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Original poster

I know I’m an extreme case at 14 years....

107 replies

BertrandRussell · 26/08/2019 07:11

......but why do so many people have children so soon after starting a relationship? I’m not advocating 13 years as standard Grin and I know that accidents happen. But why would you choose to have a baby after only knowing someone a few months- or even a year?

OP posts:
TemporaryPermanent · 26/08/2019 07:55

Id been married for 4 years to someone who didnt want children. When i met dh after a couple of years alone, i told him on our second date that having kids was a deal breaker for me and he said that was fine. I was pregnant 4 weeks later, it wasnt planned but we did take a chance and we knew we wanted to be together. It was difficult but much, much less difficult than it would have been if we hadnt had a child (for me). I would have struggled to commit to anyone who was going to make me wait any longer, at that point id been broody for 17 years. As it was, i would have done pretty much anything for the man who made me a mother, and i did.

Charles11 · 26/08/2019 07:56

Well I think the other way. I met dh at university and we waited 10 yrs before getting married and then another 5 yrs before I had kids and another 6 before I had the youngest.
I wish we’d had them younger but it’s all good.

nononever · 26/08/2019 07:57

Married 9 years before my daughter was born, took 2 years to fall pregnant. I'd had a unrelated GP appointment and she queried if I was using contraception as I hadn't refilled my prescription for a while. Told her we were trying for a baby and she said come back in six months if you haven't fallen pregnant as we might need fertility investigation (I'd had emergency surgery after a ruptured ovarian cyst a few years previous). Little did I know at the time I was actually pregnant.

RunsForGummyBears · 26/08/2019 08:00

Hope over experience? Casual attitude towards risk? Early relationship energy overruling rational thinking? Strong desire to have children over everything else?

It'd be nice if every child was planned and if couples thought about the consequences before bringing another person into the world, but that's not how it generally works. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 26/08/2019 08:03

DD1 was born 10 months after our wedding (which apparently caused some finger counting amongst older relatives... Despite being engaged for 2 years before then and together for another 2 years before that).
I can only imagine the scandal if they knew he had moved in with me on our first date! (He was sort of homeless at the time, and we were friends... It's not as bad as it sounds!)

BeingATwatItsABingThing · 26/08/2019 08:05

Met in October, together by March, DD born in January. Not planned. I was 19.

Now married to DD’s dad and when people realise he’s her DF, they always look surprised like they assumed I wouldn’t still be with her DF. We’re very happy together and TTC DC2.

DryIce · 26/08/2019 08:08

I hate the idea of having a child ao quickly, but I did meet my partner when I was 20 so waiting 13 years was fine.

Had I met him at 35 I may have had to rethink that

Original poster
BertrandRussell · 26/08/2019 08:08

I don’t know many people IRL who have had children very quickly. But there are sooooo many threads on here from women who have children with men they can barely know. And quite often they are posting because he has turned out to be a waste of space- but it turns out they’ve had another one. As the mother of a young woman it breaks my heart a little every time I read it.

OP posts:
kaytee87 · 26/08/2019 08:11

I don't know anyone who has chosen to have a baby that soon after meeting. I know someone who had an accident but that's not really the same as choosing.
I can understand someone doing it if their biological clock was ticking though.

I met DH at 23, married at 28 and baby 11 months later.

ifyoulikepinacolada · 26/08/2019 08:13

I’m 30 and happily single. If I met someone I wanted kids with I might wait a few years (I think the honeymoon period needs to be well and truly over before you start making decisions like that) but as PPs stories have shown, there’s still a bit of a leap of faith involved no matter how long you’ve been with someone!

I would want to know lots of things about my hypothetical partner before getting pregnant; his treatment of any kids in our circle, his treatment of animals, his attitude towards my career, his stance on marriage, his thoughts on paternal leave and shared finances, his ability to cope with the unexpected, his stress and anger management style, and his thoughts on how he actually wanted to raise a child; what discipline techniques/dietary choices/religious beliefs/education he would want to impart. If I’ve been with someone long enough to feel confident that we were on the same page about most of those things, I wouldn’t think about the length of time itself. Does that make sense?

MrsMozartMkII · 26/08/2019 08:13

Just knew he was the one (I'd test run a number of others prior to meeting him Grin ).

We were married a year to the day of meeting and our DD was born two weeks after that. Another DD and twenty-five years later and we're still happily poddling along.

kaytee87 · 26/08/2019 08:16

*I always wonder why people have children so close together, surely it makes sense to have a gap of around 4/5 years between each child so that you’ve got a gap in paying nursery fees/teenage expenses/university fees and you can really enjoy each one growing up rather than lumping the stages of each child all together.

