When is the Best Time to Have Kids?

Having babies in my forties has been an interesting experience. I never thought I'd be in this situation. I thought I'd have my children before age thirty.  I was going to have two boys and two girls. I even remember the girls names I had picked out in junior high: Vanessa Dionne and Juanita Charmaine. I can't remember what I had thought of for boys names. Let's face it....boys names are harder. So is shopping for boys. Girls like everything and you have a million choices on names and even variations. Anyway, life goes fast. If you have kids young, you have piles of energy.  But you give up your youthful years when you can be backpacking in the Himalayas or joining the Peace Corps. But then you're still young and gorgeous when the kids go to college.  Sometimes, mother and daughter can look like sisters and fool people!  When you have babies in your forties, you're supposedly supremely patient. That's what is said. Today was not a particularly patient day for me as my daughter tested me several times. So, I don't know if I agree with the theory that age gives you more patience.  Having children at any time in your life requires you to sacrifice your own life in many ways, whether you're 18, 25, 38 or 46.  You simply can't do what you're accustomed to doing, unless you're very wealthy and can afford daytime and nighttime nannies.  But that's not me. I am hands on. However, it's quite true that one thing you definitely lack in being an older mother is boundless energy. I couldn't even sit on the floor for more than five minutes with my daughter tonite as we did arts and crafts. I was so uncomfortable. She can't even sit on my lap because the protrusion of stomach leaves no space for her on my thighs.  But I feel I have gotten a lot of carefree, selfish living out of the way. I already traveled a lot, l lived abroad, worked in a few fields,  moved around. I am now so utterly content in just being a mother, that my idea of a wonderful vacation is to go to a bed and breakfast a couple hours away with the kids. My idea of a career is to work from home and do freelance work. I don't feel I'm sacrificing any new frontier in my life I want/need to discover.  To me motherhood is that frontier, which I'll happily experience with my kids.  All mothers sacrifice alone time and hobby time - two important things every person needs. But that's what the dads, grammas and aunts for...instant babysitters! So when is the best time to have kids? All I can speak of is my experience as an older mother. And here is an older mother's advantage: everything is out of the system. No regrets for things you didn't do yet.  Now everything I want to do, I want to do with my kids. It's not about just me anymore. And I didn't reach that feeling until after age forty. I guess things have worked out the way they were supposed to for me. I'm an old mother, but I am more unselfish than any other time in my life.