The topic of the age of when it makes sense for a man to have kids is an intriguing one with many deep details to it. It's a lot different than the timing for when a woman needs to have kids if she wants to have kids.
Men are less impacted by the biological element of having kids than women. Women have a certain biological timeline for having their first child.
A woman typically needs to have her first child before her 40th birthday. Women can still technically get pregnant until about 44-45. The US Census Bureau considers a woman's fertile period to be between ages 15-44 as nearly all births happen to women between 15-44. Births to women 40-44 do still happen but are less likely to happen. There are exceptions. In 2024, CNN journalist Elle Reeve had her first baby at age 41 (her birth date appears to be in the 2nd half of 1982). I have a friend outside my main social circle with a wife who gave birth to her 2nd child around age 42-43 after having her 1st child in her late 30s. In my primary social circle, there have been many births that I've called "Last Call Babies" with so many women having their first child in their mid to late 30s and some even sneaking in a 2nd child near age 40. This has been mentioned many times in the long lasting thread below.
Yesterday, I was on my Instagram and saw a pregnancy announcement from an acquaintance's wife in my social circle. I don't particularly like her. I find it annoying to be around her the 1-2 times a year I ever randomly see her in person. Right now, there are 3 women from my local area social...
www.sosuave.net
A man has no direct biological barriers to having children beyond age 40. However, it's not as good of news as it seems. There are practical considerations that can affect having kids at ages 35-40 and beyond less of a good idea.
The first practical consideration for a 35+ man in having children is his ability to attract a much younger woman. In order to increase the chances of a healthy birth or sometimes even a birth at all, a 35+ man is going to need to be able to attract a woman substantially younger. For a lot of men, that's going to be very difficult to do. The typical man with a blue pill ideology typically is only able to date women near his own age. Even some red pill older men struggle to achieve large age gaps. In the United States, the typical man with a committed girlfriend or a wife has a committed girlfriend or wife who is less than 5 years younger than he is. Getting a 5-9 year age gap or a 10+ year age gap is much more challenging. The typical older man in his 40s and beyond isn't going to be able to get the age gap needed to start a family with a woman even he wants to have children or more children at that point in his life.
On average, husbands and wives were 2.2 years apart in age in 2022, down from 2.4 years in 2000 and 4.9 years in 1880.
www.pewresearch.org
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The second practical consideration for a man 35+ is thinking about how having children is going to impact his timeline for retirement. It's very probable that when a man has a child after age 35, child raising expenses and child raising efforts are going to impact his retirement timeline. Men who have children near age 40 and beyond have children under 18 until after 55. That's just the bare minimum. If he wants to help pay for a child's 4 year bachelor degree, he could be working well into his 60s. Also a lot of adult children ages 18-25 need significant parental support. Adult children 18-22 are often living at home during their college years and some adult children need to live at home on a more permanent basis in their late teens and 20s regardless of whether they have a bachelor's degree or not. This extends the period of child raising duties well into a man's 60s.
Most men also do not have the luxury of retiring on their own terms at around ages 60-65. Most men will have their retirement dictated to them by their health or by an employer downsizing. For blue collar men, early retirement often comes in the form of health ailments that prevent them from working until age 65. For white collar men, they are often laid off by an employer before age 65 and forced into early retirement because they can no longer secure similar, pre-layoff employment. For a white collar man, a layoff in his 50s/early 60s should be interpreted as the beginning of his retirement. Given that most men do not have the job security to retire on their own terms, it is a wise idea for most men to be finished with any child raising expenses by ages 50-55. This requires having children before age 35.
There's merit to this idea. It's difficult for men to be mostly alone as they age. In the article below, the writer notes that most men want to pair bond in some fashion after ages 30-35, indicating a desire for some sort of relationships. Men who have seduction abilities have more difficulty living the player lifestyle forever. It's also becoming more common for men 30+ to be incel/borderline incel after age 30. The Millennial generation (now ages 28-43) was the first generation to be strongly affected by incel status. There are now plenty of Millennial men in their 30s/early 40s who are incel/borderline incel. This is something that Western society has never seen before with aging men not being partnered at high rates. Generation Z is likely to reach their 30s in a few years with more men being incel/borderline incel too.
-By Caleb Jones As I’ve discussed before, most men, even Alpha Males, have no intention on being players for the rest of their lives. At some point, even the horniest players will want to “settle down” in some form or fashion. Today I’m going to...
alphamale20.com
Most men in their 30s and beyond will experience a monogamous relationship failing with a woman for a variety of a reasons. Plenty of men 30+ are and will continue to be at least temporarily single.
