<story><title>Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m approaching my 30s, and I thought I could draw on the wisdom and experience of the HN community, particularly those of you who are 40+ years old.&lt;p&gt;Thanks.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>scionthefly</author><text>In your 30s, if you are waiting to have kids for various reasons, you really need to stop delaying. Your probability of successfully having kids goes down every year, and by your early 40s your options for medical help if you have infertility stop being available because even those interventions lose effectiveness.&lt;p&gt;If you want kids, just have the kids. You&amp;#x27;re not going to care that you were being responsible and waiting when you find out waiting means you never get to have them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>agent008t</author><text>&amp;quot;If you want kids, just have the kids&amp;quot; sounds very irresponsible - a good way to create a lot of suffering. It is not a decision you can reverse. You should give it a lot more thought than to choosing your career, where&amp;#x2F;how you live, or to getting a pet. It is shocking that so often it is the opposite, and people &amp;#x27;yolo&amp;#x27; into this decision. If anything, you should err on the side of not having children, unless you are very, very sure:&lt;p&gt;1. You will still want to be spending overwhelming majority of your time on children in 1, 2, 5, 10 years at least and will be enjoying it.&lt;p&gt;2. You are in a position to be consistently spending enough time and effort and other resources on them.&lt;p&gt;3. You are very confident you will be able to be a good parent, and that you are bringing new life into a good environment that both you and them will enjoy.&lt;p&gt;You need to be in a very good, stable place both physically and mentally for sure before you even consider it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What do you wish you had done/known in your 30s?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m approaching my 30s, and I thought I could draw on the wisdom and experience of the HN community, particularly those of you who are 40+ years old.&lt;p&gt;Thanks.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>scionthefly</author><text>In your 30s, if you are waiting to have kids for various reasons, you really need to stop delaying. Your probability of successfully having kids goes down every year, and by your early 40s your options for medical help if you have infertility stop being available because even those interventions lose effectiveness.&lt;p&gt;If you want kids, just have the kids. You&amp;#x27;re not going to care that you were being responsible and waiting when you find out waiting means you never get to have them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dartdartdart</author><text>Waiting is not bad, most child abuse cases come from people who shouldn&amp;#x27;t have had kids in the first place. The worst case if you wait is that you&amp;#x27;ll have to adopt kids, which is arguably way more humane than introducing another hungry soul into the world.</text></comment>