At what age should I start dating? 几岁可以开始谈恋爱？
That's a question that I have asked, have heard being asked, and now was asked as a teacher.
"Cher, when can have boyfriend girlfriend?"
The standard answer is to use the countback method.
What age you think you should be married MINUS How many years of courtship is sufficient = Age to start dating
I had my first girlfriend at the age of 24. But that's a story for another time. FYI, she's not my wife.
We got married when we were 27. On hindsight, at times, this question will occasionally pop up in my mind.
Is 27 too young to get married?
I got to admit that ON HINDSIGHT, I struggled with this thought.
Did I get married too early? Could I have enjoyed my singlehood a little bit longer?
But there're times when I think it's an issue of the grass always look greener on the other side. When I'm single, I desperately try to find a partner for a long term relationship. When I'm married, I missed the days of being single. To get over this, I told myself to embrace my current situation and make the best out of it.
So I got married at 27 and we made the decision to enjoy our couple-hood for a couple of years before we start a family when I was 30.
At that time, another question popped into my mind.
Should we have kids later?
It was not a question of YES or NO, but WHEN? In the end, we decided to give our best years to our kids, while we are still young and full of energy, while we can still run and jump with them, while we will still see a large part of their lives growing up together. And we look forward to the days of empty nests ,many years down the road while we still have sufficient energy left to enjoy our couple-hood yet again.
So we had kids, when we were 30.
And we thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was very clear to both of us from the start that we will have kids after we got married. Both of us love children. Both of us understood this is our godly calling as husband and wife. To bear fruits and multiply. Thus from the day we made plans to get married, we also based our decisions with the knowledge that one day, there'll be kids.
How big is our flat going to be?
How much debts do we want to be in?
What'll be the family arrangements be like?
Etc, etc, etc...
We decided to get a flat instead of a condo. We knew that once the kids arrived, Ng will be staying home and we will be living on a single income. Thus we did not want to incur a huge debt having to pay off an enormous housing loan. We've seen examples of couples who needed to have dual income in order to finance their housing loan even though their desire is to have one spouse to be home for the kids.
We decided to start our couple-hood learning to live on just one income. This is one of the best advice I have followed. We adjusted our lifestyle, purchases, monthly bills, miscellaneous payments, holiday expenses all within the budget of my salary. And we save Ng's salary every month. This became a comfortable pool of savings that came in handy when our first kid came. The big advantage is that when Ng had to stop working, we adjusted perfectly to living on just a single income. There was no drastic need to cut down on any expenses or scrimp on making any purchases. We were prepared. We were also able to continue finance our housing loan, our car loan, as well as hire domestic help. All on one person's income.
Since Ng is going to stay home and I'll be the sole breadwinner, I'll focus on my career while she focus on homemaking. Both of us were clear on our roles. Ng went back to work part time when our youngest was 4. Each time we had to make a decision on who to take childcare leave if one kid is down, or who to attend Parent-Teacher-Conference on a school day, without a doubt, Ng will handle the kids. I vividly remembered one morning I was on my way to work when Ng called to say no.2 was running a fever. I knew it was just a call to keep me informed that she will be taking childcare leave that day to attend to the kid, and I continued on my way to work. This mutual understanding gave me the assurance and confidence that I can focus on my work without needing to feel guilty, and Ng never had a word of complaint. We also never had to argue over who should be taking leave for that day just because both of us had something important to attend to at work.
Fail to plan, Plan to fail.
We heard good advice when we embarked on our couple-hood and we made good plans from the start. These plans and decisions became good principles that we abide by and laid the foundation for our family values towards raising godly kids.
Marriage and parenting are 2 challenging phases of life. It takes time, effort and careful planning to ensure a fruitful, joyous journey for everyone. Don't take a laissez-faire attitude and leave things to take their own natural course without planning or interfering. It is lazy, it is selfish, it is irresponsible.
When you are single, it's just your 1 individual life to be responsible for.
As a couple, that's at least 2 lives. (some couples needed to account for their
parents / in-laws too)
With a family, I have 5 lives to be responsible for.
要生，就要养 “神就赐福给他们，对他们说：要生养众多，遍满地面，治理这
地。。。”创1：28
要养，就要教 “教养孩童，使他走当行的路，就是到老他也不偏离。” 箴言22：6
要教，就要育 “你们做父亲的，不要惹儿女的气，只要照着主的教训和警戒养育他们。”
弗6：4