When I said this to a friend she worked out that when her oldest is starting uni her middle child will be doing A-levels and the youngest will be doing GCSEs and she’d never thought that far ahead*

Some people don't have to worry about money. Some people want their children to be able to play together. Some people aren't young enough to have a 5 year gap between children. Your friend probably did think about the gap and thought the opposite of you and didn't really want to discuss it with you.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 26/08/2019 08:21

Re gap between children - if I'd got back to unbroken sleep for a year or two I'd have found it hard to go back to the broken nights. That's what I told myself at the time and it helped a little. Nineteen months between mine - it wasn't altogether planned that way (took ages to get pregnant first time, happened instantly the second time) but it worked out very well, even though they were taking GCSEs and A levels at the same time.

I was a SAHM for a few years so childcare costs weren't an issue and the other thing about doing things that way was that the years of being a SAHM were shorter than they would have been with a bigger gap.

The biggest benefit was probably that we didn't have to manage that tricky business of having one child at a totally different stage to the other (once they were both beyond toddler stage). They could play together, share toys and books, we could go on outings that appealed to them both, and so on.

EskewedBeef · 26/08/2019 08:22

There are several reasons. Impatience, no money or career worries, age constraints, unplanned pregnancy...

Biancadelrioisback · 26/08/2019 08:22

We fell pregnant by accident on our 2 year anniversary. But when I say by accident, neither of us were specifically strict about contraception as we both would have liked children

StripeySocks29 · 26/08/2019 08:23

@kaytee87 you’re reading a lot into that, we’re friends, it was a friendly conversation, I wasn’t accusing her of anything 🤣

Azeema · 26/08/2019 08:25

Only thing that bother me is planning child before marriage.

grumiosmum · 26/08/2019 08:25

Age, I was in my mid-30s when I met DH. Couldn't afford to wait for 10 years!

And we both knew it was right. He'd been married before, with no kids, so knew what wrong felt like.

We had DS first, then got married 18 months later. Still happy together 20 years later.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 26/08/2019 08:26

I met DH when we were 19 , married at 28 had DS when I was 33-and-a -half .

So I'm 14 years too Grin

It sort of flowed along,, we bought the house , car , cat .
I didn't want to give birth , but gradually the Old Biological Clock ticks louder and I thought "How bad can it be?"

So we have DS then DD .

flumpybear · 26/08/2019 08:26

I think a lot of it is different circumstances - met my DH when i was 23 and him 18 - 8years in university before getting engaged, married two years later and first child 3 years after that (albeit it took time to have a successful pregnancy but ttc about 6 months after marriage)
We had a lot tomfit in first - other friends of mine have settled down much later and things moved more quickly.
A few friends had children very young, early 20's or before, mot have split up (we're in and around the age of 47 now) - some
Having other children with second relationship quite soon in ... different strokes and all that

NotSoThinLizzy · 26/08/2019 08:29

Met my OH at 15 got pregnant within 3 months. Still together after 11 years 😊 did wait a while until having anymore kids though. Next one came when I was 24.

Kinsters · 26/08/2019 08:29

Yes, we're hoping for a small age gap between ours. Mostly because I think it would be easier if they're at similar stages - easier to entertain, easier to get into a routine etc. Plus then we get the difficult sleepless baby years over with in one go. Money is not so much of a concern, it'll be expensive however they're spaced.

LaMarschallin · 26/08/2019 08:30

MrsPellegrinoPetrichor

We waited 10

I initially read that as "We waNted 10" so I thought, "Well, yes, you'd need to start popping them out quickly then!" Smile
(Love your name, btw)

It seems that contraception is a lot more unreliable than the evidence of studies would imply. Anecdotally, it seems condoms are always bursting and the pill will inevitably fail if missed once or if the user has any antibiotics in the house or a stomach upset.
I suppose there's always the morning after pill if any if those things happen, but maybe that always fails too.

It does sound on some thread here as though very few unplanned pregnancies happen due just to people not using contraception properly.

Or the point made by Verily1 could have something to do with it:

Because they arent planned pregnancies but people don’t admit they aren’t planned because there’s a stigma to that.

Some people are very lax about contraception and dont use it/ use it properly but don’t think they’ll get pregnant.

Gargamel1975 · 26/08/2019 08:32

Our first one came really early in the relationship- and yes we did struggle a lot at the beginning. We were not earning loads when we got together but despite how difficult it was we both managed to increase our potential earnings. And now we are 40 with 2 teenagers, we can go on date nights with worrying about getting a baby sitter, we have more time for each other, youngish parents to our children...it was risky to have a baby so early in the relationship but it paid off ! We are so happy !

firstimemamma · 26/08/2019 08:32

We decided to start trying for a baby after just under 3 years together, that felt right for us.