With his hair aflame with grey and most his life behind him already, my father brought me into this world at an old age of forty-five. My mother had complications because she was older and her body was not able to easily cope with the trials of giving birth. The birthing process was not an easy one for my parents, because they waited many years before deciding on having children. I never had the opportunity to live the same life many children were able to experience because of that decision. Due to their fairly old age, my parents were sometimes struggling to keep up with my siblings and I as growing up. Even though doing a great job raising us, it didn’t go unnoticed that the years were taking their toll on my parents one after another, much sooner than the parents with kids our age should’ve. Similarly to my parents, my wife Serena and I were married last year at young ages 20 and 23 respectively. Even though we both have ambitious plans for our near future – Serena heading out to Med school while I’m going to keep on studying computer science and possibly even attend in a Law School later on - in planning out our lives we do not want to make the same mistake that my parents once made. We want to have our first child before the age of thirty-five because we want to be physiologically healthy, we want to have energy to spend with our children, and start our family at young age.
The first reason I want to have children before the age of 35 is so that Serena and I are both physiologically healthy and readily able to conceive a child. Though we are still in the beginning stages of our marriage, being healthy and active is an incredibly important part of our lives. If we are financially able to have children at a younger age than 35, our bodies, especially reproductive organs, are significantly healthier and more functional than past that age. Being the male in the relationship I know that recently there has been more information available regarding “aging sperm”, and that males older than thirty-five are far more likely to have mutations in their sperm which will propagate to the child. According to a Times article, aging men potentially pass an increasing number of genetic mutations on to their offspring. At the age of twenty there are only twenty-five possible mutations, and by the age of thirty-five that number increases more than a hundred percent to sixty-five possible mutations (Course Reader, pg. 174). The developments about the man’s contributions to infertility are still coming to light and I am interested to see more research about the matter as new information is found out. Serena is still in her prime well below the age of thirty-five, so if we decide to get pregnant while she is in her twenties she will have a twenty to twenty-five percent chance of conceiving a child naturally per menstrual cycles. If we decide to wait until she is thirty-five, she will only have a five percent chance to naturally get pregnant, and very soon after that the number drops to below one percent (Course Reader, pg. 168). It seems very clear to me that our bodies are telling us that we are designed to have children earlier in life. The biological and physiological factors all direct us as a species to having children in our twenties. So, in other words the sooner the better.
Not only do I reflect that having children at an early age is crucial for the child’s fetal development, I think that the perks of being a young parent will enable one to be more interactive with a child and be there for them more actively than at an older age. People generally have more energy and proficiency to do more things both physically and mentally at younger age, so it only makes sense that young parents are able to do more things with their children than people who decide to have children later. Their stamina will only decrease, as they get older, so postponing having children will potentially decrease or at least limit one’s ability be a part of their child’s life to some degree. (Course Reader, pg. 178) For example, I remember my father being unable to participate in any kind of sports activities with me when I was a kid, which very unfortunate but inevitable due to his old age. As disappointed as I was, I couldn’t complain. I remember him always arriving home tired and exhausted, ready to simply have dinner before going to bed only to repeat the same pattern every day. Looking back now how tired my father was each day he came from work makes me feel not only sorry for myself but even more for him. It was not that he didn’t want to spend time with me - he just simply wasn’t able to. (Crooks and Bauer, pg. 199) Eventually you just don’t have the energy and stamina to pull everything off and do all the things you want to do as your age is pulling you down, and I could easily see that from both of my parents. Even my mother was quickly exhausted after her everyday tasks, leaving less and less time for us to spend time as a family. Even though I do not hold any grudges against my parents for being quite limited to do things with us, I still sometimes think it’s a shame that I was never able to do any sports related trips or activities with my parents like many of my friends did with their families. That is another reason why I’m determined to have kids while I’m still young. I want to be able to travel and be able to interact with my kids like I always wanted my parents to. I want to teach my kids to play soccer, do ski trips with the whole family, or any kind of family vacations. As a future parent, I don’t want my children to miss any of these things like I did.
The last reason I want to have children before the age of 35 is because I want to start a family earlier in my life. I never had the opportunity to meet any of my grandparents because of how late my parents had brought me to this world. This was a hard reality for me to grasp. I would see other kids with their grandparents and be jealous of the love and affection they would receive. Having children earlier would mean my parents would still be able to spend time with my children before passing away. I want to be able to see my kids grow up, go through grade school, graduate university, and become successful in their lives. I want to be able to see them get married with the love of their lives and have my home filled with screaming grand children. This is what fulfillment means to me, having all the money and material possessions in the world are all fleeting and have little depth on an my happiness. I have recently become an uncle and my niece, Natalia, is about 22 months old. This little girl is a total handful, she doesn’t stop moving and her parents are always close on her tail. Even though they constantly have to be alert and keep their undivided attention on her, there is something to be said about the change that I have seen in the relationship of my sister and her husband. I thought it was impossible for them to be more in love and after having their beautiful baby girl they have become even closer knit. “Children give as well as receive love, and their presence can enhance the love between couples as they share in the experiences of raising their offspring.” (Crooks and Bauer, pg. 335) The bond that a child forms between its parents is one of the strongest bonds and that bond is what begins the foundations of a family. It is easy for me to get consumed with the work place and having a family at home excited to see me will keep me grounded and give me direction in my decisions. Having a family at a younger age also brings along with it many of the financial responsibilities that one has to be willing to look past to be able to enjoy the short time I would have with my children. All this makes up a drop in the bucket of what it means to be a family but each drop is just as important for a functioning and healthy family.
My legacy and my name will carry through the future with my children. I want to be able to provide them with a life style that was deprived to me because of factors outside my control. We want to have children before the age of 35 because we want to be physiologically healthy, we want to have enough energy to keep up with them, and we want to start our family early in our lives. Brining a life into this world is a miracle in itself. The arduous nine months of intensive care a mother must go through to the constant 24 hour supervision for the first several years of a child’s life is a serious commitment. Even through all that children are blessings in a couple’s life and they have the ability to greatly increase the happiness and love in a household. Regardless of what life decision I make or what obstacle comes up having a family to support me would be the most important thing to me. I hope to be able to enjoy that blessing soon.