When I was about 16 years old it became my life dream to get married young and to have kids young. My inspiring thought was that I could be a young grandparent and that my kids would be able to know their parents for a long time as well as their grandparents and great grandparents. I did get married at 19 and had my first son at 20. 3 years later I had my daughter. 5 months into my daughters life, my then wife left us and I was stranded alone as a single father of 2 at age 23. That was 4 years ago and it was the most difficult time of my life. I moved back in with my parents and my then recently "empty cage" mother had to become a "mum" again while I slowly got back on my feet. I've been remarried for about a year now and everything is going very well. My daughter is about to turn 4 and my son turns 7 this year. I love thinking about how when I'm 30 my son will be 10 and when I'm 40 he'll be 20 etc.

Before the divorce, I was very adamant on promoting young marriage/childbearing to others. In a perfect world I still think it's a good idea... but I am a lot more open minded and less critical. Life is so unique and never goes according to plan. I wouldn't recommend my exact life to anyone as it has its own unique and undesirable difficulties. When my own children grow up, I will strongly recommend against rushing anything with anyone until they're absolutely sure and have a good plan in place.

My kids know and love their grandparents. They know their great grandparents. I am prepared physically and mentally for 2 more kids (yes I know, but I think I know better than I did at 19), but I cannot imagine doing the whole baby thing in my mid 30s or early 40s... I think my current age is a good time to just get it all out of the way. I like to think of it as delayed gratification and that having adult children at a relatively young age is a huge blessing. Let's see how it goes.