Many highly educated and intelligent people are childless. Why do they delay having kids or choose not to have kids at all? The main reason is they are too busy chasing money and prestige.
You’ve got to think about where many of these “highly educated, intelligent, and financially stable people” come from. They probably went to college, and some even paid an arm and a leg to go to an expensive Ivy League or private school.
The Highly Educated Feel Pressure To Succeed Before Kids
Highly educated folks have a huge amount of debt and great expectations heaped on them. They feel they have to prove they are somebody after spending all the time and money on education. After all, what if you went to Harvard and end up a nobody?
Their 20s are filled with anxiety trying to find that perfect job to make a huge six-figure salary. The lucky few will have found what they are looking for by age 30–32, or know they are on the right path. For the majority, they will still search. By the time they are FINALLY financially stable and feel they’ve proved their worth, they will start considering kids.
But as we know, it gets harder to conceive the older we get. And at some point, these intelligent and financially stable people who’ve chased money and prestige finally think about family. They go through IUI and IVF treatments, and some just give up because it infertility treatments feel too artificial or simply too hard.
One of my biggest regrets was not having my first child earlier. We had our son in 2017, two months before my 40th birthday and three months before my wife’s 37th birthday.
Our kids are the best thing that has ever happened to us. If someone really told me how truly amazing kids are, we would have tried 10 years earlier. And I wish I would have known the best age to get life insurance is right before having kids!
Intelligent Parents Are Very Involved
Although many highly educated and intelligent people delay having kids, they are some of the most dedicated and involved parents around.
They have the financial means to support raising one child, two kids, or multiple kids because they didn't rush into parenthood.
Intelligent parents also naturally want the best education for their children. They do whatever possible to get their kids into the best preschools and private grade schools. Paying extra money for SAT and AP exam prep is not even questioned. And of course they make sure their kids are involved in some type of art, sports, or extra curricular activities.
Heck, they may even consider bribing their kids way into the best colleges to give them a leg up against the competition.
Older parents make great parents and this is very apparent when you go to open houses at private versus public schools in cities like San Francisco. There's a different level of maturity, responsibility, financial means, 1×1 time, and amount of time spent volunteering with older, highly educated, intelligent parents.
Of course there are plenty of amazing parents out there who are less educated and who have financial challenges. Intellect and wealth don't control how much love a parent feels for their child. However, being financially independent and well educated certainly make it less stressful and easier to be involved with a child.
Further Reading
I hope you enjoyed this post. Here are some additional articles for further reading.
What's The Best Age To Have A Baby? 20s? 30s? 40s+?
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About the Author: Sam began investing his own money ever since he opened an online brokerage account in 1995. Sam loved investing so much that he decided to make a career out of investing by spending the next 13 years after college working at two of the leading financial service firms in the world.
During this time, Sam received his MBA from UC Berkeley with a focus on finance and real estate. He also became Series 7 and Series 63 registered. In 2012, Sam was able to retire at the age of 34 largely due to his investments that now generate roughly $200,000 a year in passive income. He spends time playing tennis, hanging out with family, consulting for leading fintech companies and writing online to help others achieve financial freedom.
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