Daughter getting married at 16

[lturner10]

My daughter has just informed me that her boyfriend proposed to her on her 16th birthday last weekend. They have known each other since primary school and started 'going out' when they were 14. My husband and I have been very supportive of their relationship and her boyfriend is very sweet and clearly cares a great deal for her. We were shocked by the news of their engagement as, whilst my daughter is probably much more mature than many of her peers, she is still very young. They will of course need parental consent to get married and my husband and I are compeltely at a loss with what to do. They have said they will have a low budget wedding and seem to be thinking very seriosuly about making it happen in the next year. Any advice on this situation would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone else gone through the same thing? Does anyone know of any young people getting married so young and it turning out well?

Thanks,

Louisa

Don't give consent.
Tell them they have 2 years in which to work hard and save up.
Or stay at school and finish their education.

I would say that you would like her to wait until she is 18. That you will help her save up for a bigger more beautiful wedding. Show her some fabulous venues taht she could look into for 2012. offer to help pay for the big day so long as they wait.

that way you are supportive of their desire to marry and encouraging them to have a lovely day.

but buying yourself some time

Once again, A PERSON WHO IS 16 DOES NOT NEED PARENTAL CONSENT TO MARRY IN SCOTLAND!

He/she can legally marry in Scotland at that age without parental consent.

So it matters not a jot if the parent consents or not, because the border between England and Scotland is wide open.

If they are 16, they are free to leave, come to Scotland, and, after a fortnight waiting period, marry legally.

I wouldn't be encouraging her to save so she could spend loads of money on her wedding but to have money for housing etc.
I think its better to emphasise the reality rather than the romance.
They're children.

Maybe not expat but IMO the vast majority of 16-year-olds would think twice if their parents said 'i really would like to talk about the possibility of you both waiting a couple of years' especially if they frame it that way rather than 'over my dead body'.

The majority? Maybe. I'd have done exactly what I pleased.

Where is the OP?

OP must be choosing her 'mother of the bride' outfit....

Firstly - there is no reason why it is destined to fail. like others on this thread I met my DH at 16y. We didn't get engaged or married quickly, but we were committed nd together throughout. We went on tp different universities but stayed together with no fall outs. We finally got engaged some 6 or so years later, then married 18m later. Been together now 20 years!

However - I would be sitting them down together and discussing this with them. What are their future plans? Education? Enployment? Where will they live? How will they support one another?

I would not be enciuraging a wedding at this stage. I would not actually withhold consent entirely - but I would be asking them to spend more time together before making plans - at least another year before plans are made.

Are they going to be in a position to actually set up a household together at 16? Will the OP be expected to help finance that? Or are they going to carry on living separately in their parents' houses? In which case, what does marriage actually mean?

Me, I would say, "There is no way your father and I can help to set up a separate household either in this house or elsewhere, so if that is what you understand by marriage, you will have to wait until you can pay for it yourself. We will also not be able to help if you want to start a family, so again if that is part of the plan, or something that might be likely to happen, you will have to think through the practicalities first. All we can offer is for you yourself to live at home until you are 18 and for your OH to come for the occasional meal- will that be enough of a marriage for you?"

Age is just a number all this talk of blocking etc sounds like control freakery gone mad!Support them and go with the flow anything can happen.I wish i had got together with dp when I was younger I knew him when I was 18 and he was 24 and we liked each other but it never happened we could have had so much more time together!

I would not give my consent.

The fact that they want to rush into marriage at 16 (rather than, say, become engaged with a view to marrying at 20) indicates to me that they are swept up with the romance of it all and are acting like kids on Christmas morning.

There are always going to be people who can say 'I got married at 16 and it worked out wonderfully' and that is great. However it is unfortunately much, much more likely that your daughter will be divorced by the time she is 25.

As long as it's legal, and getting married at 16 is, I'll support my children no matter what.

I made a lot of mistakes in my life. VERY, VERY big ones, including marrying at 22 and being divorced at 30.

Every single one of them after I was 18.

I would never be in a position to help much financially, so if any of mine came to me and were marrying at 16 (and again, my first cousin did, to her 21-year-old boyfriend, as she was pregnant and yes, nearly 16 years later, they are still happily married), the discussions we'd have to have would be based around the practical, financial ramifications.

