While it seems to follow that ambitious, goal driven, deadline-meeting 20-somethings would apply the same line of thinking to relationships and having children, it just doesn't happen that way. I feel like setting an age deadline for when one wants to be married/have kids is just setting oneself up for disappointment. Unlike with careers, we don't have the same control over when another person will meet us, when we fall in love, or when we'll be able to/accidentally have/want to have children.
People change with age, location, job, life experience. We don't always want the same things then as we do now. And neither do our partners (or the ones we haven't met yet)
I'm actually quite surprised that so many of our forward-thinking generation are still stuck on a 1950's idea of when we should become domestic and family oriented.
"Or should we sacrifice part of that desire for stability in order to search for and secure the partner..." A search for a partner is not a job search. How many of us have had success meeting someone simply by beginning to search? I don't believe that living your life and looking for a mate have to be mutually exclusive. Partners come along when they want to, when you are busy living your life, when you are NOT looking.
I agree with most of generation next's comments here. I think what we should have learned from the 50s is basically that people need to lighten up and ask themselves what they really want, and -- most importantly -- not to impress upon others rigid ideals of education, work, what consitutes family, etc.
But the thing is, I still like parts of the whimsical "American Dream", and I'm going to organize my life a bit because of it. I mean, I don't think the ideas were founded maliciously, and I think it can be okay to daydream about having a loving partner, a few kids, a nice house, and a great job.
For me, finding a partner is a bit more time sensitive than finding that great job, because I plan on working until I physically can't work anymore. But I know that I can't/don't want to raise a kid at 40. 30? Yes, yes I could have kids at 30. And I think that is a tiny example of how we've evolved from the 50s.
So that's that for me, I guess. I guess I just think this is a lot of personal preference, what your real priorities are, and how it all might play out in real life.
I think there's a lot of validity to putting age constraints on child-rearing. I have a six-year-old sister whose father is over 60, and she's starting to notice the repercussions of having a dad who could be her grandfather: he's not as active as the other parents, he has difficulty befriending them, and our whole family knows that as she grows and matures, his participation in her life is going to dwindle. If you want kids, it's important to consider the environment they're going to be growing up in.
While I think it's great that we've gotten away from the graduate-from-high-school-marry-have-kids-before-
you're-23 mindset of the 50's, there's some reason to keep that idea in mind. Of course, I'm all for non-traditional families (since I want one myself), but tradition isn't always entirely bad.
On another topic: I agree with generation next that the search for a partner is not a job search. As much as I'm craving a boyfriend right now, I know that approaching it in the same way that I'm approaching grad school applications simply won't be successful. Yeah, maybe I'll find the guy for whom I can check off all the boxes on my "dating checklist," but will I like him?! I think that's the key question in the dating game, and the question that's much easier to ignore in a job search.
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