To ask what happened to having traditional values?

[mozzarellasticks]

I'm 23 and from a very young age I was told that it was 'right' to live life in a 'traditional' order.
For example: being in a relationship with someone, buying a house, getting married, and then having kids.
Not trying to be smug or on a high horse, just wondering what happened and why people are getting pregnant after knowing someone for 5 minutes. I'm generally considered to be have old fashioned views but want to know why no one else feels the same way

I am 'old fashioned' and agree with you but do not judge anyone who does elsewise as it is their life and choice. However bare in mind that generations ago men and women traditionally didnt live together prior to marriage. I know this was the case with both sets of my grandparents... the ladies atleast were still living at home between 'courting' with a man followed by engagement and typically they didn't get a home together until after marriage. They also seemed to be alot younger when married/having children compared to now -both sets of GP were married with first born children before 20 years of age. I think freedom has alot to do with the choices of today, young people are more detached/living away from the family from a young age and times have changed. I dont think the consequences and judgement of past time is as it was then! Also worth mentioning both sets of my darling GPs were married up until they passed - also becoming a rarity.

People now don’t answer to the patriarch and have freedom of choice.
So if they want to have a baby out of wedlock, they go right ahead.
Not everyone wants to be Slavs to a mortgage.

Interesting That you place so much value on some traditional lifestyle choices, I.e no baby before marriage, but then are less concerned with other traditional choices such as not co habiting until after marriage.

I used to have my whole future planned out, I would go to university, get a job, buy a house, get married as long as I had been with him for at least a few years, then have children in my early 30's It just didn't work out that way, in fact by the time I turned 29 I'd had my third and last child and I was married when I had any of them nor had I gone to university or bought a house. Don't really understand why buying a house is so important for having children, I've always rented, it's a house over my head that I'm paying for just the same and feels just as much like my home as if I had bought it. I certainly didn't plan it out this way, I was a teenage mum, I'm now a single mum to 3 in my 30's but that doesn't make me any less happy or my kids any less cared for or loved so what's the problem? Live your life the way you want to and everyone else will live theirs, no need to judge anyone

If you're having sex outside marriage you run the risk of pregnancy. Contraception failures happen. And not everyone who falls pregnant that way will want to get an abortion. If you really wanted to do things the old fashioned way you wouldn't start having sex until you were married.

You're reminding me of my first next door neighbour who looked down her nose at me for years because I was a single mother in my early twenties. She stopped looking down on me when her 15 year old daughter became pregnant and all of a sudden she decided it was a marvelous thing to have your first baby early. Because peoples own life experiences shape how they view life.

Ah to be young and starry eyed and so sure and certain that my way, is the right way.

Right. I wish I was still young enough to know everything...

"Right. I wish I was still young enough to know everything..."

I tell my teenager he should move out now while he still knows everything.

He is a kid, it's what they do - life will knock it out of him (and the OP).

Funnily enough I did mostly follow a "traditional" path, possibly more so than the OP (as at least I didn't live with my husband before marrying him ).

Still I understand that what works for some, will not work for others and shit happens and so forth.

I am busy and fulfilled enough with my own life these days and have no need to worry about or judge what others are up to.

I think your 'traditional' values betray a narrowness of life experience. To buy a house, you need the means to have saved a deposit and the kind of job that endears you to a mortgage lender. Many of the 45% of people who are not homeowners in the UK are precluded from this by working jobs with low wages/being self-employed/needing to live in a certain area like the southeast where your income goes almost exclusively on rent and travel costs.

I've experienced 'traditional' friends looking down on me because my career and the man I fell in love with didn't enable me to leave university for a stable job, meet a partner with similar and buy a house. Lots of 'I don't know how you manage haha' type stuff. I found them mean and narrow minded, and we're not so friendly these days.

How did you afford to buy a house at 23,OP? You haven't answered that.

Is buying a house at 23 that unusual outside of the south east? DH and I did, many of our peers did too. But that was 15 years ago I suppose

@Thegoodthere The house was £117,500. We only needed a 5% deposit and we used our savings (both working since 17)

What is your job OP? Is it traditional?

Is buying a house at 23 that unusual outside of the south east?

No, not really. The media is fairly London-centric though, so you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. We managed it pretty easily. Mid-twenties seems fairly standard amongst my friends and acquaintances.

@lemonface we both have retail jobs £15-16k

The Relationships board here is full of women who have been financially screwed over by having kids with a men who refused to marry them.

I've worked since I was 15 but to me it was important to learn to stand on my own two feet and learn about life before settling down. I went to uni in a different city and travelled for a few years after uni before coming home and renting a flat away from my parents. By the time DH came along I was a self sufficient woman with my own space and full of drive. At 23 I was in Fiji. I prefer the way I did it, but it's not for everyone.

I take it you're also a virgin? Seeing as you're so 'traditional'.. Oh no wait, you're already living with your partner before marriage. You pick and choose the traditions which we should all live by.

So OP you managed to buy your house because you've been working since you were 17 (and presumably living at home) and have bought a house in obviously a relatively cheap area of the country.
£117k wouldn't get you a one bedroom house in the northern village I live in. My first house was £142k and we ( my ex-husband and me) bought it when we'd already been married 3 years.

This was, in part, because we went to university and didn't enter the labour market until we were 21/22. We had no choice but to rent fur a while.

Me and my now DH moved in together, got pregnant, bought a house and got married all within a year and not in the ' traditional' order but that was because of our age. A baby was important and we didn't have the time to hang around.
But that's life

The disadvantage of doing it your way is you don't get to have a lot of fun or interesting experiences. Every way has its pros and cons.

I think you are also lucky to have been able to meet a suitable life partner at such a young age, many don't or end up in crap relationships.

Because real life happens. People fall pregnant unexpectedly or sooner than they meant to, house prices are outrageously expensive so people can't prioritise this.

I think you are also lucky to have been able to meet a suitable life partner at such a young age

Time will tell if she has. In my anecdotal experience however, the success rate of relationships started at a young age is not good.

I did everything in the 'wrong order' by the way. Had a baby a little ahead of schedule, bought a house, has another baby, got married, went travelling for a year with kids in tow as hadn't had a chance before becoming a mum, settled into my career (that I had got round to training for before kids). Didn't consider myself 'untraditional' before these events took place in this order. I don't have a single regret and I live quite a 'traditional' lifestyle now.

That's why I think it's good to go out and live and experience things and meet new and different people before settling down, it can make the flaws of a bad relationship more obvious than just plodding along with the same life you've had since you were a teen

Will you give up work if you have a child ? (Traditional) and if you do, do you think you can survive on your DPs 15k ? I think you will be claiming benefits.

At 23 I was hitching across South America. Travelling for four years. I am now all settled at 42 with loving DP, and a decent job, I know which way I'd do it again.

@lemonface hopefully by then we'll have better paid jobs

Traditional values are not so economically viable these days

Just catching after my question. I now have an insight into your traditional values. It’s shacking up with someone before marriage, not keeping yourself “pure” for your husband for the wedding night. Op out of interest, do you have his dinner ready for him when he walks through the door and polish his shoes everyday before he leaves each morning etc.?

God I hope my daughter doesn’t think like this at 23. It’s kind of depressing.