Hey young people: now’s the best time to get married and have kids

Here’s my latest post.

Happy Anniversary to my wife. Our marriage turned 3 yesterday.

My parents watched the kids so we could go out to eat last night. The plan was to catch a movie afterwards, but the twins have been running us ragged lately so we just decided to go home and go to sleep instead. That’s life now with two 17-month-olds at home. It’s challenging, but we can handle it. In fact I truly think, at this age and at this point in our lives, we are especially equipped to handle it.

So my new post is not marriage or child rearing advice. I’m not qualified to dole that out, and I don’t think you’d care to read it anyway. Instead, as a young family man, I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage my peers not to listen to society when it tells you to put off marriage and kids.

Yes, if you grow up and move on to that stage of your life, you’ll probably have to give up a few things. You won’t be able to go out at night unless you find a babysitter. And when you do go out you might be kind of tired. And you’ll find that you start changing and some of the things that used to be fun aren’t as fun anymore. And you won’t have as much money to spend on booze and iPhones. And you’ll have real responsibilities and everything you do will suddenly carry implications that seem a little scary at first.

Yes, starting a family is hard.

These days we tell people that their twenties ought to be a decade entirely devoted to yourself. Spend money on yourself, live for yourself, entertain yourself, and try to put yourself in a better position so that you can make yourself more comfortable. It’s no coincidence that this strategy has increased in popularity at the exact rate that maturity and self-sufficiency have declined in this country.

The truth is, for many of us, our youth is supposed to be spent on something greater than keeping ourselves entertained. In many cases — probably in most cases — people should start thinking about marriage and kids when they’re still young and energetic. All of the reasons why we say young people shouldn’t start families are the precise reasons why we should.

Now is the time. Now is probably the best time. I know a lot of people don’t what to hear it, but here it is anyway.