about later-age fertility, and bring it home to your husband. If nothing else, it should give you a starting place for a discussion with him about your mutal plans for kids.
This can be a make-or-break issue for some couples, so I urge you not to wait too long to find out his real feelings.
Take care...
...............................
A
female
reader, smeedle +, writes (28 January 2006):
 Ther is no right time to have kids, younger is good because you are fit, you have more energy and you are still young when they grow up but you dont have as much money or stability, older is good because you are mature, you have travelled and you are more financialy stable but you will be retirement age when your child leaves university.
Your husband is enjoying having you to himself with some money to spoil you with, he is still making his mark and maybe until now he had not even given having children a second thought, you need to talk this through with him, put forward your reasons for wanting children now and listen to his reasons for children later, maybe you could agree to talk again in a few months time and this way it stays on the agenda, you do need to meet half way with this as it is one of the most important decisions you will make together.
...............................
|
