Most of our readers have their first child after their 24th birthday., but still before their 30. Birthday get. This is what our online survey revealed. Often at this age education or studies are already finished, the first steps in working life have been taken.
Best time for offspring
The perfect time? This does not exist! Something would have been gladly still experienced, would have been somewhere gladly still, perhaps on world trip. Or would prefer a permanent job or a larger apartment. Maybe also more money. And still children are born, fortunately there are more and more.
By the way, if you believe the statistical majority, the right time has come at 29.6 years of age. At this age, on average, a woman gives birth to her first child. From a purely biological point of view, it is a good idea for women between the ages of 20 and. and the 35. It is easier to get pregnant during the first year of life. As a rule, complications occur less frequently during pregnancy and birth. But mothers in their mid-thirties are emotionally more mature to raise children. Her children act more socially, are more emotionally balanced and have fewer difficulties in dealing with others.
The first child: a portrait of four mothers
Although not the perfect one, there is a right time for every mother. And this one seems to be age-independent. It’s different for every woman. Four women tell us here when they gave birth to their children. What life situation they were in. How this changed her life. All these mothers could perhaps have imagined a more perfect date for their first child. But they all had their child at the right time. Amazing, isn’t it?
Jelena – mom at 19
Student Jelena with boyfriend Lukas and son Louis
Jelena found out about her pregnancy just before her school-leaving exams – in the middle of a state of emergency. She was just 19 years old. "It was a blow at first. I didn’t have time to think about how to tell my parents," she says. "I came downstairs with the pregnancy test and said: ‘Dad, look’ – and he immediately had tears of joy in his eyes. My mother, too, by the way. Our friends were blindsided, but they were happy all the same."
It was clear to Jelena and her boyfriend Lukas pretty quickly: We’re having the baby. Jelena graduated from high school. Many admired her for how she managed it, heavily pregnant. Jelena takes a pragmatic view: "The prospect of giving birth has eased my exam nerves. I knew that there was something more important than school. That brought me down to earth."
But there was one thing that was hard: After graduation, when all the stress of learning was finally over, not being able to party so lightheartedly, not drinking, not smoking. "Now I don’t miss it at all," she says.
At first, the little family lived with Lukas’ parents in the house, in a separate apartment. "After the birth, I stayed at home and took care of Louis."Meanwhile, Lukas completed an apprenticeship, shortened to two years. Financially the situation was difficult. Because without education there was not even child benefit for Jelena anymore. She took a mini-job and topped up with ALG II to somehow make ends meet.
Now everything has to sort itself out again: Soon Louis will have a sibling. Jelena’s boyfriend has finished his education, the three of them have moved to Kassel and Lukas wants to study. Jelena will also enroll, Louis now has a place in a day care center. Bafog and the support of their parents will keep the four of them afloat for the time being. "It’s very important to my mother that I don’t have to worry about money. I don’t really want to take this on, but it’s good to know that my parents will stand by me if I’m in doubt," she says.
"How nice that everything happened this way!"
Would Jelena and Lukas want to change something in retrospect? No. "How nice that everything happened this way," they both agree. "We hadn’t planned it this way. But where would we be now without a child?"After graduating from high school, her circle of friends scattered in all directions, many moved away, went to university or got an apprenticeship. "Our lives are very different. It’s exhausting – but I don’t envy my friends, neither their daily routine nor their free time. They have completely different problems. We would always choose our child again."
Much read on kidsgo
Nadine – mom at 27
Nadine with son Pepe
"When Pepe was born, I was 27 years old. For my friend and me it came as a bit of a surprise. But I didn’t have an exact plan either. I always wanted to become a mother early."For Nadine, the advantages of having a young mom and dad outweigh the disadvantages. The best example of this is her own parents, who started their family in their early 20s. "It’s great to have young parents. And now they are both still fit and have a lot of fun with their grandson," says the now 30-year-old.
Having your first child in your late twenties sounds like perfect timing. Before pregnancy, Nadine had started her own business in online marketing. Financial support made it possible to take the step into self-employment. What’s perfect for the young family is that they are largely free to organize their time and work from home.
However, Nadine still had one or two things on her wish list, things she would have liked to do before starting family life: "I was just in a phase of life where I wanted to try out new things. As a tourism assistant, I have always loved to travel a lot. For example, in 2013 I was in Spain for a training course."Spontaneous trips, working abroad, that’s what Nadine also missed at first. She felt that with the birth, the lightheartedness was gone, as she now had to take responsibility for her young son. But little Pepe quickly made us forget such concerns. "With baby comes so many new, exciting and wonderful things that you can’t imagine beforehand. And even traveling works out very well, although it is of course different than before."
The first in her circle of friends to have a child
Among our friends, Nadine and her boyfriend were the first to have a child. "At first, going out wasn’t so easy for us anymore, we cancelled some things."Now that her acquaintances and friends are in their thirties, they are following suit with having children. She enjoys dating parents and children together now.
