Ok, now that I'm in front of a keyboard I can expand upon my comments about ages and timeline. Without going line by line why I think the ages and timelines are weird, but technically consistent, there's a simpler answer to how Sophia can be sub 40, have two children in their "late" teens, a college degree, and been married since her 2nd year of college.
L&P wanted his cake and to eat it too.
He wanted a female protagonist that was as young as possible because he needed to balance out a bunch of competing demands
- She needed to be old enough to be a mom
- But she couldn't be too old because women over 40 are scary to a lot of men
- She needed to be old enough to have two children in their teens
- These teens need to be of indiscernible ages- especially Dylan because of potentially gross reasons. So her age had to straddle a fine line
- Sophia can't be too much older because the age gap with her children could become a problem, but she can't be too young because then certain important illusions could be broken
- The story requires her to be sophisticated and educated
- But she can't have much experience in life or sex outside of her husband
- She needs to be a working woman, young enough that she isn't too much older than her students, but old enough that she could actually meet the bare minimum requirements for the position
- Sophia and Liam need to be married for long enough that some of the spark has come out of their marriage
- Because Sophia and Liam are peers, they need to be old enough for him to have advanced through the ranks of his profession, but young enough that he isn't too high up.
- Etc...
Basically this leaves a very narrow age window from which the character of Sophia could be conceptualized. It's
possible that a 20 year old Sophia got married, had two children, while in college, while attending classes full-time and playing on the college basketball team, still found time before this to have some experience with women in a light and experimental way, completed
at least a four year degree in education, became a teacher, but never taught full time- but taught enough that she had enough experience to get hired after the family moved, etc etc etc. Like, it's all
possible, but please don't look too closely and just sorta kinda gloss over everything.
In the end it doesn't really matter because it's just a game. If there's anything I'm frustrated with it's that it seems too hard for too many men to accept a woman in her mid 40s as desirable because I think that definitely came into play here.
