Aashish @aashgoyal - Twitter Profile

Any society that makes people who want kids by 25 feel irresponsible has failed at something basic. I know how this sounds. So, caveats upfront: not everyone wants kids, 25 is not magic, and this is not some return-to-1950s-housewife fantasy. I mean something narrower. If someone wants children young, they should not have to fight the entire structure of modern life to do it. I became a father at 31. To twins. And 31 is not old, obviously. But the first thing that hit me was the energy bill. Not the emotional one. The physical one. Feeding the preemies every 2 hours. The unstoppable colic. The tiny logistics of which baby has slept, which baby has eaten, which baby is making that face that means something is about to go wrong. at 4:30 AM. This takes far more patience and body-level energy than I had imagined. From both of us. In the boring daily way, not the cute Instagram day-in-the-life reels way. And it made me think: wait, this is what people were supposed to do with more youth, more grandparents, more siblings around, and fewer calendar invites or quick calls. The irony is that 25 is not even early by Indian history. NFHS-5 put the median age at first pregnancy at 21.2. It only sounds early inside the urban career ladder, where every life decision must first pass through promotions, rent, EMIs, picking a housing society around school admissions, and the vague idea of being "settled." Being around my hometown has made this whole thing feel possible in a way a metro or foreign city would not have. At any point, there is someone around. A grandparent. An aunt. An uncle. Someone who can hold one baby while the other is being fed. Someone who can step in for twenty minutes without making it feel like a transaction. Just people. More hands. More slack. My father ran a grocery store, so work and home were never separate planets. After school, I could hang around him. He was working, but present. I did not think much of it then, because children never think of the infrastructure that makes their life feel normal. But now I do. This is the funny bug in the modern Indian success story. You spend your twenties escaping the village. Bombay. Bangalore. Gurgaon. Singapore. Dubai. Bay Area. Better salaries, better jobs, better apartments, better coffee, better everything. Then you come home from the hospital and realise the village was the only childcare system that actually worked. Of course, the village was never magic. It was mostly women's time, treated as ambient infrastructure. India's 2024 Time Use Survey says women who did caregiving spent about 140 minutes a day on it, compared to 74 minutes for men. That one line should puncture any lazy nostalgia. But it still leaves the uncomfortable question. What replaced it? So we professionalise the village. Daycare. Nanny. Night nurse. Meal subscription. Baby camera. WhatsApp group with other parents. Many of these are useful. Some are necessary. I am not sneering at them. But financial capital can buy labour. It cannot buy care. It cannot buy your child's grandmother sensing something is off before you do. It cannot buy an aunt taking the baby before you even ask. It cannot buy the quiet confidence that if you collapse for twenty minutes, the system will not collapse with you. This is why the "make money first, figure family later" line makes me suspicious now. It sounds sensible. Get stable. Build a career. Earn well. Then have kids when life is sorted. But what if the sorting itself moves you away from the infrastructure that would have made family easier? By the time the salary is right, the grandparents are older. The siblings are scattered. The career is harder to pause. The body has less slack. And then we call delayed parenthood a personal choice. Sometimes it is. Often, I think, it is a design failure dressed up as individual ambition. We did not lose the village. We outgrew it when it was inconvenient, then started missing it when it became useful. Maybe the question is not whether people should have kids at 25. Maybe the question is why success has made wanting kids young feel so impractical.

kunksed's tweet photo. Any society that makes people who want kids by 25 feel irresponsible has failed at something basic.

I know how this sounds. So, caveats upfront: not everyone wants kids, 25 is not magic, and this is not some return-to-1950s-housewife fantasy. I mean something narrower. If someone wants children young, they should not have to fight the entire structure of modern life to do it.

I became a father at 31. To twins. And 31 is not old, obviously. But the first thing that hit me was the energy bill.

Not the emotional one. The physical one.

Feeding the preemies every 2 hours. The unstoppable colic. The tiny logistics of which baby has slept, which baby has eaten, which baby is making that face that means something is about to go wrong. at 4:30 AM. This takes far more patience and body-level energy than I had imagined. From both of us. In the boring daily way, not the cute Instagram day-in-the-life reels way.

And it made me think: wait, this is what people were supposed to do with more youth, more grandparents, more siblings around, and fewer calendar invites or quick calls.

The irony is that 25 is not even early by Indian history. NFHS-5 put the median age at first pregnancy at 21.2. It only sounds early inside the urban career ladder, where every life decision must first pass through promotions, rent, EMIs, picking a housing society around school admissions, and the vague idea of being "settled."

