What is more, you do not seem to realize that you are arguing against yourself. Raising a baby is indeed extraordinarily hard work. At the age of 43, having to look after my sister's child for a few hours, it was borne in on me that I would never be able to make any kind of decent father again. I was simply too old to give the creature the energy it demanded. And I realized that mother nature knew what she was doing when she made women most fertile between 16 and 24: it is probably the only time in life when a person can really afford the terrible expenditure of energy that looking after even one baby, let alone more, requires. Anyone who puts off having a child till they are 35/40 are expecting to be rich enough to afford a (young) nanny or other expensive forms of part-time care. When you are my age, you will understand that the notion of having a baby at 40 without being rich enough to employ someone to do most of the work is much more destructive than that of having it when you are young, strong and bursting with energy.