So is 27 the best time to have children?? "Generally, it depends on the individual life situation," says Nadine, "and whether you feel ready for a child yet. Because one thing is clear: life will be different. For me personally it was a good time. Sometimes the unexpected things are simply the best things in life!"
Cordula – Mom at 33
"Yolanda was very much wanted," says mother Cordula. She was 33 years old when her daughter was born, and neither she nor her boyfriend Christian wanted to wait any longer.
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The two have been a couple for 15 years, the time was ripe for a family. "I didn’t feel like I was missing or missing out on anything. I would have liked to go on a trip to Asia – but that doesn’t go away even with children."
The change with child was not as extreme as Cordula had suspected. She walked in small steps. "You grow into the limitations," she says. "With an infant, you can still do a lot of things, even as a couple. It doesn’t turn life completely upside down."
As a self-employed stage and costume designer, however, it was not easy to reconcile child and job after parental leave. Especially not without a daycare place. Yolanda often just came along to the theater. Or dad held his seminar at the art academy with baby in his arms. However, most people are not used to children showing up at work.
The really big change came with Valentin, the second child. She found the first year very stressful. "Professionally, it was a major break, too. After the first child it was easier for me to remember, with the second it was already more difficult."
The circle of friends they share has changed. "The people we did a lot of things with before the children all didn’t have children. Instead, a new circle of friends has developed around the children, which is a great enrichment," says Cordula.
Should the family still grow? "I used to be open to having three children – now we both realize that two fills our time quite well."
Stephanie – Mom with 41
Stephanie with her husband Kai and son Maximilian
"With Maximilian everything has changed", says Stephanie. She was literally yanked out of her nine-to-five job, suddenly finding herself at home between strollers and baby clothes. "At first, I had great difficulty being at home with child. Being alone. I was used to having hustle and bustle around me. I missed the colleagues, the phone calls, my everyday life."
For Stephanie, the happy news came as a surprise after all – pregnant at 41! "For a long time, I wasn’t interested in having children. My job as a lawyer’s assistant was important to me, and my involvement in animal welfare completely filled my time," she says.
When she met her husband in her late thirties, it occurred to her for the first time that it might be nice to have a child with him. But it just didn’t happen. And finally, one day before her 41st birthday. On her third birthday, the pregnancy test came back positive. A shock, somehow. "Do you really still want to dare to do this at over forty?", was her first thought. Into the unknown? "Am I scoring the own goal of my life here??", she asked herself.
Stephanie was clear that this was her first and last chance to have a baby. While she struggled with herself, her husband was overjoyed. He already has grown-up children, but becoming a dad again at almost 50 – a great prospect! Stephanie got married while still pregnant, "really oldschool". There was a spontaneous, great party – just not quite as wild as when there was no baby bump.
Of course, there were also headwinds: from superiors, family, acquaintances. "How nice. Now the child is going to have a mother and grandmother in one," Stephanie had to listen to. Of course, the mothers in the toddler group are much younger. None of her friends is in a similar situation, their children are already grown up.
"I won’t be driven crazy"
Should she have thought about having children much earlier?? Plain and simple: no. "When I was twenty, I wouldn’t have been ready for a child. And now the wanted-unwanted was a very good time."Stephanie sees only one disadvantage in her late motherhood: "I would have been better able to cope with the physical changes when I was thirty."
But she has the patience and life experience she didn’t have in her twenties. She’s more relaxed, even about well-intentioned advice: "I find out what my child needs, what’s good for him, and I don’t let myself go crazy."
Having children statistically
- When do women or. Men have their first child?
According to data from the Federal Statistical Office from 2015, mothers have their first child at an average age of 29.6 years. For fathers, only legitimate children are counted. On average, dads were 35 years old at birth. Whether it is the first child or another is not statistically recorded. - How many children do parents have on average?
For years, the number of children has been relatively constant at two children. This is the result of the microcensus, a statistic that asks selected households about their living situation every four years. - How many years are there between the births of the first and second child??
Statistically, the second child follows after 4.1 years, but half of all children have their first child within 3.2 years. Child number three is born after another 4.8 years. - How many mothers have their first child under the age of 20, how many are already over 40??
The share of young mothers is relatively low at 2.1 percent: in 2015, just under 16 had.000 of the newborn children were mothers who were under twenty years old at the time of birth.
In contrast, almost 30.000 of the mothers already over 40 years old, which is 4 percent. The majority of mothers, namely 260.000 – that’s about 36 percent – had her first child between the ages of 30 and 34.
The ABC of Childbearing: Overview and PDF download
You can find an overview of all the articles in the Kinderwerwunsch ABC as well as the complete ABC as a free PDF download here: