To not consider myself a 'young mum'?

[AnneNonimous]

I am 21, my DS is 8 months old.

A friend of mine from school had her DD two weeks before mine. She is the same age as me. She is always running on about how tough it is being a young mum, and how people judge her etc. And how well she is doing considering. She goes clubbing a lot and on holidays without her DD who is left with her parents as she feels entitled to still be 'young'.

We are both in the same situation living at home and single parents. While I wholeheartedly agree that it's bloody hard as parenting is in general I don't class myself as a 'young mum'. I am young and I am a mum but in my opinion a young mum is a youngish teenager. I definitely don't qualify for any of the young mum courses in my area. At what age does it start being acceptable to just be a mum?

I don't think you are - if it were even possible to have a boundary at what is a 'young mum'.

But I'm 41 and looking back at when I was 21 I would consider myself to have been young then (I was going to say all sorts about what I was actually like, but I don't want you to think I'm insinuating you're the same )

I had DD1 at 29 and DD2 at 38. I think I was probably ready to not be so selfish and consider such a huge responsibility at about 25 give or take a couple of years.

But that was me, and you are a mum which makes a difference. Young, old, in the middle, your DC won't care

I'm 21, DS is three, he was born six months after my 18th birthday.

I did encounter a lot of young mum hatred in the early days, but I also don't think it really is much harder at 18 than it would be at 38. Being a mum for the first time is always going to be bloody hard, and your age really doesn't change that.

TBH it sounds like you have taken on being a mother easier than she has if she's still off clubbing and going on holiday without her DD.

IMHO, you are but then I had mine at 33 and 34, and at 20 was still at Uni and far far away from being ready to be a parent! So I consider you very young, but that just my view, there is no yes/no answer!

Oh - and I attended the young mums antenatal group, simply because I was under the under 21s midwife. But I only went to the postnatal group for a short while, because frankly I didn't fit in.

I've got lots of lovely 'mum friends' now, all of whom are at least five years older than me, and most who are ten years older.

Age has very little relevance to your parenting.

I didn't consider myself a young mum, I had our first at 22. Looking back 10 years on, well, i do consider that I was one now.

I'm 21, DS is 14 months and I have just also found out I am pg.

Haven't really encountered any criticism but I think that may change once number 2 is here, mainly because I can't work atm though and perhaps not so much about my age.

I don't really think of myself as a young mum either but that may be because, I knew quite a few people in my year at school who had kids while we were at school, the youngest few mums, I think were 13 at the time.

Pre 25 - young mum
Post 35 - old mum
Which would you rather be described as .

It all depends on your perspective. I'm 41, so consider you to be young. And you're a mum. So I would probably think of you as a "young mum". There isn't meant to be any judgement in that at all, just an observation.

I had my first baby at nearly 36, so you, or other women of around your age, would perhaps consider me to be an old mum. (I know I would have at 21.) But as I'm seeing it from a different perspective, I don't.

Seriously, people are labelled all the time, for all sorts of different reasons. Just ignore it and get on with being a 'mum', whatever age you've chosen to sprog.

I was considered a young.min by our hospital and was directed yo the young mums group. I was 24!

I became a mother at 23, uni, mortgage, marriage etc all ticked off and was surprised to be thought of as a young mum. I think this is the first generation to think like this - I became a parent at the same age and situation as my own mother and actually slightly older than my grandmother and they weren't thought of as "young".

Oh, Zebra! You have just reminded me, my HV obviously didn't bother looking at my notes and thought that I would get some sort of benefit automatically as she thought I was 16, she even tried to send me to parenting classes for young mums! In this area that would be mid teens.

I would call it young!

I don't think early twenties is young mum territory, for me it would be under twenty, so I'd say you were neither a young mum nor an old mum just simply a mum

Or when your ds starts to talk a muuuuuuuummmmmmyyyyyy

Living with your parents would make you seem younger than you are.

I had my first at 25 and thought of myself as being quite young. I am a fairly young mum of 3 at 30 too imo. Don't be so offended! Enjoy the fact that you are young!

I think it depends on the expectations within your social circle. I was married at 24 and that was considered young within my family and friends, but it was a lot older than some of my friends when they married and their families thought nothing of it.
Ditto having DC, I was 27 when I had my first and that was years before any of my university friends had their first, so they all thought I was a young mum at 27

i was 19 and didn't consider myself a young mum, but looking now at people i know who are 19 and at uni, i think they seem very young and too immature (just the ones i know not all 19 year olds) to be parents. i think it's just different types of personalities. when i had ds2 at 22 i felt about 10 years older than i did being a mum at 19. odd.

It depends entirely on your age-if I was early 20's I wouldn't, but since I was 40 then yes it is very young.

I had my first in teens and 4 by 25. Had no 5 in 30s. Most mums in my area were much older then me with first 4. I felt judged and odd one out quite a bit although had some young mum friends. We thought mums over 30 were ancient! Now I feel average age and making friends has been so much easier.

I guess it's all relative then isn't it. I don't resent being called young! I guess I resent the 'young mum' excuse as a get out clause when I don't feel it effects my parenting in any way!

And for what it's worth I think 'old mum' is equally annoying!

I would enjoy the label-unfortunately it never applied!

I wouldn't consider you to be young but then I had My first at 17 second at 19 third at 20 and forth at 22. But I was more mature than My friends . I never done the nights put or weekends away I have never left the kids with My parents overnight.

I would probably see you and think you a are quite young, but I don't have a problem with young mums. We should support them as they have gone on to have the baby etc.

Equally, you sound much more responsible and mature than your friend, who might give young mums a bad name!

Young mum? I would call you young at 21, but then when I was 21 anyone my age was either a dinosaur fossil or the living dead.

Mind you I didnt like being classified as old at 29, 30 nor 35 either.

Actually - t'ween you and me and the whole inter'web looking in ... having a baby at 35, with a school girl in the bed next to me and her mum, younger than me, made me fell really quite decrepit. Did I judge (of cousrse I did )

Age is relative, maturity on the other hand comes with mindset and experience.

I think I understand what you're saying. You believe your friend is 'getting out' of some of the hard work of parenting by using the 'but I'm young' excuse, when in actual fact, 21 is a perfectly acceptable age to have a baby; it's no easier and no more difficult than if she was a few years older. Is that right?