>The upside is that I was a total basket case in my 20s, completely incompetent to be able to raise a child. ... Generally I'd expect older adults to have done a lot more maturing and increased ability to emotionally regulate,...
This is exactly why I don't think anyone should have children until they're at least 50 years old, and better yet 75-100. We just need to solve this "aging" disease problem first. 20-somethings just aren't emotionally mature enough to be good parents.
Suggesting people to have child in their 20ties, to avoid health problems, is sexist and not based in reality. This is just extrapolation of this trend.
People can totally freeze relevant body parts, and have child in their 70ties. Saying anything else would be sexist! Natural selection in action...
And somehow we've done it through hundreds of generations.
> just need to solve this "aging" disease.
Oh, please stop. This is the rhetoric of stunted men with Peter Pan syndrome. If you are too scared to face this type of responsibility, plenty of other men rose to the occasion just fine.
Your "solution" to the problem that adults now are claiming to be unable to become parents is, literally, "cure aging".
Mine is "accept that you can not do it on your own and have them at a age where your parents can still help you."
The fact that people are forgetting these "old values" is what is bringing to this unsustainable state, and instead of accepting the reality of our limited lifespans and that people have managed to start having kids in the early 20's (or before that) for centuries just fine, you want to double down on the idea that "no one should have kids before their 50s"?
This is exactly why I don't think anyone should have children until they're at least 50 years old, and better yet 75-100. We just need to solve this "aging" disease problem first. 20-somethings just aren't emotionally mature enough to be good parents.