I can honestly say
that having had kids so early in life was a double edged sword. I was 27 when my oldest was born, and almost 30 when the last one arrived. Having married a Catholic I listened to five years of whining about wanting to be pregnant before I gave in, then spent the remainder of my 20s and all of my 30s taking care of kids.

This means that it wasn't until about a year ago that I managed to even get outside of the continental US (Canada and Mexico don't count). I've never had the opportunity to take trips even around my own country, except to see family member or take the kids to Disney. I've never owned a new car, and for a lot of years every car I had was a kid-friendly wagon of some sort- no convertibles for me, nothing fun and zippy, just minivans and sedans. I never got the chance to be young and care-free.

On the other hand... well, I have my kids. I'm 45, and will be 48 when the youngest graduates and goes to college. I'll be fairly young at that point, and can be care-free then. Meanwhile I'm young and energetic enough to keep up with them, and have a much closer relationship with them than I did with my parents, both of whom were in their mid thirties when I was born. I can take my kids out and have fun with them as being almost adults- my daughter and I can go out to dinner together or go do things together much as I would do with an adult woman.

All I can tell you is that you need to be REALLY sure that you're ready to dedicate the next twenty years of your life to taking care of another person, possibly without another adult to help. If you get kids and discover that it's not what you really want to do, you can't back out of it. You're committed, unless you become one of those people who basically abandon their kids and let them become chavs.

Think long and hard on this. It's the most important decision you'll ever make.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 24 Nov 2008, 14:18, Reply)