But trying to control me, even by that age, had zero effect on me at that age, so it goes to follow it'd be rather hypocritical of me to try that on with my own kids.

True, it depends on the kid. My mum not giving consent would have put the stoppers on for me but perhaps I was a very malleable child!

I got married 4 days after my 17th birthday. i had to have consent from my mum. Mum was a pinko liberal type through and through and gave permission - looking back i can see that she probably thought as many do on this thread - that it is pointless withholding permission.

I am still married 21 years later. life has been very hard. i had children young ( first at 17yers old) andfinances were tight. obviously then further education and even university were put on the back burner. suddenly we were thrustinto adulthood. a house, bills and a baby. who knew who they were at 16? you think you do. you think you know everything.

my twins are 17. I look at them and think - jesus, i had a baby. jesus i had to be grown up. I so don't want that for them. I want them to be young, carefree, even in love ( ds2 is so loved up - and even talked about babies last week)

Mum is dead, and i can't help but wonder what the fuck she was playing at givingme permission.

there are ways and ways of managing a situation. I would act ever so happy - even throw them an engagement party.

i would sit down with them and plan finances - with a wedding date vaguely in mind for two years time. I would encourage them to enter further education - telling them that with an educationthey can get a job with more money and it would give them a firm foundation for the future.

i would act happy and try to 'manage' the whole scenario until they were 18, until they had a good base of GCSEs and possibly A-levels.

i did go to college and university - and how hard was that with 3 kids under 5 yers old? 100% harder than without.

life has been so hard that i wouldn;t want to advocate that for any teenager.

so yes, i'm still married - but i'm not the success story.

I agree though that it is pointless once kids reach 16/17 control is very difficult. You also need to wonder why someone so young is so keen on that institutional thing as that is probably at the route of wanting to be what they percieved as 'settled' so early.It is unlikely to last but it is their call just keep talking

do you think, though, custy, the real reason it was even harder is because you two had children so young?

i dunno. i had a long conversation with that cousin of mine, grace, who married at 16 and had a baby.

she still thought it was wonderful. mind you, she didn't have another baby until she was 22, conveniently in july after graduating from university in may, and her husband was 21 when they married and in his last year of university.

she also had a lot of family support with regards to childcare and help, and was able to finish high school as normal (her first was also born in July).

but she honestly doesn't see her life as a hardship at all.

she, too, had to have permission to marry because in the state of Texas, the minimum age to marry without parental consent is 17.

i was young, carefree, in love.

i slapped around.

gawd, i don't know that i want that for my kids.

there was a lot of heartbreak that went with that. it wasn't all sex and the city type fun.

guess it depends on the person.

yes definatley. But thats what growns ups do they get married they have babies don't they? and i was so grown up at 17 god i was so naive and stupid.

sure if they get married and you can possibly do everything you can to stop them from having babies - marriage in itself probably isn't the prolem - they can always get divorced. But i bet babies soon follow.

You are the success story, custardo (even if you don't like marmite cashews). You really are. A fabbo to the core who's triumphed through difficult times. What's not successful in that? Perhaps your mum sensed that you had the quality to win through whatever life threw at you when she gave permission.

I think you are right that marriage, especially followed by full on family life, is bloody tough for most 16 year olds though. And I would definitely not give my child permission to marry at 16. No way. If the relationship lasts over the longer term they can marry later. The bottom line is that consent gives a very clear message: "I think this is ok or better than ok" and I don't. Even though I accept that some meet their true love at 16 or younger, it is my belief that many more don't and that a very few get permanently entangled with people who they'd be far better off without. I don't want to be a part of enabling that. I would do a custardo and play nice but stall, stall, stall. I would definitely try and steer clear of an "over my dead body rant rant rant" approach but I can take it if they are not happy with me and if they do run away to John o'groats at least I can take pride in their initative and rebellious streak.

