To be a bit shocked at how suprised this woman was that I'm not married?

[Abbinob]

So at work we had someone in from another store covering someone's shift
We got talking and I was talking about DS, she said oh you look to young to have a a 3 year old (I'm 25 but fair enough i get this a lot due to big fat circle head of mine)
Then I told her my age and her next question..
"Oh so how old were you when you got married" explained im not and she looked really shocked at me and started asking why not, do I plan to soon etc etc i said no probably not right now and she avoided me the whole rest of the shift

Aibu to think this is really weird and rude? It's pretty normal to not be married and have kids these days right?

I can't imagine why anyone would actively choose to have a child without the legal framework of marriage.

FFS!! Why don't you close you eyes and try just a teeny tiny bit?

Draylon i live in "suburban home counties" too ( I think, well, berkshire. no idea what exactly classes as suburban but whatever) and i know lots of unmarried mothers

Draylon Well they need to move forward with the times, age is no excuse. My PIL and parents are all in their 60s and are aware of how things have changed. They don't live in a bubble! To be shocked at a mum being unmarried is just ignorant.

Draylon if you are in the Home Counties then your assertion;

, but please understand that being an unmarried mother isn't yet generally considered 'the norm' in this country, and not just by religious or very old folks.

is just baffling. I'm not attributing my own views to the general populace as you suggest, but I think maybe you are. Shall we commission a polling company to settle it for us?

Or are you actually just signalling your own disapproval of babies without marriage?

Because I think very logically, and although we could have had children before getting married we thought it was better for us that we had that legal stuff in place first.

Should i have died in childbirth, I wanted my DH not to have to go to court to obtain parental rights for example. There are lots of things why it might be a beneficial idea...but they may not be relevant to you, they were to me.

I was glad for example when my DD was not expected to survive, DH was able to register the birth without me (I was in hospital) as we didn't want to register a birth and death at the same time.

I also live in suburban home counties, but I live here in 2016, not 1956!

It's ridiculous to say that people should expect things always to be exactly as they were when they were young. My grandparents were adamant that my parents shouldn't live together before marriage (and they didn't); when I first moved in with a boyfriend they sent a cheque for £100 to buy furniture. Because 34 years had elapsed, the world had changed and my grandparents weren't frozen in time.

I certainly don't disapprove, I just think marriage had benefits and therefore, for me a better option.

Not RTFL but saw a PP unthread who said being married was still more the norm amongst her friends and just wanted to offer anecdotally that it was very much 50:50 out of my NCT group. Two couples have since married while the kids have been little but when we all met with that first baby four couples were married, four weren't. This is East London.

Wow I'd never assume that someone was married. I get told I don't look old enough to have 3 kids - I'm 34 so clearly am old enough. I do wonder what impression I give but I'm probably best not knowing.

I must confuse the hell out of people. Married for ages, 2yo DS but neither DH or I wear our rings very often. I have terrible skin on my hands and it irritates the crap out of me. A ring doesn't determine how married we are.

I always wonder if I'm being badly thought of and judged as an 'unmarried mum', even though I have never, ever judged an unmarried mother before in my life (both my siblings had children before marriage and subsequently married their partners).

You say it like it was ALL down to you! Women can't decide for their partner/bf very often.

Here's a shock, not all men are prepared to get married. A very high number aren't prepared to get married, and they have all the rights they need as fathers.

My x wouldn't. In the end, I was very glad. It meant that when I finally picked my self-esteem up off the floor I was free to leave him, with nothing obviously, but free to leave. I know a few women who were subjected to the dirtiest most savage, most exhausting and humiliating stressful legal battles for their share. The protection of marriage. It destroyed them that protection.

To be honest, a lot comes down to whether the man is a tightfisted arsehole or a responsible father. (Good father and Good man, very strongly linked obviously).

And I don't need to be told that being married makes financial sense for most women, given that 'most women' still earn less than most men and therefore the ones to step out of their careers for a while.

But if somebody in this day and age looked surprised that I'd had children without being married, honestly, I'd think there were auditioning for a role in a film adaptation of a maeve binchy novel.

I used to think everyone should marry before having children (I got married almost three years ago at the age of 22) as that's how I was brought up. Now I wish I had the money I spent on my wedding to buy furniture for my house haha. Although I would have probably got married quickly down the registry office after my first baby as I want us all to have the same surname. Product of my up upbringing too I feel people are always checking for a ring whilst I'm waddling around so heavily pregnant as I've puffed up too much to get it on haha.

I would never be rude to someone though just because their family is different from mine and hope no one would be the same to me.

Wow, surprising that young people are so conservative still. I was ''brought up like that'' too but it was part of that same upbringing (dogmatic, silencing etc) that lowered my self-esteem.

