Hmmm this is a VERY touchy sensitive subject for me, Thickienikkie, but for some weird reason it keeps popping up a lot in the last couple of days no matter where I turn LOL. So I will add my feedback to it.
About your situation: In this day and age, people are living longer and healthier lives at older ages. Your 40s are not what they used to be. So I don't think age is as much of an issue these days as it was in the past, if you are concerned about that.
As for choosing to have kids at 21, well that is ultimately up to you and it wouldn't be my place to judge. However, I'd recommend a strong sense of financial stability and a man that you feel secure with...not just emotionally, but financially, and someone you could imagine being with long-term. Do you really feel completely secure with your current guy? On the up side, you do have a 9-5 desk job that you could work during the months of pregnancy that you are unable to dance. Plus, you have an education(make sure you eventually finish!

you go girl!) so that there'll be even more career options available for you. And you already have basic stability, such as your own place, a car, etc.
However, I'm starting to think that you're asking this hypothetically...I don't think you're actually trying to have a kid right now. Am I correct?
About my situation: Okay I did not plan to have kids until I was married and in my late 20s/early 30s, but at age 23 I ended up pregnant. However, I was confident of my stability and recent successes(dancing allowed me to go from "zero" finances/accomplishments to doing well for myself in a relatively short period of time), and I was/is morally opposed to abortion, so I decided that the best thing would be to "man up" to my responsibilities and raise it. There were a few hurdles along the way that I did not have immediate answers to(e.g., such as the issue of not having health insurance at the time), but overall I had my head on straight and I was able to draw up a reasonable budget. Workwise I was only dancing at the time BUT I had a Bachelor's degree and I was helping a successful political campaign. So what happened?...all these people underestimated my capabilities and told me to either get an abortion or apply for Medicaid. (I made too much money for Medicaid and I could do fine without it, thankyouverymuch

) It hurt and insulted me. To be honest, even a few people on SW sounded a bit opposed to me being a parent.
In the end, all the stress caused me to miscarry.
Here's the clincher: Before I got pregnant, I was not planning/wanting to have kids anytime soon if I had a choice. After the miscarriage, I realized that perhaps it was a good thing that I still had the freedom of not caring for a kid, BUT I felt sad and resentful that everyone had undermined me. I started feeling like I wanted to "show them" or "make them eat their words." I keep obsessing about all the great things I would do if I were a parent. I find myself criticizing bad parenting that I witness or hear about. It's gotten to the point that a few people have literally suggested I seek counselling because the whole pregnancy scenario obviously had a profound psychological effect on me, even 2yrs later. If I never encountered the whole pregnancy situation, today I probably would never even think about pregnancy/kids/my capabilities as a parent. But I
did encounter it, and I honestly wonder if maybe I would have been psychologically "better off" and more self-confident/secure if I had the kid(despite the decreased freedom and money).
It's at the point where I'll hear about ex-friends/frenemies/haters having kids, and I'll actually start resenting them for it...e.g., I had a lot of resent about Nicole Richie's pregnancy. (thinking "Oh it's 'ok' for an anorexic druggie to have a kid, but I wasn't good enough for anything better than an abortion?") Ugh. The resentment doesn't happen with friends, people who respect me, or people I'm neutral to...the resentment only seems to happen when it involves old friends who ditched me, or the like. It's weird. When I was poor and without a "career" job, I found myself feeling similar resentment towards the haters who slacked off all through school yet still ended up with a better job/salary than my min wage job at that time. Ugh.
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