To think being a young mum isn't all that bad?

[Peedoffo]

I had my DD young , I had just turned 20 9 years down the line and life is very good. Still with my DH. I was told that I had ruined my life by a few people. Own our own home very healthy income. The only negative I'd say is I've had to build a career juggling a child. Completing university and masters degree I only have 1 DC because of this juggling would have liked 2 with a smaller age gap but hey ho. It hasn't been world ending I have taken DD on numerous trips she's been to Australia , Singapore , USA and all over.

I'm just wondering where any young mums feel the same ? Things have fallen into place very well.

looking round at many of the women I know in mid to late 50's with good jobs such as headteachers, heads of service etc many of them had children young then started career building in their 30's when their children were in secondary school.

My friend did @helpfulperson

Had her DD at 18, just after we all sat our A
levels. Little priss me was v judgemental. She then got married and had another baby at 20. I was at university and very much not having the time of my life, but I was doing it ‘right.’

She went to university when her youngest was 3 and is now pretty high up in social work. And her girls are lovely.

I look back at little priss me and think … who the bloody hell was I to decide someone else’s way of life was ‘wrong’? (In fairness we were inundated with propaganda saying teen pregnancy was just the worst.)

I’m 42 now and my two year old is on my knee I’m sure lots of miss priss’ out there judge me. Fuck em.

I had my DD at 21. Split with her DF when she was 2. Life has been tough but looking back now, it has worked out perfectly. I didnt have much going for me when I fell pregnant and was probably quite reckless having a baby then. I pulled myself together, got a degree and now work in a well paid sector, quite high up. Married to a lovely bloke now. DD is 16 today ❤️
DSD isn't too far behind. The early years were a struggle money wise and organising our time with work and childcare and pulling together as a blended family. Now the kids are older we have so much freedom and im not even 40! Really loving life right now and couldn't imagine having young children in my late 30s.
To those saying it's luck, yes maybe a little. I didnt have much help from family when I was a single parent. I was lucky her DF wasn't a total tool and pitched in while I worked full time and went to Uni in the evenings. But I worked bloody hard to get where I am now. A few of my friends are only just starting their families now and I really do not evny them at all. It looks like so much hard work. That being said, I wouldn't want my DD to have children as young as I did.
I think the key is to make the best out of the situation you are in. I appreciate this can be more difficult for others but I really wasn't in a good place, but it worked out perfectly in the end.

There’s nothing wrong with it whatsoever and for people in the right set up it can work well. There are some advantages to having a baby early and getting the hard work of child-rearing out of the way while you are young enough to enjoy the independence you find on the other side.

It wouldn’t have worked for me: I had a lot to get out of my system: travelling, building a career, having other romantic relationships, spending time with friends and enjoying being young and free. I would have felt very stifled to have spent my 20s looking after small children.

As a more general point I think it’s easy for women to get swallowed up by being a wife and mother and often it doesn’t leave much bandwidth for anything else. If you have spent some time as an independent person before settling down you are more grounded and secure in yourself and it’s easier to find the authentic “you” which being a mum can erode. It’s also really important to have some work experience behind you I think. Even if you have to pause it for a long time, it’s much harder to build this confidence later on if you have never done anything except be a mother.

So while I think it can work for some individuals I don’t think it should be something to aspire to and shouldn’t be the main goal for most women. I would certainly discourage my DD if she wanted to settle down and become a mum under the age of about 30.

I'm not saying its not a good idea if it can be afforded independently (usually only possible in cases like OPs where her partner was 6 years older). I actually agree that if affordable, it can be a good idea to get the disruption to a career out of the way early and minimise health risks.

Mortgage fraud doesn't "hurt no one". People who do this are far more likely yo default, and the costs of defaulters are passed on to everyone else through higher rates. I would hope someone didnt commit fraud not because i wish ill on anyone but because it is a crime so I'd hope people generally aren't committing them knowingly.

I'm similar to you OP but I am 30 with 3 children now: I've been together with my husband for ten years in March and we have been married for 8 years! I am so proud of us.
We have a 6,3 and 7 month old.

I haven't worked since I was 23 when I had my son

We also own home, business, an apartment too.

We are fine. I do feel sad sometimes seeing people travelling but I did do a good bit before the kids and with the kids. Just the last two years with covid it's been harder

It can be great if you get married and have babies with intent at that age, but I can see how hard it's been for other people the same age as me here who live very different lifestyles due to the huge gap in our household budgets, basically

There's 2 sides to it as with everything in life. I had mine at 26,27,&28, and while not 'young' we've still struggled with aspects. But people we know who had kids older, have struggled with different aspects 🤷‍♀️

Bit patronising. You're so much more enlightened than people who don't want to party and are satisfied with their life. Go you🥳

No idea how your post benefits anyone. Just trying to make people feel inferior, why?

Having kids early was the best thing I ever did! I wish I'd had my eldest sooner if anything (I was 24, so not super young but younger than average in my view) but then it was the perfect time for us as we'd moved into a more "family" house.

