I've heard the reasons many times. I even heard them from my own children.

We're going to wait until we buy a house. I want to wait until I have a better-paying job. We want to do some traveling first. We want to get to know each other first.

These are some of the reasons that many give for delaying starting a family.

I'm not saying they're wrong. I just wonder if waiting for the perfect time is foolhardy.

What if it takes ten years before you buy a house? What if it takes a long while before you get a good full-time job? Traveling is expensive and you might not go on that vacation or do any traveling.

It is true that once you have kids, money gets tighter. They are expensive right from the get-go. Your money doesn't go as far as it did prior to having them and it becomes more difficult to save for anything let alone a vacation.

It makes sense to want a better-paying job with benefits, doesn't it?

Not really!

My story

When we started our family, we were living in a two-bedroom apartment. It was the apartment I was living in when we met. My wife and I both worked and had decent-paying jobs.

From a financial standpoint, it was reasonable to start a family when we did. But should we have bought a house first? Well, we didn't.

We had our second daughter in that same two-bedroom apartment. We started to consider moving as the apartment was getting small. But we stayed because the rent was reasonable and it had sentimental value. All our kids were born in that apartment and we chose to go with a midwife and had homebirths.

Then our son was born in that same two-bedroom apartment. A few months, later we moved down the hall to a three-bedroom apartment in the same building.

A couple of years later we bought a house.

Takeaway

It was seven years from the birth of our first child to when we bought a house. While it is true that we may have been able to buy the house sooner had we delayed having a child, we would have been, say five years older, and we might have decided to have two kids instead of three as that would have put us in our mid-thirties.

Age is a factor Times have changed. This isn't your grandparent's era. Gone are the days of large families and early starts. It is rare to have mom at home while dad earns his keep.

Now, both parents work, families are smaller, and it is easier to travel and see the world. There are more reasons to wait and it is socially acceptable to start having kids later.

If you do get married in your early twenties, as my oldest daughter did, you can wait. She was married at twenty and became a mother at twenty-four.

If you get married in your late twenties or early thirties, it might not be a good idea to wait. According to healthline.com 'experts say the best time to get pregnant is between your late 20s and early 30s. This age range is associated with the best outcomes for both you and your baby.'

The bottom line

Every couple is going to come to their own decision. This will be based on: 1. what size of family you want. 2. career goals and how kids might impact those, especially for the woman. 3. your ages. 4. the strength of your relationship, and many other factors.

We threw caution to the wind. After our son was born, my wife stayed home and we became a one-income family. We managed to buy a modest home where we stayed for 20 years and raised our kids.

It wasn't easy and our kids went without many items that their friends enjoyed. But we grew together as a couple and thank God, I married a wonderful homemaker. We only took a few family vacations, but they were memorable.

If a couple asks me for my advice on when to start a family, it's 'start right away.' What are you waiting for? There's never a perfect time. You're never ready. If you want kids have them now.'

In my opinion.