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In having a light bulb moment remembering I completed my GCSE's ten years ago, its dawned on me just how many of my school year are now parents. We're all turning 26 and 27, very few are married but at least two thirds are parents. Oddly enough the third that went to university - which obviously includes me are in the minority that haven't had children, but even that is starting to change. It feels like i'm the only one not having a baby.
This week a former work colleague who happens to be two years my junior stated on facebook how she feels like one of the few people not having babies right now. O like me! Granted I've thought about children and one day I think I'd like to have them, but they certainly aren't a must for me. You see I use the word think, rather then know, because i'm not overly sure. I find it hard picturing myself as a mother, a parent, nappy changer. I don't do well with ikky stuff, I panic over minor things, I can't figure out the responsibility of being a parent. Plus at 26, I still feel too young.
Yet the difference between the school friends of myself and Joe are rather noticeable. Joe's 28 this year - very few of his school friends are married - in fact he was the first, non have had children. We both come from similar rural background, towns were everyone knows each other, towns were people either move dramatically away or never escape. But that different is huge. The same can be said of Joe's work colleagues - Joe's the youngest where he works and many of them have yet to have children.
Are the British more bound to procreate at a younger age then the US? Even though marriages in the US tend to be at a younger age (or at least so it seems). It's starting to get to the point were it feels people are expecting me to be pushing out babies though my age and or because of being married. There's still this assumption and view of women being mothers - some of us won't be, don't want to be or will get there in their own sweet time.
Why can't people accept that a women has as much right to not be a mother as much as a right of becoming one, without being considered unfeminine or that there has to be something wrong with you.
Why can't people accept that a women has as much right to not be a mother as much as a right of becoming one, without being considered unfeminine or that there has to be something wrong with you.
I have felt that I'm the only one that isn't married or the only who doesn't have a baby for the past 3 years from my high school friends. It's a lil crazy how many people have had kids & are married. I'm 27, turning 28 this year and it's a lil out of control. There are even divorces already thrown into the mix. I don't know if there is any correlation to age or where we live that this happens it's just by chance...
ReplyDeleteYeap there's been divorces too. Feels like we're all playing grown up - but then I remember we are grown ups now - at least in theory.
DeleteIt's worrying that at 23, there are a large number of people I went to school with who have children, all bar 2 or three are single parents and only two are married. What worries me more is people my brothers age and younger (around 19 or 20) who have children who, in some cases are now three or four. Chris' mum made a comment the other day that if she wants to know what he's going to do, she just has to think of where his sister was a year ago. A year ago next month she got married, and 9 months later she had a baby. We have been together longer than her and her husband but they are older so it's fair enough. But to me that is her saying she thinks that once we get married in November there will be no reason for us to continue trying NOT to have a child. Despite the fact that I have told her several times that there are things I want to do first, I feel she expects it of us.
ReplyDeleteThere is too much of an expectation for people to have Children and I feel that getting married 'young' means wanting children straight away. Yes I love Chris' nephew and I love babies and I guess I get broody around them, but it doesn't mean NOW.
Yeah it's that expectation level which bugs me, especially as I'm a feminist that even in today's world that there's this running assumption that a women is a mother and that as soon as she marries she has to have a baby. There's certainly a difference between seeing other people's kids and ultimately wanting and being able to look after your own.
DeleteYes, yes, yes. Can empathise with all of this - I'm 27 and T is 31, we must have attended a dozen weddings over the past couple of years and so many of our friends now have children. I'm yet to feel remotely broody, I have always had a morbid fear of becoming one of 'those' Mums - you know the sort - the moment a child is born all ambition, personality and non-baby related conversation completely evaporates. I don't believe for a moment this applies to all Mums, but I know many who fall into that category!! I adore kids, I just don't know whether I want some of my own and I'd never consider having children unless I was completely certain I wanted to.
ReplyDeleteExactly, I don't want to become a mother over everything else. Maybe that is selfish of me, but there's more to be now then being one aspect. I'm still unsure about children overall, partially I think that is being down to not being around children, being an only child, the youngest cousin and most of my friends being the youngest, i've never really been exposed to children and now I back away from them a little.
DeleteI am more amazed by how many people of my age have married already, than by the ones who have had children. That seems to be a more cultural "accidental" thing in a lot of instances, but marriage takes the time and effort to plan that I don't think is as easy as finding yourself pregnant.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that women are considered strange if they choose not to want children, which I think is wrong.
A lot of my school year started marrying a good couple of years ago - often to guys a lot older then them. I don't know the in's and outs but many have had a couple of children by now. A lot of these girls were the ones I remember actively speaking about having babies young while we were still in school too.
DeleteI've never been married, engaged or felt the need to procreate.
