Is 24 too young to settle down with a baby

[Stressedout65]

I know it depends on each individual, how they feel & what they want from life, but would you say 24 is a bit young these days

*I mean, in other words some of these posts are very idealised upper middle class responses, aren’t they? Where you go to university and graduate and then mum and dad fund another few years exploring South America or Australia or wherever, possibly with a bit of temping in London or similar to convince oneself that actually you do have life experience?

*Agree 100% with this

Working abroad is a sort of travel, yes. But only sort of, and it is also something limited to certain types of jobs and certain types of lifestyles.

Yes. At that age I was living the life of Riley in asia and loving it.
Bought a house back in the UK at 28. Married at 33 first child at 35. Which felt about right for me.

I wouldn’t in a million years but without knowing your personality or career/financial circumstances it’s impossible to say.

It's younger but it depends a bit on your life pattern, if you leave school at 16 for an apprenticeship by 24 you have been working for 8 years, quite different to my dd who won't have graduated yet. I was 25, it means that when my kids turnedc18 I was still young enough to have fun!

It would be for me. I was enjoying lovely time with my DP and working hard in my career at this age.

Depends

If your ready to give up what you want to do each day and have done everything you want to and are ready to put a baby first and their needs first and lack of sleep and early mornings and days of having a baby hang off you and baby nappies and sick and your are ready to be constantly worried for this blessing the rest of your life then no 24 isn't too young

On the other hand

Waiting a few years for the above will give you more chance to mature and sort your career and maybe even realise who you are.

I think so when you consider how society works now. You're still young enough to probably require a certain amount of input from grandparents and so many are unwilling or unable to help for all sorts of reasons. You need to be completely independent now as you have to be all the "village" it takes to raise a child. For a lot of people that means being more settled into life and with a strong financial position just in case.

I am a very different person now to when I was 24 (early thirties). I think I would have been a very different mother if I had children younger. I'm glad I waited until I was older. Obviously this wouldn't apply to everyone, some younger mums do a wonderful job, and some older mums do a crappy job. I just personally didn't have the emotional stability at that age

I would have loved to have children young, with my first love, and I think I would have been a good mother, despite being young

But we split up, and I think that's probably more likely for young parents

So, I think individuals may be mature enough to be parents, but I wonder if there's a greater risk of young parents separating

I was pregnant at 24 but it wasn’t planned.
A downside was definitely no friends having kids by then, they all had theirs 10 years later. Now I have teens and they have little ones, and mine babysit theirs!

Am not with their dad anymore, we split about 6 years after my oldest was born. I travelled at 18/19 and am hoping to again. Career is going really well now too.

So it may have been different, but not necessarily worse, and definitely better in a purely biological/physical sense. I think 40s seems too old tbh.

I was married at 23 and had a baby at 24. It depends on the person.

It depends on the individual. I wish I'd had mine in my early 20s, as I spent my 20s doing nothing very useful. If you have babies in your early 20s, you are then free in your early 40s to do travelling, re-train, change/start careers, go out, etc, etc. My mum was 43 when my youngest sibling went to university (women tended to have children younger then). She didn't make the most of it - but if my DC had left home when I was 43, I'd be having a whale of a time and would probably have started work/volunteering of some sort. As it is, I'm doing all that but I'm 50 as I had my children in my late 20s/early 30s. I wish I'd been able to reclaim my life at 40!

Also my mum and dad have been happily married for over 50 years and are still young enough not to need 'looking after'. Dad still works f/t. There are loads and loads of good things about having children when you're young.

It depends how financially stable you are. IMO it’s better to get an established career and have bought a home before having children, as doing these things later would be more difficult. Of course it will depend on circumstances, that wouldn’t be the right course of action for everyone, but no one can deny that life is just easier with secure finances and housing.

I was 25 when I got pregnant. I was a qualified accountant by then so was easy to go back into a decent job when the DCs were older.

I was married at 22, I have done plenty of travelling and had pretty wild teenage years so I didn't feel like I missed out. I'm 42 now and the kids are now teenagers so I can enjoy doing lots of what I want now also.

For me it wouldn’t have been ok; I was just finishing med school with years of training ahead of me,

For others it would be fine.

There are good and bad things about every age.

I had a baby at that age and at the time I didn't see myself as young. I'm in my 30s now and we have another 2 children- but with hindsight I really was very young.

I also had my own house too so that made a difference. I did my professional exams whilst working but I think if you go to uni it would be very different. IME people who work straight out of school or college are much more mature at 24 than someone who has been to uni. Now I employ people myself it is massively noticeable.

