To Ask How A Woman Can 'Make The Most Of Her 'Youth'?

[CranberryPrincess]

I am in my early twenties and noticed that more and more I have older female family members, bosses, people at work, most women I befriend or meet who are older always go on about 'making the most of your youth' but never say how best to make sure you are doing this :/ or give me examples...they just always simply say it.

I am unmarried with no children atm but hope to

Can anyone elaborate on things a woman can do to 'make the most of her youth' ? or how she can be sure she's doing so ? and some examples :)

thanks :-)

[lessthanBeau]

Travel, wish I had good luck

[KingJoffreyLikesJaffaCakes]

Shag hot men?

Travel?

[WorraLiberty]

I have never heard of this but if you're hearing this from..

Older family members
Bosses
People at work
Most women you befriend or meet

Have you not asked them to tell you specifically what they mean by it?

[JanetOfTheApes]

I suppose it just means enjoy yourself while you can. Take opportunitites that would be harder or impossible if you had a clutch of children or a large mortgage.

[sooperdooper]

Travel, see the world while you've got no commitments - if I was early 20s again I'd save up and backpack round the world

[ABetaDad1]

I got married to DW when I was 25. We travelled a lot before we had children and we intend to do it again when they leave home. We both got a good education before that. We also worked very hard and built careers

This is not advice specific to women. I advise anyone to do this if they can before children. It is 10 x harder to do any of these things once you have children.

Don't drift along. These years between teenage and having your own children are years that you can never get back. Make them work for you.

[Frika]

It's an irritating 'youth is wasted on the young' thing, said by people who usually have a very prescriptive idea about what they think you should be doing, and which is almost never what you're actually doing.

Depending on who you listen to, I either wasted my youth by getting together with my now DH at 19, so I didn't do enough shagging around for their tastes, or, alternatively, I wasted my youth doing four degrees, living on fresh air and small change, and bumming around in a series of communes, because I wasnt 'settling down', getting on the 'property ladder', and having the right number of children. And a subset of people think I compounded this by then having a child when I wanted one at 40, rather than 'when you should have'.

Next time someone says it, look serious and understanding, ask exactly it is they 'wasted their youth' on, and ask whether they've considered counselling for their midlife crisis.

[angelicjen]

Travel the world, dance all night, go to beautiful places, meet interesting people, learn stuff, feel scared, be impulsive, use your body before it starts aching and creaking!
Just don't sit on your bum watching telly. You'll do enough of this when you have kids and it's really boring. (The being stuck in bit, not the kids bit!)

[jamhot]

My best advice is to do what you truly want to without worrying too much about what others will think about it. I think most people only figure out way too late that other people's opinions rarely matter.

[jamhot]

The wisdom of Dame Helen Mirren:

[CranberryPrincess]

More clarity in this thread than i've had from all these people in the past few years!

:)

[mudandmayhem01]

Things I did when i was younger and before I had kids: travel, rock climbing ( including soloing) drugs and all night raves. These are not recommendations but I don't regret any of it, but I hope my kids don't do all of these.

[floatinglight]

Usually people on the extremes will say something like that.

For those who settled down quickly will tell you to enjoy your youth if they missed out on travel, parties, adventures and so on.

For those who went traveling, partying and struggle in later life will tell you not to waste your youth like that.

Hope you find your own balance OP.

[MrsNoraCharles]

I wish I'd had far more sex.

I also wish I'd understood the concept of working to live - I'd have lived in a surfing place and had fun, instead of getting a "good" job and being incredibly
solemn.

However, they are my regrets, not a prescription for how someone else should live.

Do what makes you happy!

[Hufflepuffin]

I thought it meant shag around, but I did that and wish I'd travelled instead. Always thought I didn't have the time or the money but I did!

[dangerrabbit]

I'm loving frika's contribution to this thread:

Next time someone says it, look serious and understanding, ask exactly it is they 'wasted their youth' on, and ask whether they've considered counselling for their midlife crisis.

[Fatmomma99]

Get a time machine, go forward to you in your 40s. Look at what you like and what you regret. Go back, and fill in the regrets!

[Fatmomma99]

Read more!

[7Days]

Whatever you do, do something. Get ahead in your career, travel the world, doll your beautiful self up and meet loads of exciting men, have a baby even. Just don't drift along for 5 or ten years.
Early twenties was shit for me. Dead end job, no money, no travelling, boring boyfriends or usery ons.
Be like nessa in gavin and stacey.

[FastWindow]

Go as far as you can. Dye your hair blue, cut it short if you normally go long. At the end of your 20s, things are far harder to change. So change now, for the sake of it! Go to Hong Kong. Or Arizona.

All of it. Why not. You can always come back. I would, given half the idea.

[Destinysdaughter]

Agree with shagging hot men and travelling!

However, conversely, it's much harder to meet a decent guy when you're older and I regret wasting so much time on fuckwit men who I tried to change. If having a family is your goal, don't waste your best years with these men ( just shag them!). Find a slightly older man who's got his own shagging out of his system and wants to settle down.

However I'm still shagging hot men and I'm 50 ( # nevergrowup )

[Frika]

Honestly, I fail to see why we should expect people to live out our fantasies just because they're 22.

Youngsters, do whatever the hell you like. Don't feel you have to live on a beach in Koh Samui, get a tribal tattoo and wear stripy trousers, while having slightly drunken sex with a wide selection of nationalities, just because your senior colleague who regrets getting a mortgage in Surbiton at 20 tells you to. Sit on your ass and eat a cheese sandwich. Join an enclosed order of nuns. Learn to burp all the G8 national anthems. It's your call.

[Destinysdaughter]

I didn't travel when I was younger and regretted it. Finally went to India on my own when I was 47, after being made redundant so still got to do it and really enjoyed it and felt mature enough to handle it, so, some things are possible even if you're older. However I think having kids is the real game changer and does limit your life a lot.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

KingJoffrey has it. Shag and travel. If you travel while shagging, there's no bumping into people at the supermarket. Also, I always seem to meet hotter men who wanted to shag travelling.

I did shag and travel (more travelling than shagging, to be fair). And in my 40s I can say I don't feel I wasted my youth. I also worked with charities, doing some good.

However, I WANTED to do those things. If you don't, don't. I would say try not to let embarrassment, fear or relationships stop you doing anything you bloody well want to.

Oh and if Tim, at University in the 1990s, is on here, I wish I'd shagged you.

[Abbbinob]

I got pregnant at 21 and I definitely see the difference with my friends of similar ages "enjoying their youth", as in, no responsibilities, going out, spare money etc. you don't realise how young you are at 21 at the time really, or how much responsibility is to come- it's likely the only time you'll have the ability to do pretty much whatever you want, as you're an adult but don't really have too much responsibility.
I get serious envy when i see facebook posts about hangovers and spending all day in bed on a sunday.
I think i had enough of enjoying my youth in my teen years though tbh, anymore "enjoying" and i think my liver may have given up or i'd be dead/ in prison.