Julie van Maanen
1 min readJul 26, 2021

I really think this is a question all women face at a certain age.

I had children late and had a lot of fun in my 20s and 30s. What you missed out on also is the constant worry if you would meet someone and eventually have children. The older I got, the stronger that worry become and it kind of dominated my thoughts, not leaving much space for other things.

Once your kids are old enough that you can go out in the world, you can explore everything it has to offer, safe in the knowledge that you have your family already. That is a nice security to have.

Had I met my guy earlier, become a Mum earlier, I would have loved to have more children. I am enjoying it so much. But I am too old, so only one child for me, and even that is very tiring. When I think of the energy I had and took for granted in my 20s! I partied a lot, but if you gave me that energy now I'd put it to so much better use!

Ultimately, you are still young, you have another life ahead, enjoy! There is no right or wrong way to do this, there is just what there is :-)

Julie van Maanen

Top writer in Parenting. Multi-lingual traveller, writer, learner, teacher. Raising my little girl in Cuba and Europe and cannot wait to show her the world.