All student parents get subsidised nursery. Long parents shouldn't be guilted for having family help with children. Olde parents do that too.

I don't think it's healthy or ideal for kids to be born to very young parents (anything under 22-23ish). For a bunch of reasons:

1. You don't have enough emotional maturity and life experience

1. You very likely don't have financial stability and you haven't put down the groundwork for a career that will provide adequate opportunities. Education and extracurricular are expensive

1. Young relationships are much more likely to fail. At that age you don't know yourself and don't really understand what you need I'm a partner. Again, maturity is needed.

I don't feel like I missed out on anything I had a gap year , I went to China, I moved out at 18 in a shared house. I was getting drunk with my friends and going to the pub from about 14 years old 🤣🤣. I'm not sure I was missing out by having a few more years of clubbing. I still travel just now with DD and I love seeing her face when we explore new countries.

I didn't pay for childcare as my DH saved up childcare vouchers for when I went to uni and then when that ran out I got grant money. I'm not sure i would want my DD to do the exact same thing. A lot hinges is that her dad is a good man on the whole. A lot of men are scumbags.

I was young when I had DC1. I looked much younger so got lots of nasty looks/comments over the years.

I had few friends and no career prospects anyway (realised too late my degree didn't qualify me for any actual jobs!) so having dc didn't stop me travelling/ going out on Saturday night because I had nobody to do those things with anyway.

I was on my own which was harder. Months of no respite was tough. But when I read relationship threads in here it wasn't as bad as having a man child/ cocklodger in the house!

I was restricted to doing 9-5 jobs as I only had 8-6 nursery for childcare but still earned £23k at 24 in the noughties.

(Never got a penny from cms)

I got £190(?) pwk tax credits that paid for the £200 pwk ft nursery.

Got a mortgage with almost no deposit and the bank added my tax credits to my salary to offer me a bigger mortgage. So 6x my base salary. The mortgage was £300 pcm, about half of what my friends were paying in rent at the time.

So financially it worked out really well.

There were times when went back into poverty but rode through it as a homeowner as that gave me access to cheap credit.

DC now at top uni. Motivated to work hard to earn well themselves.

It looked like the wrong decision at the time. (I had a lot of pressure from everywhere to abort) But given how it's worked out we seem to have proved them wrong.

Friends who have very young dcs now don't seem to have very happy lives at all.

Well we are still together almost 12 years later and happy. Emotional maturity hmmm I moved out when I was 18. I have a good job my DH earns 6 figures and has done for around 4 years. I'm very close with my daughter I think part of it is my age. She shares everything with me.

That's great it worked out for you, OP. Did you come from a wealthy background, who could offer support?

I had children at the opposite end of the scale - twins at 47. It has the advantages that I've built a career and am a very high earner, and can retire when they are early teens. Also, I've had decades to do exactly what I wanted, so now I'm happy to just focus on toddler-stuff (when I'm not working). Obvious disadvantages, that my (healthy) parents will not see them grow to adulthood. I would not want my daughter to follow my example though - I think early 30s is prob the ideal time to have kids.

No not wealthy background as such me and DH have worked very hard. DH has always been a very good saver though.

Depends I suppose. My parents were teens when they had me, and stayed together. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was younger as they had to balance apprenticeships and getting qualifications with have a baby but they were TONS of fun, adored me and my dsib who came a couple of years later, and they had SO much energy.
the other plus is having them for so long Inwas in my 20s when my mum turned 40!
and now they’re young -ish grandparents despite me not having kids til 35z

I was 21 with first child and 23 with second. I have divorced and re married since but I don't regret having my children early. It was quite hard and money was sometimes short but it isn't now, and I am able to help them if they need it now they are adults. We are all very close and do lots together (days out/holidays/theatre/gigs) and also I am a young grandparent. Had I waited until my 30s I would have been unlikely to have any as I was diagnosed peri menopausal at 31.

If you take a healthy young mum and a healthy older mum obviously biologically it's better to have them in your twenties but there are many other factors (social, finances, relationship, housing, career) to consider. Glad it worked out for you but it's usually harder for younger mums to reach what you have. I'd say you are the odd not the rule.

What do you mean by 'not wealthy backgrounds as such'?

I had two dc before i was 21 and the last two aged 29 and 30. With the first two i had so much more energy and shrugged off the sleepless nights etc, however i was still immature and also struggled financially. When i had the younger two I found I struggled far more with my energy levels but had far more patience and managed my finances much better. So it was swings and roundabouts really!

I find it weird that this whole conversation is centered around whether it's not all bad for the mothers. Why is no one questioning whether it's healthy for the kids? And i'm not solely thinking of finances and material things.

I would really like to hear more inputs from kids who have been raised by teen parents.

@RandomMusings7 well a younger mother is more likely to have a healthier pregnancy and birth? Can we say that?

And young doesn't mean teen, OP was 20.

Also won't have teens when I'm going through menopause, it's been very challenging dealing with my mum going through menopause, thankfully I'm an adult. So that's a benefit for the child. Not to mention having healthier parents for longer, around to support too.