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

Well of course that makes perfect sense but most of us didn't need our parents to tell us that🙄

In fact, most of us were probably not still living with parents when we got engaged. My DH was 41 when I met him.....if he'd still been living with his parents I would have run a mile 😂

Most children are born to married parents, so that’s really not that unusual.

Owning your own house before marrying isn’t a traditional value anyway, and variability in home ownership rates depends far more on the affordability of housing than it does on personal moral values.

I thought your main point was 'traditional values'. You're a scarlet woman to people with old school traditional values.

I want to reply, but I’m still shaking too hard at someone living together unmarried selectively deciding what are “traditional values”.
Grow up, OP.,

My main point was owning your own house and being married before having children

So you can't get married and have kids if you rent a house?

I haven’t managed to read the full thread but the use of “what happened to” is a bit of a red flag for me. Rose-tinted specs are popular in (perceived) hard times but the reality is that there’s no evidence to suggest that “traditional values” lead to actual better outcomes. Or is there? What are your sources, OP?

I’ve seen far too many acrimonious divorces in the past few years to think that marriage before having kids is always the best way.

Haven't bothered my arse to RTFT. Yes you're very pretty OP, and you're superior to all of us. Well done. Your medal is in the post (to your owned house!)and the public flogging of the rest of us will take place shortly.
Jesus, to be 23 and know everything again

I probably could’ve bought a house at 23, but that was because it was before the crash when banks were still handing out 105% mortgages and not caring that much about affordability. Would not have been the best decision to make though!

Well, some traditions are better than others. I have no problem with people marrying before having children, but I strongly disapprove of young people moving straight from their parents' house to living with a partner, married or not, without first experiencing a few years of proper independent living.

I'm a divorced single parent living in a private rent. I will never ever live with a partner again.

I never was one for tradition.

It would take too long to explain to you, kid.

Because despite being 23 and preferring to be married before kids etc I'm not an idiot and I know that sometimes shot just happens and luckily we're in an age where people aren't horribly persecuted for it.

My main point was owning your own house and being married before having children

Well, I bought the house without a relationship (but then I moved out of my parents when I was 18 too), and we didn't get married before kids because there was no need - both of us earned well enough that neither needed the security of marriage before we had children.

I think you need to look at the reasons for these things OP, and decide whether they apply to you before declaring them the one true path

After all, if I'd have taken your route, I'd have been stuck with any of my first 3 boyfriends (very much would have been a bad idea, as nice as one of them was), living 10 miles from my parents, rather than having travelled and worked all over the world.

Now if being at your parents every weekend for a roast, and not even moving out of the town you grew up in floats you boat, then go for it! I'm glad you've figured yourself out so early, but your way probably isn't going to lead to health, wealth, and happiness for an awful lot of people

I strongly disapprove of young people moving straight from their parents' house to living with a partner, married or not, without first experiencing a few years of proper independent living.

I absolutely agree.

Oh and DP and I have just bought our first flat (a small 2 bed in London). It cost over £600k ... obviously we were heavily subsidised by parents. Not everyone has that and I'd like to see you afford that on your own 😂😂😂
Not everyone lives where houses can cost £100k.

You're 23. Calm down with telling everyone how they should be living. I'm 29 married, own a house, 2 kids and a professional career. Tick, tick, tick, tick on the Adult To Do List.
To look at my family, you wouldn't know what order I had done it all in.

(Not your order, that's for sure haha!)

Even people who do live where houses can cost £100k can be totally priced out of the market. OP’s been living with parents into her early 20s, presumably not paying high private sector rent rates along with bills, council tax and so on - that helps to save. (Not a criticism, I’d have done it too if I could!)

I left home at 16, travelled, returned to the UK at 20, lived with my first partner at 21, left him aged 22, bought my first house at 23, married at 24, had DS at 30, graduated at 32. Now aged 40, mother of four, own no property as I sold the three I owned and am self employed. Still happily married.

Don't regret any of it, but it wasn't out of any desire for traditional values (my family were all amazed that I even married). We did it all because we wanted to.

I got married at 19, I had a child, and then I had three by the time I was 25. I am still married to the same person, over 30 years now BUT we never owned a house, I am a renter! oh the shame

I have to say it's not totally mad to want to buy a house before having kids, if you're able to in a reasonable timescale without selling any internal organs, because private renting is shit and it's harder to get a mortgage when you have dependants. But if you spend about 3 nanoseconds thinking about it you'll realise that widespread home ownership is a very recent phenomenon and therefore can't actually be considered a "traditional" value by any stretch of the imagination.

Incidentally my grandma married and had kids in her early 20s the "traditional" way (though they didn't buy a house, the feckless peasants). She always says that she never got to live her own life until she was in her 40s. Don't rush yourself, OP.

I agree you really should be married before having kids. I can understand if it were an accident, an unplanned pregnancy - these things do happen (although I would then expect my partner to propose to me, imo it's just the right thing to do but I know this view is not shared by other people). But I read on here of people saying them are their 'DP' are TTC. I have to bite my tongue to stop from saying something. I always think in my head 'they have their priorities back to front'/'cart before the horse' but never say anything as I know I'd be met with hostile responses (hopefully this thread is a safe place). I'd probably have my post just deleted. Imo if you are serious enough to want to ttc, then surely you should be serious enough to want to commit for life in marriage.

I have no problems with people living together, I guess it is just the children issue, I feel if you do have children and still plan to stay together, you should surely want to commit to each other. Children completely changes everything imo. Then legal protections and marriage should be a priority. Take children out of the equation I'm pretty cool with everything else.

Yep, tried to do everything in the 'right' order. I'm now 39 and infertile!

Crack on with the babies before buying the house if you want babies, is my advice. Otherwise you might never get a baby, like us.

Its easy to look at "tradition" with rose tinted glasses isnt it?

Oh the romance of marrying your childhood sweetheart, buying you two up two down on the same street you grew up in, having two perfect children and a dog etc.

The thing is a lot of those couples married because they were pregnant. Moved out because that was the done thing and went on to have more children because contraception either wasnt readily available or they were too mortified to talk about it.

I value marriage. Im getting married. But wr already have 1 dc and dp has a dc from a prev relationship. Its not traditional but i think we're less likely to get a divorce than a couple of childhood sweethearts who only got married to avoid shame.

I always think in my head 'they have their priorities back to front'/'cart before the horse' but never say anything as I know I'd be met with hostile responses (hopefully this thread is a safe place).

Bless.

Imo if you are serious enough to want to ttc, then surely you should be serious enough to want to commit for life in marriage.

Plenty of people are fully committed without being married just as many people are married and merrily fuck around on their partner.