Definitely too young, so much of the world to see. Try and do and see as much as you can and start thinking about having children at 28/29.

I wonder, if someone has a reason as to why they won’t travel (don’t enjoy it, money, pets, etc) - would we then deem it acceptable to have children?

I mean, in other words some of these posts are very idealised upper middle class responses, aren’t they? Where you go to university and graduate and then mum and dad fund another few years exploring South America or Australia or wherever, possibly with a bit of temping in London or similar to convince oneself that actually you do have life experience?

It saddens me seeing the same snide arguments every single time a version of this thread pops up. Always a class division is made making having any sort of sight beyond your limited life experiences only possibly for the middle classes. And how life experience means travel. It isn't, or shouldn't be, about that at all.

We see time and time again posts on these boards from women who find themselves single, or heartbreakingly wanting to be single, in their thirties or forties, with children, no career, no training, no help and no way of being independent. They've never been independent.

Getting life experience doesn't just mean a degree and 6 months backpacking from Queensland to Sydney. It means getting to the point where you can function as an independent adult. A point where you have systems in place / savings / started a pension / have qualifications, training and experience in a job. It doesnt mean you've been on holiday to the med every year, spent five years getting drunk at the weekend and now dont know what else to do. The more we make it sound like getting your life in order before you start having children is just for the middle classes, the greater the divide becomes.
Getting qualifications, putting the necessary hours into a career path at the start of it, saving, buying a house are all significantly harder when there are children’s needs to consider. So those women having children before theyve matured into functioning and capable adults themselves first will almost always stay left behind.

Is 25 too young to get married? No. Not if you are a functioning and equal team.
Is 25 too young to settle? Absolutely.

I think times have changed. Ime women who had children in late teens/early 20s were mostly because that's all they were going to do with their life (generalising, there's obviously exceptions).
These days women have realised there's more they can do with their lives than just be a mother/housewife and they have equal opportunities to men.
I had mine at 39 & 42 so obviously on the older side but all of my friends were at least in their 30s, had degrees, own homes, good careers and had lived first! They're generally able to offer their children a better lifestyle and better opportunities.

@TracyMosby I do understand, or I think I understand, what you mean, which is that women - regardless of their social background, should not ‘settle’ (with the inference of it being making do) but I’m not entirely sure that I agree.

I am fairly intelligent in that I have a degree and it is a ‘good’ one - 2:1. However, my degree is in English Literature and as such, like many in my cohort, I went into teaching. I earn reasonably well, but I just won’t ever make ‘big’ money without going into senior management which I really don’t want to do.

When my income is combined with DH, it goes a lot further. I don’t think it’s possible to be truly financially independent as a woman without earning really well, or having the potential to. I don’t see that I have somehow failed as a feminist in this: it’s just the way modern life is set up where two incomes are needed.

The OP is 24, not 17, and there is time here to have built a career. Perhaps more to the point, there is time afterwards. A friend of mine had three children aged 21 (a baby at 19 followed by twins) and went to university at 24, when they were all at school. (She is a midwife now! ) it’s not the way I’d have done it but it certainly isn’t ‘wrong.’

And she benefited from having her own parents and indeed grandparents around to help. Traditionally, higher educated and higher earning women do have children later on, but then pay for childcare because their own families often can’t.

To be honest the more I think of it the more I think having a baby at 40 has more disadvantages than baby at 24. And as I’ve said I had my first, and to date only, child aged 40. Birth and recovery and night feeds all been fine but I’ll still be 80 when he’s my age. I may never know my grandchildren, or only fleetingly.

I don’t care because I adore having him and I’m so grateful but I’m not sure that I somehow gained massively from not having him ten years prior!

I was married and had my first at that age.
Would I recommend it?

There's advantages and disadvantages.
I did feel a little different at time as my school/uni friends were talking about looking at first school/nursery when my youngest was looking at secondary schools. I was, until I had my 3rd, often the youngest at all the toddler groups.

But I had a lot more energy to do things, and we had a lot of fun. We didn't have a car and walked miles with a buggy and hopped on and off buses/trains. We didn't have a huge amount of spare money-almost everything was second hand, although actually I quite like that so probably would have done that anyway. We never felt short of money because we'd never had any spare iyswim.

I'm now at the point where we're beginning to look forward to an empty nest and a bit of freedom. We'll be doing the travelling that friends did in their 20s, but with a bit more money!

So it's swings and roundabouts really.

The one thing I did find was getting into work was difficult because I didn't work after uni. So I think I'd advise people to try and get a couple of years worth of savings and work before having a child, but don't wait too long. I know too many people who thought they could wait and then had difficulty conceiving.