Young mum stigma creeping down?

[DoeDear]

So I am in my early 20s and married with a small baby. So far, other mothers have been okay, but older women have seemed very weird about it. They make out that it's somehow socially inappropriate for an educated woman to have a child in her 20s, that the 'right' time is only in your 30s, and telling me that my child will be disadvantaged because I am in my 20s. I wouldn't mind, but I have all of my ducks in a row, and my child is absolutely thriving (she's about 2 months ahead on all of her milestones. Where she gets that from I don't know, but I'm not going to complain).

Aibu to wonder if this is just a regional thing, or is treating mother's in their 20s with the same unpleasant scorn reserved for teenage mothers is becoming more common?

I had my children in my late 20’s/early 30’s. Now, I wish I had them when I was younger. It wasn’t right for me at the time, but I would much prefer to be a younger mum with the potential for being a younger granny.

It's a stupid stigma, similar to the one about retail people being stupid or having no ambition because they are 'just a shop worker'.

People who hold these views are not people I wish to associate with, so I pay them no mind.

@dannydyerismydad

When you have a child EVERYONE has an opinion. Sometimes they are making a noise to make conversation for conversations sake. Sometimes they are judging, sometimes they are sharing the benefit of their own experience.

For your sanity, drown out the noise, smile, nod and repeat "this works for us".

So true.

I wonder if it just parents trying to justify their own circumstances plus a dose of making themselves feel better by trying to make someone feel worse. Smile and 'that's nice' and use it as a short cut to identify the parents you might want to avoid.

If someone says something particularly hurtful and you want to play tennis with them then you might just wonder aloud how unfair it is the NHS still use the term 'geriatric pregnancy' and how brave someone is for taking the risks of a geriactric pregnancy for their baby, it's future development and their mortality by having children so late. If you want nothing to do with them then you might even say how tiresome it is to have so many older fathers keep trying to arrange playdates when their child's mother isn't around.

Try to ignore, enjoy your time with your child and good luck.

You might find people who are casual about giving offence suddenly become a little more conscious about taking offence.

Well, as someone who was older when she had her DC, I look at young mothers quite enviously. They always seem to have more energy, their children always seem to be more independent and they've got time to do more hardcore career things when their kids are older. 25 odd years into my career, life would be a lot easier for me right now if I wasn't dealing with the realities of fairly young children.

For people within your Church community to be judging you is even worse and I'd be pretty annoyed at that. I suspect I'd say something rude. Or find a new church.

Don't let anyone get to you. You've chosen the perfect time to have a kid. Society is only now realising that the "having it all" just doesn't work because fertility has an expiry date. Those of us who have kids in our 30s are just starting to peak in our career so giving that up is hard and people feel like they slip behind and some end up missing out on kids but because you are young there is time to crank out a few kids when you are healthy and have lots of energy and you have time to catch up career wise too.

Find a new church where the congregation actually practice what they preach? That’s shocking form from people who are traditionally meant to be your support system. I’d let them know why you’re leaving as well.

Statistically I suppose their isn't many 20 year olds who have a decent income and supportive partner making it a good idea to have a baby 🤷‍♀️

As a nation we seem to have lost all critical thinking skills. If you are different to someone else they take it as a personal criticism so you say 'I'm 24' and they hear 'you should have had kids younger'

There's nothing you can do, people are mad.

I am early thirties and still get judged. I love my kids and having them for me made me so happy. I’m more happy spending time with them and doing less ladder climbing in work. I’m happy as I am but get judged for that. Someone will always have something negative to say at any age, but I actually wish we had ours in our twenties rather than now for lots of reasons so there you go😂 they might just not be very nice people I reckon!

I had Dd1 at 15.
My mum worked full time and joined me up to a baby group (she came with me the first time) I didn't want to go.
The mums were ALL older than me, it wouldn't have been hard😜
Those mums all welcomed me and helped me with dd. Nearly 30 years later I'm still in touch with them.

I found it was my friend's parents that had plenty to say about me having a child with their nasty comments.

I don't think it's regional. I'm mid 20's and just had my second child. I had my first in my early 20s and have never experienced any stigma at all.

I had two children in my early twenties my thirties were wonderful both at secondary. Had the third mid forties also wonderful. You cannot win OP

@ParkheadParadise

I had Dd1 at 15. My mum worked full time and joined me up to a baby group (she came with me the first time) I didn't want to go. The mums were ALL older than me, it wouldn't have been hard😜 Those mums all welcomed me and helped me with dd. Nearly 30 years later I'm still in touch with them.

I found it was my friend's parents that had plenty to say about me having a child with their nasty comments.

Yes, this is accurate to my experience too. The Mums I’ve bonded with have all either been my age (40+) or 16-20.

OP, are you me?!

I'm 24 and pregnant with my first baby. I was already married and we owned our own home by the time I got pregnant. I went to uni and got a bachelors and a masters (and probably worked all the drinking and partying out of my system by the end of it!), worked for a few years, and I've done a reasonable amount of travelling. So, I feel like I've gotten at least a little bit of life under my belt!

I also have a few health conditions, nothing too major but things that raised my risk factors for things like pre-eclampsia and miscarriage etc, and after doing a little research years ago, I always had it in my head that my best chance would be to have kids reasonably early, at least before 30, to try and minimise the risk further.

I just felt ready so we went ahead and I got pregnant. All has been pretty smooth so far, so I'm happy I did the right thing for me.

The idea of feeling judged for being pregnant at 24 never even crossed my mind because it really doesn't seem that early to me. I knew it was the younger side of things as none of my friends are at that life stage yet, and also my mum had me and my siblings all over the age of 40 so I was kind of aware I suppose, but I didn't think anyone would judge me.

