Prompt: These days couples decide to have children later in their life. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? How is it affecting the family life and society?

In recent decades, there is a phenomenon that couples tend to have their first child five to ten years after their marriage. I personally believe that people nowadays would rather have child as late as possible due to career or other personal considerations as will now be discussed. Ċ Firstly, the cost of raising a child is significantly high and some young couples are not ready to bear the burden yet. Statistics have shown that the expenditure of raising a child to his or her 18s would require more than two hundred thousand US dollars. Therefore, it is the reason why people would like to have children later in their life when they are financially stable. Ċ Secondly, there is a tradeoff between having a baby and career development which is especially faced by many women. Traditionally, the mother role of the child has to devote most of her time to taking care of her daughter or son. This is definitely an obstacle to her career development. When people decide to postpone their plan of pregnancy to 5-10 years, they can take the advantage of this time to get promotion in their careers. Ċ Moreover, some believe that child education is not an easy task. It involves how to maintain a relationship with their child and how to deal with them when conflicts arise. As poor parenting skill may result in deterioration in children's mental development, these people would rather take some time to accumulate more knowledge and parenting skills. Ċ However, people at their late 30s may have various health problems such as infertility that prevent them from being pregnant. Medical studies have indicated that the chance of getting pregnant in their late 30s decreased dramatically compared with their 20s. Although people have different reasons to postpone their plan of having child, they should bear the risks of pregnancy in their late life.