to think that 21/22/23 isn't that young?

[smellmybacon]

i see it all the time on here how "young" you are if early 20's. i'm 23 and have a 1 year old and live in a house with my partner. most of my friends have children and some are on to their second baby.

i can't imagine still going on nights out all the time or not being settled down. when do you think you start being a grown up if early 20's is young?!

It's young enough not to make silly little "oof" noises when you move I found that nasty habit crept in with pregnancy in my early 30s and I can't seem to lose it! I'm not alone, several friends have gone that way since 35, and the "oofs" get louder with time...

At 23 I was doing a PGCE and entering teaching. That was a major stage of "grown-upping" and the point where I ran out of energy for late night clubbing and frequent hangovers and I never really bounced back from that. Starting a family at the end of my 20s killed off nightlife for me. I was already living with DH, and being older he owned the house. It was late 20s when we formally settled for marriage. We could have accelerated the settling down to similar outcomes albeit with teenagers rather than primary school children.

Early 20s are young. It's only a few years into adult life, but that doesn't mean you can't be mature and responsible. It also doesn't mean you have to cease being youthful and fun.

I'm in my late 30s and still feel youthful, most of the time. My DCs are of that golden stage of childhood where they are still young and playful and wanting to have adventures with me, and that's very good for keeping you young. I love doing things like camping/ exploring/ trampoline parks with them. I have known people that were positively middle aged in their 20s, in a very set way where a cup of tea was exciting stuff. They weren't necessarily mature and well equiped for life's curveballs though.

We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

@smellmybacon

23 IS young IMO, and I cannot imagine being tied down with a kid, and a load of bills, and a mortgage at that age.

You should be partying, and backpacking around South America, and going to music festivals, and getting pissed every weekend in your early 20's, not be changing nappies and paying a mortgage.

You sound old before your time.

I also have to say there is nothing good or special about having a mortgage at 21-22 y.o. A few people on here are acting like they are morally superior because they had/have a mortgage just a couple of years out of their teens. Why have THAT ball and chain around your neck at such a young age?

And this isn't aimed at you OP, but at someone who said you must be mature to have a baby at 20-21.. Having a baby just out of your teens doesn't make a woman 'mature.' Indeed, some of the most childish, petty, immature women I know, had their first child really young. (Like under 21.) It's like they settled down too young, and never had a chance to mix with their peers, and experience the world, and their adolescent mentality never left them.

I also see lots of women who had kids between 16 and 21-ish out clubbing and getting pissed in nightclubs, and throwing themselves at lads 15 years younger, when their kids are teenagers, (and they are in their late 30's,) as they are trying to recapture the youth they never had because they had kids so young.

Not gonna lie, it's really cringeworthy to look at.

When I was 22 I was living in London with friends and now DH, working crazy hours and doing lots of lovely fun things (on a teeny budget!) We were super skint and didn’t have a holiday for 8 years, and had old crappy cars that broke down constantly and lurched from payday to payday. We’ve now moved out of London but still live in the very expensive South East and it took till I was 32 to buy a house. It seems to me amongst the slightly younger colleagues and friends that I have that less people flat share now, and most people seem to move back home with parents after uni and are living at home longer ‘to save’ (however they all drive nicer cars than me, have Better holidays than me and generally seem to have a much better standard of living as they are not having to finance a home). In the circle of people I know, I can’t think of any 22 year olds who have children or who live independently.

When my children are that age I'd still see them as young, It should be a time for travel, starting a career and having some fun before the responsibilities of a mortgage and children follow a good few years later.

I wouldn't want then tied down at that age as the chance of the relationship lasting would be really low.

It’s all personal though really. I spent my 20s travelling and partying before settling down in my 30s. I am glad I did it and certainly wouldn’t change it. Holidays and nights out are very different once you have a mortgage and children.

I can now get excited about going to Ikea but can’t see how I would have wanted to be going there for the last 30 years! Don’t grow up and old too quickly as there is plenty of time for that...

young and old are movable concepts. 22/23 seems normal to you, when you are 50 you might look back and think you were ridiculously young at 30, while now 30 may seem really old.

Perception really.
I guess it depends on how old you look rather than how old you actually are.
I am 2 years older than DH but people will guess he's few years older than me.

@chrisisthesun I was one of those people, wasn’t saying I was morally superior was just saying that’s what I was doing at 21 (I also travelled, had a good job and went to music festivals too) I didn’t do it at 21 to feel morally superior I just did it because I thought that’s what I should do at the time.