However I've had a few similar comments to the ones OP has had, and I'm also finding that despite the fact I've always had friends of all ages, older mums just don't seem to want to talk to me much I have no idea why. I have always gelled more with older people, so I am finding it weird to get such obvious brush-offs.

I must say though, I find I'm getting weird and judgemental comments mostly from women my own age to be honest. Women who are at a different life stage and can't get their head around why I want to have my babies now. I absolutely don't judge anyone for their choices and I can certainly see why you'd want to leave having babies until later in life. I just didn't want to, and I don't know why people have to be weird about it!

I'm sure older mums get their fair share of bullshit comments too. Just part of being a woman, it seems.

I had my first DD when I was 17, single mum, you can imagine the comments. Said DD is now nearly 20, I've been married since my mid twenties, have another DD, have got 2 degrees, really enjoy my life. I'm glad I had them young as now looking forward to my forties and having lots of independence while everyone else who's had them older is tied down with their children. It's swings and roundabouts, but mainly, stuff what everyone else thinks!!

I do wonder if my being one of the few brown faces in this small village is part of why people are like this. Hopefully not, it would be a shame in this day and age. Other mums are great, it seems to be the women whose children are old enough to have kids but don't that seem to be the worst, but that's a generalisation.

Also thank you for all the lovely messages. It's nice to know that I'm not alone. It's a shame that mothers have to put up with all these different sorts of judgement, but there's also so many lovely people out there too

Yes I encountered this, when I had my first son aged 23 when I was married and a home and business owner (director)

I had it again with my second child when I was 26

I'm pregnant with a third baby aged 29, less of a stigma now. I live in the south east. Went to private international school, a lot of people felt I had made mistakes ( I haven't)

I'm a governor at my sons school and that was commented on, too.

I had my dds in my early 20s. It’s worked out very well for us.

I also have a youngish face and got a few comments. Nothing really horrible, but just the “oh I couldn’t have coped at you age” in a condescending tone. I’d just smile and give a “well I’m finding that it’s all come quite naturally to me” sort of response. I did also have one much older mum who used to speak to me slowly, just in case I couldn’t understand her if she spoke at a normal pace. It was kind of annoying, but I tried to see the funny side. She stopped once she realised that I wasn’t an idiot and a completely capable adult and parent.

My dds have thrived having a young mum. They’re now teenagers and I’m mid 30s. We have a great relationship and they like the fact that I’m young. Sometimes I think that people only look down on younger mums as they are maybe not secure in their choice to wait and have kids later. These days you’re told that is what responsible middle class people do. They might look at younger parents and wish they had been in a position to do it 10 years earlier. Life doesn’t always work out as you planned. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they really should keep them to themselves.

My SIL had my nephew this year at 45. I mean, that’s not for me at all, and she would have loved to have him younger, but that’s just how things have worked out for them.

If you were in your 30’s people would be thinking that you were getting on a hit to have young children. There are many things that could make a child disadvantaged, it doesn’t mean that it will.

I had my first at 21 and second at 24, I'm now 27.

I've had both positive and negative comments but I think as you get used to being a parent a bit more you just take the comments on the chin and get on with your day.

The whole advanced by at least 2 month thing is a bit silly though OP. You would be doing a great job even if your baby wasn't 'advanced'
It's not something I'd particularly say as it can offend someone who's having a more challenging or worrying time with their child (when they would be doing just as good a job too)

I get you.

I bought a house and got married after graduating, then had 3 DC in my 20s. It made me completely out of synch with my peers - most of my university friends were partying, travelling or concentrating on getting up the career ladder, most of the other mums at toddler group were 10 years older than me.

My DC are now teenagers, in fact DS1 goes to university this week, and I still feel it. Most of the parents with DC going to university are in their 50s, most of my friends in their early 40s like me still have primary school aged children.

I don't think my children are in any way disadvantaged by having slightly younger parents. I also wasn't disadvantaged career--wise by having them at that age, I actually went back to university to do an MSc once my youngest was in secondary school and have a pretty decent career.

But as others have said, people will always find something to criticise. The best advice is just to do you and ignore them.

@DoeDear I completely get where you're coming from! I had DD1 at 25 (she's 9 now), which was unplanned and also not particularly great timing as I was doing a PhD at the time. DH (DP as was then) was just about the start his PGCE when we found out I was pregnant. We did want a life and children together, so we decided we should go for it, and I'm so glad we did. I was able to be weirdly productive on the writing up of my thesis when DD was born (I think it was the total lack of a social life) and we decided to have the rest of our family "young" too. Tbh, I think we didn't expect DD2 to come along quite so quickly (she's 15 months younger than DD1!) but it worked out well.

However, to hear the way some people carried on, you'd have thought we were a pair of teenagers still at school

Last year, I was diagnosed with AML and had chemo which could potentially have affected my fertility. It really did make me feel somehow that things happen for a reason: we already have our family and it wasn't really a consideration at all.

The one thing I'm sort of sorry about is that my kids aren't able to grow up with my friends' kids, since they're mainly 1-2 or even just thinking about having children now, whilst we have these big 9, 8 and 6 year old children charging around. But it's also quite sweet because they play a sort of "older cousin" role and it's nice for them to have that.

So, in brief: I absolutely don't think there's anything wrong with being a mum in your early 20s, if you're in the right place for it, and I bet your kids will grow up healthy, happy and thriving!

Honestly, there's a certain type of person that thinks it's ok to judge and pass comment on anything and everything you do once you become a mother. Friend of mine and I has such a laugh over this when our eldest DC were little. She was judged for bottle feeding, I was judged for breast feeding. She for staying at home, me for working. Her for using a pram, me for baby wearing. Her for being too young, me too old (and there's only 7 years between us!!). In short, nod, smile, ignore. They'll judge regardless so no point giving it head space!