To think 17 and 43 is wrong?

[Beyinbonnet]

So a relation has started seeing a 17 year old (16 when started) they are now engaged, living together and she's pregnant!!! AIBU to think this is wrong?! All in the space of 7 month?!

I'm sorry but this just unsettles me!! I know it's not really my business but it's really got to me! Fair enough be seeing each other but FML!!!

No offense, but the people who think it's ok: what was your upbringing like?

I think it's disgusting but I think there may be a middle class v working class divide on this. When I was growing up in Liverpool (WC), there seemed to be an attitude that if you were over 15, you were an adult. Adulthood wasn't related to acquiring life experiences, getting an education, travelling or a career. Instead adulthood was acquired through being old enough to get a job, achieving parenthood and being in relationships.

So a 17 year old getting pregnant was fine because it would "mature her" and "give her something to think about". Whereas a middle class parent would see a child as something that would impede "development" (i.e. uni/jobs/travel etc).

This would probably lead to likely differing views in this situation. A 17 year old in a working class community is an adult and so having a kid with a 43 year old is probably considered fine.

For me, now living in a more middle class area, it would be considered a form of abuse.

I remember being on sites like faceparty as a 17 year old and was flooded with messages from men in their 40s. Always got beeped by lorry drivers as a teen but never since. There are more pervs out there than we think who would love the opportunity to be with a teenager. They don't know how to be with a grown woman and that's sad.

Soupersal, I think that birdsgottafly has a very interesting perspective. Really her view has changed as she has got older and matured. She recognises that even though at 17 one is an adult we still have a lot to learn in terms of maturity and nuance.

I don't know how old you are now but I would be interested to know whether you yourself would consider a relationship with a 17 year old boy. (Legal enough to have sex, but not legal enough to sign a credit card contract).

I'm nearly 40. I personally tend towards older men, so a 17 year old wouldn't interest me (apart from DH all my relationships were with men significantly older than me). I also have close friends whose children are now 17-20 and so wouldn't find that attractive because I've watched them grow up.

My uncle is 22 years older than my aunty and they've been together for over 30 years.

Yes smallthings because it's still 1984 and only middle class children go to university....

Ooh, and there's 18 years between another uncle and his partner. It's just not that strange to me.

Yeah I'm sorry but I find that very odd. I'm 26 and it wouldn't even cross my mind to see a teenager in that light. We have a lot of work experience/ apprentice lads in our work and talking to them makes me feel like a granny we just have nothing at all in common. I find them all very immature (not surprising as they are teenagers)

Also I had a friend who dated a 16/17 year old when he was around... 23 I think. We all found that very odd as she was just finishing school and starting college when we were trying to sort out mortgages.

He was a very immature man though and we all suspected that the reason he went for a younger girl was that she was quite naive and impressionable and a woman his own age would not have stuck with him as he didn't have much to offer.

I can see why the younger person might be interested but the older person should absolutely hold themselves back. Massive power imbalance there.

Not all people in their 30s and 40s are super mature, and not all 17, 18 and 19 year olds are immature. At 19 I owned my own house!

No offense, but the people who think it's ok: what was your upbringing like?

My friend and I would both call ourselves middle class and have PhDs.

*EllenDegenerate

Yes smallthings because it's still 1984 and only middle class children go to university....hmm*

Well I grew up working class and went to university (as I stated) so clearly that couldn't have been my point. Carry on

eggpoacher

My friend and I would both call ourselves middle class and have PhDs.

But did you grow up middle class when she was 17 and dating 55 year olds? Were your parents and family MC?

One of the things that happened growing up is that the older man was very much accepted into the family/community. Nobody blinked or went to the police (when that was appropriate). I see that more as a working class thing.

Obviously it's legal but morally extremely dubious
I have late teenage daughters and this makes me very uncomfortable
As people have said it smacks of grooming
Grim

All I know is that I hope this 17 yr old has someone quietly keeping an eye out. I have a feeling that, given the chances of a real power imbalance, she may need support somewhere down the line to assert herself within (or leave) the relationship.

I can see myself as a 17 yr old being attracted to or enjoy the 'status' of being in a relationship with an older man, but he would have had to have been extremely good looking! Yes, I was a shallow thing back then. But I absolutely cannot see myself as a 43 yr old being attracted to a 17 year old, no matter how good looking he was!

A11 i'm def working class and raosed by working class parents. At no point would my Dad have considered a baby life experience at 17. He'd have killed me!! Then supported me eyc. But i was expected to knickle down and go to uni - which i did.

I thibk it's incredibly offensive yo suggest that only middle class and above parents want a good education, career etc ehulstvus low sxummy working class families are all free to shag about from 14 as a baby is good life experience or a free house!!

Then why would you insinuate that it would ever be usual/accepted for seventeen year olds to become pregnant within WC communities smallthings

I find it ridiculous for you to assert that at fifteen you're grown up in WC Liverpool, laughable even.

Most fifteen year olds that I know of are studying for their GCSEs not planning to get a job and settle down.

You're extremely ignorant.

Where exactly did you grow up smallthings ?

And in which decade?

I grew up in Childwall in the 90s/00s and I'm actually incredulous at that which you have purported on this thread.

I grew up in a working class area (think former coal-field), and believe there is something in what A11TheSmallTh1ngs says.

Where I'm from, people do tend to have children when they're relatively young, and for some having a baby is the transition point into adulthood, living alone, taking responsibility, etc. However, I don't think many parents from that area would over-joyed to see their teenager shacking up with someone twenty years their senior.

I'm about the same age as this man. I view anyone under about 25 in a fairly parental, protective way. They may be adults but they're young adults. It's only once someone's about 30 that I start seeing them as sexually attractive. I'd be very suspicious of this man and would hope that if you liked someone in their teens, you'd just wait until they were in their 20s before doing anything, if ever.

Sometimes we meet someone we really like and for some reason it's just not right. And whilst historically 17 year old women and 43 year old men would not have been unusual, now I would consider it unsavoury at best and potentially very abusive.

My 17 yo sister met her 37 you (abusive) boyfriend because they both drank in the same pub. I think working class life can be more inter-generational.

But that's purely a societal and personal perspective, Gabilan.

Not illegal, but wrong IMO. She's all but a child.

Does anybody think that young people have become more childlike than they were in the past? (E.g. they tend to live at home a lot longer nowadays and seem to be generally more in need of help. I've a bit taught in HE so seen this firsthand, e.g. parents coming to open days and querying essay marks, etc) Is this something that has become more morally dubious than it once was?

Although I'd concede that most WC women don't wait until their thirties/beyond to have children Lazycake

Where I was raised a pregnant seventeen year old would be far from usual/accepted.

Furthermore, older partners were not routinely 'welcomed in to the family',
If anything WC fathers are more hostile towards their daughters boyfriends in my experience.

I'm very interested to know where exactly smallthings is alluding to...

Not illegal, no, but I'd feel disturbed by this.

What's your point, SouperSal ? If you want to put forward a biological argument, if we lived more "natural" lives, most of us would be dead by the age of 43, not some sought after, experienced prospect. A life lived according to nature and biology is pretty tough.

We live within societies which have evolved over time. And from a personal perspective, I know that at 43 you have much more experience than a 17 year old. Whilst age gaps are by no means the only indicator of potential abuse, that extra life experience can make it more likely. The older person may well not be able to cope in a relationship with a peer and so seeks someone they find easier to control. Yes, of course age gaps relationships can work. But for all sorts of reasons they're more likely to go wrong than if you're within about 10 years of each other. We live within societies - so putting forward an argument based on what happens within those societies is no less right or somehow irrelevant.