AIBU to feel shocked my 23-year-old daughter is marrying?

[SlothsRUs]

My 23 year old daughter has just announced that she is getting married next year.

I am completely shocked.

Surely it’s not normal anymore to marry that early.

I tried to be joyous and congratulate her but would you be happy?

I want to know why she wants to marry this young.

I know she is an adult and what she does is nothing to do with me but I am really shocked.

Yes it's a myth that is quoted often, that is my point. Our brains keep developing for the rest of our lives.

plus how does society accept in the medieval ages people at 16 + were leading armies , rasing families etc yet now its oh its 25 before they understand their own minds or personality etc

Well I know I personally am glad that I'm not living in the medieval ages. Just because 16 year olds could do those things doesn't mean it's ideal!

I find this quite interesting.

Because to me living together, whether you like it or not, means social and financial entanglements, as well as real potential for decision making with long term consequences - will you give up your job to follow the partner's job? Will you go back to school while the partner works? What if one of you falls ill while living together? Plus, there is the possibility of things like pregnancy.

So all those things are ok at 23, but gosh, not the commitment involved in getting married? I think that if a young couple aren't up for that they are pretty unwise to be living together in the first place.

I think we are agreeing with each other.

Experience drives brain development. The more we infantalise young adults, the fewer experiences they have, and the more immature their brains will be.

that seems to be part of it, society now is oh you cannot eg get married at eg 22, yet back then they were running armies and so on

Actually this makes perfect sense, babies /children's brains develop through experiences and environmental influences socialisation learning etc etc, if you stop nourishing brains there can be developmental delay, treating older teenagers and young adults like actual children could delay them, why do some people infantise them ?

One of my children works for an emergency service they qualified at 22 they had to make rational /immediate decisions and risk assess, if their brain isn't developed enough why are younger adults allowed these jobs ?

One of my children works for an emergency service they qualified at 22 they had to make rational /immediate decisions and risk assess, if their brain isn't developed enough why are younger adults allowed these jobs ?

Well they’re not all allowed for starters… plenty of 18 and 19 year olds are not recruited and told to go away and get more experience. The ones who are recruited go through a long training process where they are assessed routinely and can be binned off if they don’t meet the set standard. The training also can seemingly be very very basic to ensure the message is received…. Eg“Do not chase suspects onto a roof because it’s dangerous “. I’ll guarantee the trainers will differentiate between recruits who are 20 and those who are 30..,, they’ll just have techniques to manage it.

It is pretty young these days but would you rather she had announced being pregnant? At least she's planning for her future and doing it the 'traditional' way.

There’s no need to get married at any age is there? It’s a want not a need in all cases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_matures_at_25_myth

This, the midwife who handled my entire labour and birth/safely delivered my second baby was 24, my kids have both had numerous teachers over the years who have been 25 or under, in charge of their learning and education for a whole year. There are paramedics, nurses, police officers, therapists etc etc who are all qualified and work their jobs the same way as anyone else who are under 25.

But their undeveloped brains eh !

I also take the you aren’t a proper adult until 25 with a pinch of salt. I was a solicitor before that age representing people in police station/court and mental health tribunals. My own dd is 20 and perfectly competent, she’s being trusted to chaperone a group of 7 girls from USA to Central America next week. Her friend same age is a deputy manager in a busy chain restaurant. Another friend works as a Health care assistant in nhs while studying to be a nurse. Other friends same age are in apprenticeships in demanding roles.
Infantilising young adults does them no good.

Honestly I find it wild too. At 25 my dad had a 23 year old wife, two small sons, and managed a mine, having also been in the merchant navy.
You learn to be an adult by living as an adult. So many twenty somethings now are babied like 14 year olds.

It's ridiculous. I appreciate that in many cases circumstances have forced the issue, and there's not always much any given family can do about it, but delaying the normal patterns of adult life isn't a positive thing in itself. There's no reason to live like that when you don't want to and don't have to.

I have a lot of sympathy around accommodation costs, genuinely. I wonder if that impacts things? Harder to see yourself/your child as an adult if they don't leave home?

Ultimately this is just a very personal decision and what seems like the right time is different for everyone. So i think you just have to go with it.

I’m Gen X (just turned 57). I met DH at 29, had first child at 35. Married later. That was the right sort of timing for me. Most of my friends had similar timing. 25+ years later, most of us are still with the same partners. A handful of my friends settled down earlier including some who met as teenagers. They’re also generally still together. As long as your DD is able to grow and pursue exciting life opportunities (and i know plenty who were able to do this despite settling down young), then it should be fine.

I expect so, and it's understandable.

Not necessarily, I was engaged at 19,married at 21 been together 45 years,3 gorgeous kids,6 beautiful grandchildren.

I got married at 23 and am still married almost 40 years later. For me its not about missing opportunities in education/career/travel etc, that can all happen anyway, its just the fact that at 23 you are still very much changing and growing, and to tie yourself down to one person, who is also going to change and grow, seems ill advised to me. I am a completely different person than I was in my 20s, and although I still care about my dh and love my children very much, if I had waited until my 30s I would have made very different choices. So I would not be thrilled if any of my dc decided marry at 23, though of course it would their decision.

“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the foundations of the man”.

Whereas I married at 39 and it was a disaster and divorce 18 months later. By that age I was less flexible for putting up with someone else's foibles and shit

And at 5t in a different person that I was at 40. So what age do you " stop changing"

But I'm a very different person at nearly 50 than I was at nearly 40. If I'd waited another 16 years before marrying, I'd still be in the same position now.

We all change constantly throughout our lives, whatever age we are. It's just our personal choice as to whom (if anybody) we want to commit to sharing our lives and going through those changes with.

I just don't get why so many people seem to see marriage as a purely negative thing - that you grudgingly feel you have to do for practical reasons.

I should have read what Thechaseison71 said more carefully - we made pretty much the identical point!