Would you call 22 years old

[Vivana]

Very young to have a baby. Was talking to a friend who said I was to young back then to have a baby at 22 years old. Now early 40s and did not have any more children.

We were both 23 when we had our first child. We didn’t go to university, but had worked since finishing A levels at 18 and bought our own house when we were 22. We didn’t feel too young at the time but if I think of my kids having kids at that age, I suppose it does seem young. We had lived together for 3 years and been together for nearly 5 though by the time we had a baby and I suppose that’s quite unusual at that age. We had another child a few years later and are still together.

My kids are planning on going to University and I also I think buying a house is much harder now that it was then so I guess if they do have kids they will be a lot older. You never know what happens though.

Where I live it would be considered very young. I was 29 and the first of my friendship group to become a Mum. I was nowhere near ready at 22, still traveling and partying, but everyone is different so I woundnt say 22 is 'too young'

Everyone's situation is different. 22 wouldn't have been right for me because I was unsettled and very immature at that age. But fine for others.

Just to add, my only regret was that my own mum was still young when I had my dc (45 when eldest was born) and worked full time so wasn't able to be as close to my children. Where as I have a much younger sister who had her children after mum had retired and the bond she has with my nephews is very different because she is able to spend far more time with them.

I think a lot of people who say "it's too young" and talk about going travelling and building careers are only speaking from their own experiences and desires.

In my world it's a lot different. I'm working class, it's not common to go to university where I'm from. Most people either do apprenticeships or low paid jobs. So we often start working from age 16 and don't really "build careers" as such, not in professional jobs. I live in a cheap factory town where housing is affordable, I own my own house as a single person on a low wage which isn't possible in other areas of the country. So having a child in your early 20s isn't uncommon.

Not everyone wants to go travelling either. I think some people find that hard to grasp.

I would add that having children was more important than a career or beautiful home. Children need love not things.Each to their own.

Seems very young to me. At that age I’d just finished my degree and was living abroad for a year before I started my post grad, which was an amazing and enriching experience I was lucky to have.

Of course I’m sure having children is an amazing and enriching experience and I’ve been trying for years after starting TTC in my late 20s so I’m certainly not saying my experience is better.

Nobody in my social circle had children before their late 20s so I don’t think becoming a mum at 22 would have even occurred to me as an option, I think whether you see it as young or not depends on where you live and who you interact with.

Objectively 22 is significantly below the average. So I think your friend was right.

If her tone was that you were somehow wrong to become a mum at 22, then thats a different matter. You were adult and physiologically it’s an ideal time. Whether it was an ideal time for you is obviously not for her to say!

I can only speak from experience as I was 22 with my eldest, just finished uni and madly in love with her father. Abortion wasn't a consideration for me.

She's at uni now and we're very close. Always in contact.

I like the idea of having more time with my children/potential grandchildren etc before I get too old or ill.

I wouldn't change a thing.

It's not unusual around here (I felt like an 'old' mother at 34), but I couldn't have entertained the idea at that age.

Yes it was young.

You gave birth in the 1990s.

I gave birth in the 1980s when I was early 30s.

At 22 I was just out of uni and in my first job.

None of my friends or people in my age group had children then.

The only exceptions would have been women who'd become pregnant accidentally or those who had married a much older man and wanted to get on with it.

My DM always told me growing up that she nearly left it too long to have us, her argument being that any longer and they would have become too happy living the child free life. At the ripe old age of 28 ..

Unsurprisingly when I had my DD at 27 those comments stopped very quickly

She would also say that her SIL didn't have children because her and her husband were too "selfish" not because of the congenital condition they both had which meant they both nearly died at birth

I also had people telling me 25/26 was too young to be thinking about starting a family when I discussed moving from rented to our own property to start a family

People just love to share their opinions, whether they are asked for it not ..

I married at 20 and had a good income etc I got on well I think at that age of having dd but we didnt want any more dc after. I dont regret that at all

In my head it's very young. But I accept I have fairly old fashioned views in so much as I'd have wanted to buy a house and be married way before children. I also feel that getting established in your career and just living a bit is more beneficial too.

My mum had me at that age and said it was defo too young and was still a child herself. She was the youngest at any parents evenings! However I loved having a young mum, thought it was "cool".

Of course it's young but it's not unusual, I had both my dc early 20s I'm now early 40s .

Interesting that women hit peak fertility at 22. So it seems nature is saying one thing, 'society' another.

Yes it's young to have a baby. I was 21 when I had my first.

I dont think it is, no.

Biologically speaking, a woman's peak fertility age is 24 so nature obviously intended for us to procreate at this age.

Not literally, but I think it's a waste of youth.

I agree with @lukasiak, obviously on a practical level it's not ''too young'' but it is a waste of youth.

HOWEVER, facing my fifties now and wondering why I valued freedom in my 20s so much more than in my 50s.

Realistically, it will be another 2 years before I would be comfortable leaving both my kids overnight for even ONE night. (Single parent).

So now I wish I'd started at about 27-30 instead of 30-33 BUt I didn't have the choice in all of that.

It's young, not too young. It's only very recently that women have put off having babies.
I had my first at 38 and used to wish I'd had them when I was in my early twenties, when sleep deprivation didn't bother me and i had nothing much else going on in my life. I'd have had my life back by early forties instead of mid fifties. I admire you having children young.

@Vivana was your husband 22 as well ?

Do you live in a cheap area of the UK?

Now, most women living in the SE where housing is expensive need to keep working for years.

I know couples in London where both earn over £100K pa and they are still just having kids in their mid-late 30s because of the cost of housing.

I thought it was 22 Loki.

I just don't see how it's enough time to get educated, live in other places, have some freedom, work and build a life for yourself these days. It's not ideal to have kids before doing these things.

My education finished at 18 with A levels. At the time in an ideal world I would have gone to Uni but I needed to not live with my parents anymore and to be honest it was a miracle that I passed my A levels with good grades with how things were at home.. I felt I had no choice but to get a job and get out of ‘home’. I had no desire to live in other places or to travel the world but we always had a 1 or 2 holidays abroad each year before we had our first baby at 23. Between 18 and 23, although I was with my partner we did have freedom, actually moving out of home made me more free than I’d ever been. We had decent wages after A levels, we both progressed at work and that allowed us to buy a house at 22. It wasn’t that hard to get on the housing ladder back then and we rented a house from a work colleague for a few years before buying, at a massively reduced rate as he was a good friend and knew I needed out. By the time we were 23 and the baby arrived we had a really good and settled life. We were always sensible with money and never struggled.