ReplyDeleteBack in the bad old days of the 1980s I even was asked during an interview if I was a lesbian as an "attractive girl in her 20s should be married"! To be honest as I've always known I'm never wanted to marry or have children I've never been unduly bothered by people's remarks, it's their problem not mine. Luckily at 46 they've pretty much given up on trying to reason with me! x
My mother just to ask that of me all the time growing up, even at university if I was a lesbian because I never brought a guy home or talked about them. I didn't bring them home because she was overbearing but that is another story in itself. Your so true that it's over people's problems, which i'm becoming more accepting and at ease with as I grow older.
DeleteI feel this too. It's such a divide - those with kids and those without. I don't think it's intentional though, but those from school/college who have had kids live a far different life to mine - but I'm okay with that, because I'm happy without kids at the moment. I've never felt broody or maternal, I know I do want a family one day, but it's not something I see for myself in my twenties.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky Simon feels the same, we've got the family dream (one day), but what's the rush? If we had kids now it wouldn't be in the setting we wanted - (a bigger house, nice area, good schools, some money put aside etc.). I genuinely believe that when we do decide the time is right, we will be far older, wiser and ultimately make better parents.
I know exactly how strange it feels with regards people you know/went to school with - my Facebook feed is always full of babies, nappies and pregnancy's.
It's just one of life's choices, down to the individual, and I think something will tell you when you are ready. xxx
Exactly it doesn't feel like the right time to even be thinking of having a baby yet alone planning for one. Because me and Joe were separated for so long we've had so much making up to do - doing things "normal" couples do every day for dates and the like. We're too busy saving for our first house, building up my business and everything else will come when it does.
DeleteYep. It only gets worse as well, I'm about to turn 30 and feel like I'm very stuck out here on my own by not being married/engaged and not being sprogged up yet. It's odd because I'm pretty sure when I was younger I kept reading about the fact that we weren't having babies until later and later and women were having kids in their mid-30s and yet non of the evidence that I've seen backs that up.
ReplyDeleteI found that at around 25 onwards there was a huge fork in the road with a lot of people - people either carried on meandering around like I have or they went firmly down the babies/marriage/owning a house track.
But what really makes me sad is that the people that went down that track also felt that friendship with a meandering person like me wasn't worth keeping. I don't "understand" about late night feeds and nappy changing and I dare to still go out and have fun so am clearly not worth hanging around with anymore.
Oooh dear. I did a rant. I do apologise.
No rant away - rants are always welcome here!
DeleteI remember reading that too, especially through studying social issues at university and having and avid interest in social change - women were getting careers and having children later, but it doesn't seem to be that way. And I often hear how women have babies young because they worry about being old when their children are growing up. Or being the old parents on school nights and the like.
I agree with you that 25 seems to be a mark in people's lives changing, and while I was married at 25 and we're right now saving for our first house, babies are certainly years away.
I think in general there's a bit of a divide these days. I am 30 and the majority of my friends don't have children because they have worked hard at University and want a career and if and when they do have children they want to make an informed decision and be in a secure position to provide for their children. On the other hand, I work in a school in an economically deprived area where few of the parents work and many of them are younger than me. I think it has a lot to do with options, ambition, choices and what you want from life. I do agree, however women have a right to choose if and when they have children and if they choose not to it should not be frowned upon.
DeleteI totally agree! First of all with the marriage thing, my friends from school are all 24/25 and many are married or engaged, with my close friends all debating which if our "gang" will be first!
ReplyDeleteAnd as for babies, it's only a handful who don't have them!
I told someone I didn't ever want children, and the look they gave me was as if I'd told them I had shot a man. Dear me, I'm glad there's people here who think on similar lines to me :)
As am I, this post has certainly helped me feel like i'm not the only one out there thinking and feeling as I do. It's a shame in today's "modern" era women who sadly don't confirm to the traditional feminine norms are still considered odd.
DeleteSweet I have been through all of this and its an interesting time. Stay true to who you are, you will know what is right as your life's journey moves on. I can't have children so my experience is from a very different side of the fence. We still get comments from people that can be quite hurtful and uncalled for.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter.
love V
Thank you for sharing your thoughts V, I think ultimately in the long run what will happen will happen, without no force of my own.
DeleteIt's not actually that odd, if you look at all the studies that have been done over the past few decades, that those who went to university are those who are childless in their mid-20s. there's totally a correlation between education and family choices! It's FASCINATING.
ReplyDeleteThat's true but i've noticed a lot of people having babies or getting married as soon as university is over. But either way, social norms and their changing attitudes are all very interesting indeed!
DeleteI really do agree with this post, and it's actually pushed me into writing a blog post I've been wanting to write for a while now. I'm just about to turn 30 and I've been married for 7 years this year. I get asked constantly by people who I don't know very well why I don't have children and I find it hard not to take offense. I know these people don't mean it badly, but they're impressing their expectations and their wants onto me and by asking the question they're judging me even if they don't realise it. I want to say "If you want me to have kids so much, go have them yourself"
ReplyDeleteI shall be checking out your blog post shortly - i'm happy that I inspired your post too! I know what you mean about people and their assumption and how they project them onto other people. It's a shame that in today's day and age we still try and understand people's lives by what we/they think is the right/wrong to be doing with ones life.
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