Speaking of Grandparenting life

How exciting! :D Best part is that once you're done spoiling them rotten, you can send them home to their parents again! :lol: that is TRICKY, well, i mean PLEASURABLE :roll:

How exciting! :D Best part is that once you're done spoiling them rotten, you can send them home to their parents again! :lol: that is TRICKY, well, i mean PLEASURABLE :roll:Right! Actually its not that hard...just whenever the parents are doing the discipline, get the hell out of the way so that the kid doesn't mistake you as part of the process. Mostly though I have immunity! Just spoil and have fun. I love them all so much

Aww congratulations! That's a lot of grandchildren. So is it good to have kids at a young age like you did? I bet you are very happy about having more kids in the family.

Aww congratulations! That's a lot of grandchildren. So is it good to have kids at a young age like you did? I bet you are very happy about having more kids in the family. To answer the first part about being good to have kids at a very young age, I don't outwardly recommend it. I was too young. I grew into it over time and got good at it and now the reward is being young for my grandkids. I'm very happy about that. But that isn't a good reason to do it. BUT, if you have a hard time supporting yourself then supporting kids is impossible now a days. We struggled A LOT! We were in messes we never knew if we'd ever get out of them. Now when I have financial issues we kind of laugh and say, "Damn we've seen worse" but back then we often had to figure out how to get it done for a lot of people on what was not a lot of money. Everything fell into place but I guess I was just blessed. Get your education, have some fun and then have a family. Not TOO late like your 40's because my brother did that and now he's having a hard time keeping up with his kid. Now as for grandkids as long as they don't live IN my house its perfectly cool with me! More grandkids is kind of turning into an issue because my wife is kind of ready to draw the line I think. The more grandkids, the less privacy we seem to have and the more our kids still seem to need us. Being from a large extended family (as Italian's seem to all have) I for one enjoy all the extra family. Doodle is a from a family where the primary family was just her immediate household. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were only seen from time to time, where as my cousins and grandmother were over at least once or twice a week. If she had her way, her and I would now just go disappear off the face of the Earth and visit here now and then. Where as I like the kid visits and being a part of their lives on a semi-regular basis. At least 3 of the kids have said they are not done having kids so we can expect this to rise and we'll have to find a way to figure this all out.

Agreeing with Dave. Having children young is a blessing but also a curse. I recommend starting out with a cat first! :lol:

Agreeing with Dave. Having children young is a blessing but also a curse. I recommend starting out with a cat first! :lol: I was going to say that you are just as good a person to answer this as I am! I was just a little younger than when you had Anthony when I got Emmy and Dave. I don't know what the perfect age is to have kids...its for the young but with the wisdom of the older. I guess that's its good were here for our grandkids so that our kids have us as "consultants".

My friend's parents are in their 60's-70's and they're ready to have grandchildren, but uhh... my friend isn't, lol. I guess it's great to have grandchildren when you're young (or not too old :p) it's a great advantage that at your age you have so many grandchildren, dave, I guess your kids followed ur example :p (of having a family at a young age)

My friend's parents are in their 60's-70's and they're ready to have grandchildren, but uhh... my friend isn't, lol. I guess it's great to have grandchildren when you're young (or not too old :p) it's a great advantage that at your age you have so many grandchildren, dave, I guess your kids followed ur example :p (of having a family at a young age) It wasn't with our encouragement I assure you. But they saw something in the advantage of it so they're following it. We'll see how it plays out!

Oh I didn't mean to say that Doodle and you pushed them to have kids =<, your family seems so happy/complete now, that's awesome!

Oh I didn't mean to say that Doodle and you pushed them to have kids =<, your family seems so happy/complete now, that's awesome! I never thought you meant that! :) It is a much happier place than years ago for sure!

Aww, I see. You, but people tell me I should have kids, but I really have no money. Then they say to me that no one has any money when they have kids :( Pablo

Agreeing with Dave. Having children young is a blessing but also a curse. I recommend starting out with a cat first! :lol: But you weren't too young, right? 18? That's not too young. I'm talking about like 15. Pablo

Aww, I see. You, but people tell me I should have kids, but I really have no money. Then they say to me that no one has any money when they have kids :( Pablo Good point...but if you're living in a situation of total poverty then its probably not a good time to start a family. I'm not saying waiting until you have a million dollars to have kids but it wouldn't be fair to the kid if he/she comes into the world and the parent isn't ready to provide for the kid. Moreover its also not fair to the kid if he/she is born to a parent who still wants to party and has a lot of goals and good times they want to have. The parent will become resentful of the kid and many parents don't do a very good job because of it.

Agreeing with Dave. Having children young is a blessing but also a curse. I recommend starting out with a cat first! :lol: But you weren't too young, right? 18? That's not too young. I'm talking about like 15. Pablo Not to answer this for Elizabeth as she is quite capable of doing that herself. But 18 is too young. I'm really lucky that no matter how much I think my life sucked over the years, I'm having this most fortunate period where I've got all these grandkids at 45 yrs old that I love dearly. Children are very expensive especially now. I worked VERY hard with only half a college education. I got into into health care as a nurses aide in a hospital and someone took an interest in me because I was smarter and harder working than everyone I worked with. They sent me into a program for 2 yrs and paid me to do it where I learned my current profession, which you now need a 4 year degree to do and a university grandfathered me one 4 yrs ago. We went from living in broken down apartments, having broken cars all the time and wondering how we were going to get by and how to feed everyone and keep the place warm in the winter to owning our own home and having 2 new cars and having at least enough to go around with some occasional extras that the kids might have wanted. It still was never easy but we did it. Not everyone's story turns out as cool when they have babies at 18.

Hey David! :). Well, you are right. It can be hard. So should I wait then until I'm able to have them? Did you have yours at 18? I didn't think it would be too bad if you were working full time, but I guess it could be stressful with school, work, and family. Of course I don't want to wait forever, but I feel like people don't understand. I think they want people to have kids at 18 :cry:

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