[Mrs. Don-o]

For females, the physiologically ideal time to begin childbearing is the mid-teens: you're past the childhood diseases; you've completed your growth; your kidneys, heart, joints, blood sugar, and immune system are in better shape then they'll ever be in your lifetime; and you're not yet old enough for the onset of the chronic degenerative diseases. Plus you've got the energy to chase the kidlets around the house.

What you don't have (usually) is fully mature judgment and an adequate, secure income. Both of which have historically been supplied in a satisfactory way by marrying an older husband who is sensible, responsible, and a stable wage-earner.

Nore does this imply a waste of the young woman's other intellectual and social qualities, other than the maternal. She can still sequence her life stages so she does the mothering thing young, and then in her 30's and 40's goes for more education and other interests and vocational choices.

You can have it all, but you can't have it all at once.

For many, it's really the way to go.

[Tax-chick]

Both of which have historically been supplied in a satisfactory way by marrying an older husband who is sensible, responsible, and a stable wage-earner.

Or by having a family in which both parents are young, but they are part of an extended-family economy with older people, who help them to develop wage-earning and parenting skills, rather than turning them loose on their own.