I'm proud of not wearing a ring now. I feel that it marks me out as a stronger person. I didn't always feel like that, it did shame me to begin with, but once you adjust, it's a badge of honour really. Internally. You know what you've dealt with.

Maybe it's different in the Home Counties?

Here in London even us Old People have been ahead of the trend for ages.

My children are doing very well at school.

""In families where parents break up children do less well at school, are more likely to suffer mental health problems and are more likely to have substance abuse problems," he said.
"The government needs to send a very clear message that it supports marriage. That's why married tax breaks are so important."

What bollix, if the government wanted to support better outcomes for children it would make sure women were paid the same as men and affordable childcare was accessible to all. make paternity leave the norm so that employers have no LOGICAL reason to discriminate against women.
Women are still financially vulnerable when they have children. Eliminate that vulnerability and outcomes for children will be better.

my parents were considered "old" when they had me too, so their views are probably a little more reserved. Oddly at the same time some of their views on other things might have been considered less old fashioned though. They told me I was an adult at 16 and everything was up to me, which seems great at the time as I made all my own choices but in hindsight I needed to still be treated like a child at times for guidance. It's only marriage and babies really they "warned" me about, telling me especially not to have children before 35 (oops). Although they changed their tune when I was told I wouldn't be able to have babies very easily. I think we all move forward as we get more and more life experience whether it comes to us in our twenties or sixties.

To be honest, I found there was more shock/raised eyebrows/"are you pregnant" etc from my being married at 22 than my gasp unmarried relative being pregnant at 21.

Granted, a few years into marriage I was still being asked if my parents were home when door-to-door people came knocking, so perhaps that had something to do with it

I don't think it is odd for a young person to be "shocked" as they are more likely to have little life experience outside their own culture. It would be more odd for her to be shocked if she was older whatever her culture or religion. Also, it could be because to her you seem to be the sort of person who would not have children (or maybe even sex) outside marriage.

My DH would not have had the rights that we would wish as a father in the circumstance we found ourselves in.

I guess in any relationship there are things that are absolute make or breaks, to coin a phrase. And they might not be the same as some other relationships.

I don't mind what other people do though!

I must admit that for a while i just assumed that if folk lived together and had kids that they were married. I know better now but if you grew up somwhere where everyone married then it's not unusual to make the assumption.

I can't believe what I am am reading after all the horror stories on here, week after week. about unmarried parents (usually the woman) in 'long and happy relationship, never thought about it - me and dp and our 3 dcs don't need a piece of paper' only he then starts shagging some 20yr old. Re-writes the script , tells you to get out of his house, you are a SAHM or earn pocket money, nowhere near enough to support your dcs. He decides to be a dick and spend all his money on new gf and not pay maintenance... You get a lawyer and discover you are entitled to bugger all..except a long winded often fruitless fight for maintenance..

Or even worse. The mother of three on here last year, lived with DP ten plus years, DP had a massive seizure bought on by a brain tumour. On life support. His MOTHER was recognised as his next of kin because they weren't married. She made the decision about the life support. He passed away, she wasn't entitled to any bereavement benefits/payments and ALL his national insurance contributions went to the treasury rather than to a Widows Pension for her and the children, she wasn't recognised as a widow because they 'hadn't bothered with the piece of paper'..

To have children without getting married in the UK, whilst are laws are so discriminatory against 'partners' Is a very strange decision imho. BUt how much is it a genuine choice ? How many women in 'common law' relationships would genuinely not want the legal framework and protection of marriage, but having provided the children, now find that the proposal is a long time coming ?

I wouldn't be shocked though if I met someone who had children and wasn't married. I do meet people who have done that, but not in my social circle. I haven't deliberately excluded anyone just so happens we are all married.

i think weddings are much more expensive than they used to be and the pressure to have something extravagant possibly means that some couples might put a wedding off until they can afford it. Hence the trend for marrying post children.

I guess people don't get married for lots of reasons though.

YANBU, above 40% of children in the UK are born to unmarried parents now, iirc. Obviously some of those couples then go on to marry, and a few of them have had religious but not legal ceremonies so might not describe themselves as unmarried. But even so that's going to be a significant minority of mothers of three year olds who aren't married. You'd expect people to be aware of this unless they're very sheltered. They don't have to approve, but being shocked is strange. It's not at all unusual now.

That's a completely separate issue from whether an individual mother might be better off married. I've posted before on threads about the advantages or otherwise of marriage, but can't see that it's relevant to this thread.

Marilyn - you are a SAHM or earn pocket money - let's not assume that everyone is a SAHM, maybe?

Tell her that the 1950s called and they want their attitude back.

Silly woman.