Teenage and early adulthood years are for (safe) sexual/emotional experimentation, imo and getting some life experience and, preferably, some qualifications or a job that they love. I think being too permissive, especially with girls is a danger. I know several lovely, bright young women whose lives have been transformed for the worse by getting involved with deadbeat, emotionally-smothering young men in their early/mid teens. Their parents, kindly and lovely one and all, allowed the girls to leave school and the boys to move in with them and then marry. The girls have invested everything in their relationships with the tacit or even overt consent of their families and that often does not make for happiness, imo. Some have not yet made any space for themselves many years later; without qualifications or a job they enjoy or even just the great friendship network that comes from meeting others who like doing the things you like to do it's bloody hard to live life to the full. Not everyone is a fantabulous custardo.

When dd is 17, I will still be at work, so the offers of childcare will simply not be there. I think it is fair and honest to spell out to your teen whatever you will not be able to provide. I was 19 when I met dh, but had to wait for 10 years (living in different countries) before we could afford to get married; I think it's been good for our marriage. Not saying I would insist on dd having a 10 yr engagement, but I would not give up my work or my income to save her from the hardship of waiting a year or two.

At 16, the idea of marriage is generally a very romantic idea, spun around We Love Each Other - and I'm not saying that isn't there for adults people who get married, but they are generally aware of the legal and practical aspects of it. At 16, you're just not.

I remember walking around my paper route when I was coming up to sixteen (that's right, laugh it up) discussing with my boyfriend at the time when we'd get married. Oh how I cringe with embarrassment now. It was his suggestion, his deceleration of I Love You And Want To Be With You Forever - and tbh, it was more the fact of being honoured that someone would want to be with me! We had been together two years at the time and we broke up a few months later thank Christ.

But anyway, back to you. I would refuse to give consent, but not in a nasty way. Like has already been suggested, I would be all happy and jolly, throw a party, whatever, but make sure she went to college / uni. The chances are she would meet someone else and realise that being with the boy you've being going out with since you were 14 is not nessicarily the best option.

Ask her where it is they are planning on living, and how they are going to afford it.

And if its because she wants a family etc, tell her from me that being a young mother is bloody hard work. As much as I wouldn't change my beautiful little boy for the world, truly I wish I'd waited - or at least been more careful

Good luck.

I totally agree with every word of Custardo's post.

i got engaged at 16 and had a baby at 17. He was a wastrel and buggered off to pastures new when dd was 3 months old, barely to be seen again. I thank god I didn't actually marry him.

I would not want that kind of life for my dd, who is now 14. I want to her to have a carefree teenage and twenties life. I had a flat, Ft job and a baby when I was 17, life has been a bloody hard slog. Have some fun first.

DD has got a boyfriend who she is very close to, they have grandiose plans for the future together. Which is all very nice. And if in 2 years she came to me and said that she was engaged, well, i would be all 'congratulations' etc, and blithely support them. However, I would in no way give consent to marriage. I would say that they would have to wait, that most engagements even for people in their 30s were of a significant duration, and say they could wait until they were at least 18. As Custardo says, I would not want my dd when aged 35 or whatever to say 'what were you thinking'.

If they are mature, they would use that time to save up, plan for future etc. If they stamp their foot, we are going to get married no, and plan to run off to Gretna in some foolhardy, bollocks to you type 'romantic' plot, well, they are not mature enough to do something so adult as marriage.

I was not mature enough for marriage and motherhood at that age, and I thank god that all went right. However I would not recommend it as a course of action for anyone.

A little bit older but dh and I met at 18/19 and decided to get married within 6 months.

His parents made such a fuss that we agreed to wait a year - that was 18 years ago.

We moved in together (were at university) so we didn't mind waiting too much. On the other hand, we have always resented their reaction a bit.

Life has not been harder - on the contrary. Otoh, we didn't have dc until we were in our mid 30s, which I think is the critical thing.

I would avoid using any "not giving permission" type of language and just air my concerns about it. I don't object to marriage at 16 per see but I would be very worried that a 16 year old would want marriage. What about their ambitions in life? If your daughter wants to be tied down at 16 she is probably full of silly "romantic" ideas of playing wife, mummy etc. It would be over my dead body but I would craftily try to word it in a different way.

I have a second cousin who married at 16, and they had a baby a year or two later. She is 35 now and still happily married as far as I'm aware.