My sister is 10 years younger than me and bought her house at 23 but we are up north so no doubt it’s cheaper to do so.

I don't feel young at 24, but I think that's what arthritis and other autoimmune diseases kinda does to you, plus mental health issues. I'm immature but in the sense that I'm sick of the world and I think it's painfully unfair and no, I shan't just 'get on with it' because I'm in pain 24/7 and I can't handle it.

I'm whiny.

Re: “nights out”

Doesn’t have to mean downing vodka and dancing to awful dance music. I’m 35 and go frequently on nights out to see djs or bands that I love, to go dancing, to the theatre or opera (when I can) or to tapas bars, drag nights, etc. I don’t drink excessively and I resent the implication from colleagues or friends that i should be ‘over’ nights out. You can do that stuff in a grown up, non sambuca way.

I was never young. Don't even know what it feels like. I got a council flat with my future DH at seventeen, having both worked since sixteen. My parents and grandparents were all dead by then, he only had his money grabbing selfish bitch of a mother, extended families couldn't give a shit about us and we've always only had each other. Makes you grow up fast when you have no support I can tell you. We're in our forties now but I feel fucking ancient. My health is failing fast and we're worse off than we've ever been.

Age is irrelevant, it's all down to circumstances really.

I suppose what I’m saying is there’s a false dichotomy between people who like going out and people who like having a family band a nice house and nights in. You can have both.

Each to their own but I made a conscious decision at your age not to get pregnant or get a mortgage as that would have been the end of my life as I knew it at your age. Different strokes for different folks.

I went travelling at 26 and had a bit of a clubbing/partying phase in my late 20s-early 30s. I am now married, mortgaged with kids and step kids, it's lovely but I'm glad I had that time before, I would have felt I'd missed out if I'd gone straight to parenthood at 20.

There is a bit of an obsession with announcing how young you were when you bought a house, 18 or 19 etc. it's not possible for a lot of young people now days to buy at all.

21/22/23 is young, you never get that youth back. Even if you do feel like a teenager inside.

You know you're grown up when you stop worrying about how grown up people think you are (or aren't).

21-23 is objectively young, in terms of adult life. You're conflating "young" with "immature". You can be very mature and still be young.

OP you sound hugely judgemental of anyone who has decided to have fun in their twenties, focus on career and seeing the world perhaps, just having fun with little responsibility.

For some of us it takes much longer to meet the right person to settle down with and have kids, we don’t just settle for whoever comes along at the grand old age of 20. Everyone I know who was married pre 25 is now divorced.

Stop making people feel like shit for being single and childless in their 20s.

It really just depends I had a flat and a 6 and 3 year old at 23. I worked I had been through some horrible trauma but there was a part of me that had watched my friends either complete uni or travel and was a bit jealous . I though also met my husband when I was 22.
Now I have two girls who are 23/20 and have both just finished uni and I want them to have loads of fun . They are both in very different situations but although I don’t regret anything I had to grow up far to fast and have never wanted that for me kids. As I’m writing this though I also think having kids / house / partner etc doesn’t automatically make you grow up . Some of the parents I knew were really shite and parenthood was not the making of them at all.

Its young...it's not a child but it's young. I hadn't even met DH aged 23. I was young, free and single, working hard but spending all my money on fun things like travel.

I definitely felt young.

Having children of your own makes you feel older because you have to be responsible all the time and always put somebody else first.

I’m 20 with a 2 year old and my own house and I’m just about to start my degree. (I don’t feel young but that may me from sleep deprivation )

@Lenny1980 how on earth am i being judgemental i'm saying i'm happy with my life, how is that making people feel shit?

the only person sounding judgmental is you

I don't feel like a proper grown up and I'm 38

The older I get the more I realise how immature I was in my late teens and early 20s. At the time I thought I was smart, knew it all, not a child anymore. Now I think I was a baby back then. So I guess the perception of how old we feel is mainly based on looking back!

Age, like many things, is a relative concept. To someone of 7 years old, you're pretty old, to someone of 80 you're pretty young.

I turned up with my friend, both of us aged 45, to a meeting and we were told how lovely it was to see some young people :) See, relative concept.

I think people who go to university etc do start things like getting married and having children later. They do more before settling down.

My 'home Facebook friends' are settling down and my 'uni Facebook friends' are all travelling, getting promotions and doing postgrad degrees.