Being around my hometown has made this whole thing feel possible in a way a metro or foreign city would not have. At any point, there is someone around. A grandparent. An aunt. An uncle. Someone who can hold one baby while the other is being fed. Someone who can step in for twenty minutes without making it feel like a transaction. Just people. More hands. More slack.

My father ran a grocery store, so work and home were never separate planets. After school, I could hang around him. He was working, but present. I did not think much of it then, because children never think of the infrastructure that makes their life feel normal. But now I do.

This is the funny bug in the modern Indian success story. You spend your twenties escaping the village. Bombay. Bangalore. Gurgaon. Singapore. Dubai. Bay Area. Better salaries, better jobs, better apartments, better coffee, better everything.

Then you come home from the hospital and realise the village was the only childcare system that actually worked.

Of course, the village was never magic. It was mostly women's time, treated as ambient infrastructure. India's 2024 Time Use Survey says women who did caregiving spent about 140 minutes a day on it, compared to 74 minutes for men. That one line should puncture any lazy nostalgia.

But it still leaves the uncomfortable question.
What replaced it?

So we professionalise the village.

Daycare. Nanny. Night nurse. Meal subscription. Baby camera. WhatsApp group with other parents. Many of these are useful. Some are necessary. I am not sneering at them.

But financial capital can buy labour. It cannot buy care.

It cannot buy your child's grandmother sensing something is off before you do. It cannot buy an aunt taking the baby before you even ask. It cannot buy the quiet confidence that if you collapse for twenty minutes, the system will not collapse with you.

This is why the "make money first, figure family later" line makes me suspicious now. It sounds sensible. Get stable. Build a career. Earn well. Then have kids when life is sorted.

But what if the sorting itself moves you away from the infrastructure that would have made family easier?

By the time the salary is right, the grandparents are older. The siblings are scattered. The career is harder to pause. The body has less slack. And then we call delayed parenthood a personal choice.

Sometimes it is. Often, I think, it is a design failure dressed up as individual ambition.

We did not lose the village. We outgrew it when it was inconvenient, then started missing it when it became useful.

Maybe the question is not whether people should have kids at 25. Maybe the question is why success has made wanting kids young feel so impractical.

12

165

25

50

29K

Aashish

@aashgoyal

11 days ago

It feels like inflation isn't just making things expensive. It's changing what's considered "normal." A ₹1 lakh+ laptop. A ₹1 lakh+ phone. A ₹1 lakh+ scooter. Meanwhile, most people's salaries haven't tripled over the same period. That's the gap people are feeling.

0

21

Aashish

@aashgoyal

11 days ago

Every few days I think we've finally found the perfect brand name. Then I check trademarks or domains... ...and it's back to square one!! Naming a business feels a lot like house hunting. You keep thinking, "This is the one." Until it isn't.

0

21

Aashish

@aashgoyal

11 days ago

Which one looks better for a kidswear brand?

0

10

Aashish

@aashgoyal

13 days ago

Some fresh produce from the lawn!

0

1

0

20

Aashish

@aashgoyal

14 days ago

There is something satisfying in watching how those levers play out

0

24

Aashish

@aashgoyal

14 days ago

#TheWrap is a gift that keeps on giving. My single best investment over the years. Can't recommend The Wrap enough - not for recommendations but to truly understand the variety of businesses, markets and ofcourse, the data. Also, the amount of clarity that @itsTarH has is very very rare.

Tar ⚡

@itsTarH

14 days ago

New in #TheWrap 🌯 Introducing Industry Primers 📑 These are beautifully crafted, interactive, in depth explainers Purpose of these is to help understand a particular industry in depth while mapping out the companies within them Available now https://t.co/ZyomxE9B7p

itsTarH's tweet photo. New in #TheWrap 🌯
Introducing Industry Primers 📑

These are beautifully crafted, interactive, in depth explainers

Purpose of these is to help understand a particular industry in depth while mapping out the companies within them

Available now
https://t.co/ZyomxE9B7p https://t.co/ilU121ZHeb

21

443

36

138

90K

0

1

0

38

Aashish

@aashgoyal

14 days ago

It's funny. We haven't sold a single piece of clothing yet, and we've already spent weeks just trying to find a name and a manufacturer. Starting a business asks for a lot of patience before it asks for any skill.

0

1

0

26

Aashish

@aashgoyal

14 days ago

I used to think building something was mostly execution. Turns out it's mostly sitting with decisions that refuse to become obvious.

0

15

Aashish

@aashgoyal

Who to follow

Last Seen Users on Sotwe

Trends for you

Most Popular Users