I wrote this a few years back, but honestly, it does still feel relevant.
Back on October 1, 2014 I wrote a post called “Can you make friends after 30?” If I’m doing some basic math correctly, I would have been 33 when I wrote that. I’m now 37. Here’s what happened in the intervening time:
Most of my friends changed
I got divorced
Getting divorced teaches you a ton about who’s really there for you vs. who’s not, so my friends shifted again
Now — and this took a hot minute — I feel more comfortable in my own skin
People that I probably would have texted or called regularly on 10/1/14? They are still in my phone, yes. I still see some of their stuff on social media. But are we friends? No, not really.
Now, this part of the story is extremely specific to me in the early-to-mid-30s period. Only about 28% of highly-educated people (which I somewhat am) get divorced, so 7 in 10 wouldn’t have this kind of story. I get that.
But there’s an universality to the 30-to-35 period that data can underscore a bit.
The data!
I’d say the two big “life-changers” of your late 20s/early 30s for most would be (a) marriage and then (b) children. You could say “mortgage,” sure, but many educated white people end up with a mortgage, and not all end up married or with kids, so I’m going to ride or die with those two life events.
The average age of first marriage for a woman right now is 27; it’s 29 for men. If you go up to “college-educated women,” that’s 28. “College-educated white women” is almost 29.
Now, age of first birth for a college-educated woman (same article link) is 30. And, in fact, according to 2016 CDC data, more women are having their first child between 30 and 34 than essentially ever before. That’s probably tied to a shift in the whole “You have to have a baby by X-Date” narrative.
So obviously these are aggregate numbers averaged out. Everyone is different. I also haven’t even touched the racial/education component here (and I’m not going to).
For most college-educated people (all races), your life is going to — on average — change between 28 and 33, give or take. And probably change in every conceivable way.
What’s going to happen when that happens?
Well, now you have more responsibilities, as in the support of another person (marriage) and the raising of one (childbirth).
Obviously this is going to make your connection back to work (the means to the end of providing for those things) stronger in some ways. I mean “stronger” in the sense of “I need a job to pay for this stuff,” but paradoxically — I don’t have kids so this is just based on conversations — you’re going to care about work less, because now you’ve got a burgeoning family back at home.
We never really acknowledge openly that work for many is a means to an end, which creates the faux-workaholic culture many of us reside in. Also not acknowledged: men can’t have babies themselves, which means they need a whole new context for relevance and self-worth, and that often becomes “work” and/or “the acquisition of capital.”
So now you rely on work more, which means they can essentially own you. Not amazing.
And in this process, what’s going to happen? Are you going to see those friends a lot? Probably not. Some do, sure — and if your kids are the same age range and you live near each other, have at it. But is it normative for most people? I’d argue no.
So wait, are you arguing against having kids?
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