[Clodfobble]

With *absolutely* zero employment experience, sure. But I'm also of the opinion that teens should start working at 16, continue in some capacity during college, and not necessarily be popping babies out the day after graduation.

Let's say you want to be a radio DJ. First you have to be an unpaid intern, then a Production Assistant, then a Producer, then maybe an On-Air Talent. Follow that trajectory without kids, and you're basically 2 years into being an On-Air Talent when you realize, "oh shit, biological clock's ticking." Leave that position, and you'll have to fight hard to get it back, because not every Producer gets to be an On-Air Talent. You've already passed the critical gate.

Meanwhile, if you go off to have kids 1 year into being a Production Assistant, no one will miss you, but you'll still have some reasonable career-themed stuff on your resume when you come back--by which time quite possibly you've already realized, "ooh, actually radio sucks and what I really want to do is teach."

Now, in Scenario A, you drop out of your On-Air Talent job, raise the kids, look up and now you're in your mid-to-late 40s looking for a Talent Job with 1 year of experience (or else looking for a teaching job with a certain amount of non-relevant experience.)

In Scenario B, you've had your kids, you're in your 30s, and you're looking for a Producer job. You only have 1 year of experience as a PA, and others your age have more, or even a few years as a Producer already. But here's the catch. The employment recruiter will look at you and say, "Ah, she's already got kids, now she's in for the long haul," whereas they look at the Producer in her 30s without kids and say, "Ah, she's getting along in years, no kids yet, but not quite past the window for them--she'll be bailing on us in a few years, and also probably making our insurance policy pay for her expensive preemie triplets that she conceives with IVF." Assuming the one who already has kids is talented and interviews well, she is at least as likely to get the Producer job, if not more.

Meanwhile, in the alternate universe where it turns out you want to be a teacher--often that sort of revelation comes not because radio makes you miserable, but because something inspires you late in the game as you come into your 30s and figure out who you are. So now, again, you're either a 30-something who's had her kids, and is ready to throw herself into a new career with both feet, or you're a 30-something who is faced with changing careers and also having babies all at once.

Obviously nothing is one-size-fits-all. And lots of "On-Air Talent" level folks manage to have a kid late in their fertility window and utilize day care and keep working at their job. And that leads to other minefield debates like working mothers with newborns, and how close-siblings-vs-extra-financial-stability make their mark on a kid. I'm just saying that getting your kids out of the way early isn't anything like the career-derailing death sentence people make it out to be.