To think age 21 is not a 'young mum'?

[546321yeah]

I fell pregnant with my daughter at 20, had her at 21. I am now referred to by a lot of people as a 'young mum'. I don't feel like 21 to have a child is young at all and 10 years on, I've gotten on with my life very well, just the same as I would have without having my child.

AIBU to think a young mum is someone about 15, 16, 17? Anything above that is normal age to have children?

I was 21 when I had my first, 23 and 28 with the next two. It didn’t feel young at the time but looking back now it actually is!

@TheFlyHalfsMum

21 is definitely a young mum. And I had my first at 19!

My daughter had her first just two months shy of her 20th birthday and her second three years later. Obviously I'm biased but she has put herself through uni, worked, got married and coming up to the grand old age of 30 is a home owner and had two rental properties. I love my grandsons to bits and I couldn't be more proud of her. She herself says she feels "judged" at school - I say fuck them. She's a normal working mom who's there for her boys.

@EightWheelGirl nobody cares when you pull up in the Range Rover providing you can hold your own socially.

The average age to be a first time Mum is 30 so yes.

A 15 yo having a baby is a teen mum, however, we should lose these lines of distinction as they aren't serving a purpose, they just seem to be there to put us down and divide and judge for being too old, too young, too stay at home, too worky, to attachment, too x, too y, too blah blah blah. We are just mums and just doing our best with our roll of the dice, and there is no right or wrong, just our own decisions in our own circumstances.

16 to 19 teen mum
20 to 25 young mum
25 to 35 mid age mum
35 to ??? Old mum

@CrimbleCrumble1

Have you gone to uni as a mature student with children I did, I had my DC at 19 and went to uni when he started school. I had 2 more DC and have been fortunate to go on holidays all over the world with my DC. We’ve visited lots more places than the ‘average’ person. I’m now early 50’s and my DH and I retired with a massive pension pot and three grown up DC. Not bad for a young/teen mum.

Me too Crimble! I did a degree with a 7yo and a 2yo. And graduated whilst also working full time!

Russian spy did you have support from parents emotionally? Did they babysit so you could go out with your partner? I have brought up 2 kids single handedly and cared for an elderly parent, went to university for the second time, while paying my mortgage then holding down a demanding job. I just about managed to do that in my 30s and 40s with zero support. It would have been a greater strain in my early 20s without my life experience and knowledge to fall back on. I would say that having a child young would make it hard to have a carefree existence in your 20s without at least some reliable parent to babysit. Even having emotional support is invaluable particularly to young parents.

40 years ago a mum aged 21 was said to be an older mum

Of course 21 is young to be a mum. Why are you so bothered about it anyway after 10 years?

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@EightWheelGirl nobody cares when you pull up in the Range Rover providing you can hold your own socially.[/quote]
What I'm saying is that once you are 'there' a lot of your counterparts don't really care how you got there unless you're clearly an idiot.

Not biologically but socially it is, because it’s 7ish(?) years younger than average. I was 26 having my first and have been referred to as young

21 is a young mum and there's nothing wrong with that!

To me, being late 30s now, the thought of having babies makes me want to take a very long nap!

@user1471505494

40 years ago a mum aged 21 was said to be an older mum

In the 80s?

No. No they were not.

Yes it's young, however if I had my time again I'd have my children in my early 20's, now mid 40's with 2 under 10, it's hard and also they missed out having a grandparents as my husband and my parents died not long ago (they were late 60's)

@fleurpots

I think it's very young, though not in a bad way. People can be brilliant or terrible parents at any age.

Amen.

Have you gone to uni as a mature student with children

I left school at 16 and was pregnant a year later so no but I haven't needed to go to uni because I got an apprenticeship instead which meant I had a higher salary, a promotion, a few years of experience and a mortgage by the time my sensible friends were graduating and spending months trying to find their first job.

By the time the ones who fannied about with gap years had done I was the one reviewing their applications and training them up.

A few of them have only just managed to move out of their parents houses and one of them is now pregnant with her first. So she has all the childcare costs / pressure to go PT ahead of her while it's long behind me.

There isn't one exact way to do life you know.

At 21 you are going to need alot of practical and financial support off parents in order to carry on your life as if you did not have a child.

Why is "carrying on your life as if you did not have a child" even relevant?

And are we both reading the same Mumsnet? How many threads a week mention giving up work or reducing hours and being financially supported by a DH / DP? Have you also noticed how much the consequences of such decisions come up too?

I'd 100% rather have been a single teen mum building a life where I'm independent and financially secure myself than spending my twenties thinking I'm doing that only to give it up at 35 when the reality of motherhood hits.

@ComtesseDeSpair

It’s contextual. The average age for a woman to have her first baby in the UK is 28, so it’s young in that context; amongst my peers having a baby before your early thirties is very unusual, so again we’d consider 21 young. But if most of your friends are having or have had babies in their early twenties, then it’s going to seem normal rather than young.

I think the average age for a first time mother in the UK is older than 28 now. I remember a few years ago it went over 30 for the first time, something like 30.5

21 is a young mum.

15, 16, 17 is a teen mum.

I don't know about anyone else, but having read the words young and mum so many times by the end of page 1, neither look nor sound like real words anymore.

40 years ago a mum aged 21 was said to be an older mum

That's bullshit

It’s young but I wouldn’t say too young. For some It’ll be perfect. I had mine at 26 and 29 but most mums i met were older than me.

Definitely a young mum. I was a young mum. Actually, I was a teen mum, then a young mum

(17, 22, 23)
I'm now 30 and have a 13 year old!
I also carried on my life. Being a mum doesn't define who I am. Yes my kids are my world but that doesn't mean my world has to stop to cater for them.

In the 70s and 80s 21 was very much a young mum. Not sure why a previous poster thinks it wasn't?

@AlmostAJillSandwich

I don't know about anyone else, but having read the words young and mum so many times by the end of page 1, neither look nor sound like real words anymore.

🤣🤣