I love this because it really summarizes how I feel about it even though I'm in the dumb idealistic age lol. When I finished undergrad in my early 20s I was like damn, do I want to work really hard on developing my career (which in my field of interest would include significant international travel) and end up being an old dad, or do I want to set limits on how much stress I want now and find more manageable albeit less rewarding career paths in order to focus on becoming a father. I feel like in my relationship that starting a family will be expected much sooner than my late 30s, maybe even late 20s and honestly it feels like the right choice. I think it's going to make life so much harder but I think we'll be okay and it will be worth it in the long run. I sometimes feel the pressure to not have kids or to wait but it just feels like such an integral part of who we want to be (without kids we both feel like we'd be wondering as you said) that if anything I feel like we can grow more out of it than get drained by it overall, especially the younger we decide to do it.