Do you all ever feel shortchanged by your culture's insistence on early marriage
 

and child bearing? Do you ever feel as if you'd been robbed of some elemental and possibly necessary experiences because of the age at which so many of you married and had kids?

I'm not looking for a recounting of the joys of marriage and kids etc. I'm asking if you feel like you've missed something, despite all the good it's brought to your life, by marrying and procreating at a young age.

Maybe this post is in the wrong place, but given that the acts in question spring from the church to which most of you belong I suppose it makes as much sense to put it here as anywhere else.

Yeah, a little bit.

My brother likes to joke about Mormons marrying young. He's always saying things like "Bring'em young" and "That's why we swing!"

Seriously, though, you may have hit on a major cause of the Mormon mid-life crisis. I wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with some Mormon's use of pornography either.

Married at 27 and first kid at 30. I had friends get married early, have kids early and been grateful the whole time and felt like they never missed a thing. I've had friends that married early and did feel like they missed out on some fun and actually ended up divorced.

I think it all depends on if you're the type to take advantage of the single life or if you're going to mope around and be sad because you don't have anybody in your life.

Nope. I wish I married earlier.

I married at 24 and my wife was 21. We didn't have kids for another eight years so I can't comment on that part. Since I was always a guy who wanted to have a girl friend, rather than date many, marriage even at that age was a good fit for me. I don't think I missed out. My wife, however, wishes in retrospect that she had been older when we met, that she had been able to do a semester abroad, live away from home before we got married. She wishes we had been more mature when we got married, but agrees with me that there is sort of a window there were you are mature enough to be married but not so set in your ways that it is hard to adapt as I think can be a function of age.

By the way, I believe that this is a cultural emphasis rather than a doctrinal one. I certainly know that there are many who have undergone tremendous hardship because they have reproduced early and often before they were out of school, though of course they wouldn't ever trade their kids. Perhaps the payoff is that they are out of the house sooner and you get to enjoy your time alone with your spouse before you are too old to do some of the things that age makes more difficult.

When did you get married and do you wish you had gotten married earlier or later?

Oh man. I'm not even going get started on this thread.

My wife's one regret is that she wishes she could have gone to her junior prom before she was married.

The reason they do it is they don't want people to have sex before they're married. It's that simple. They know the practical impossiblity of saying, "Women and men, finish your education and start a career before having kids; have a good time, date, see the world, there's no hurry, the more mature you are and the more you get out of your system the better decision you're likely to make," and saying, "If you fornicate you're going to hell."

I thought you weren't going to get started?

You are asking the wrong question.

The real question you should be asking is whether people feel that they missed out by not trying alcohol, drugs, or casual sex.

If you are an active LDS person, delaying marriage until you are 35 gives you no extra benefit in any of those areas because you are still not supposed to do them, no matter what your age.

For an LDS male, getting married early may affect some early career choices, but not by much, as the LDS male is the primary wage earner within our culture, so he has to work no matter what.

I think the biggest complaint I have heard seems to revolve around travel...."I wish I had traveled more before I got married."

I was married at 30 and I think that was just about right. I agree with what Dan said above, there is a window there where you're mature enough to get married but not too set in your ways to mess it up. On average that would probably be from your late twenties to early thirties.

Please don't take this as criticism as I know what's right for me isn't right for all people. It's an interesting question for me because you all are a unique subset in this country in that you encourage your young people to get married asap whereas most everyone else is telling them to go and have fun and get married later.

older paternal age is associated with many diseases in offspring. For example schizophrenia. More well-known are the chromosomal defects among children born to older women.

it's not a trivial thing for an entire society to shift its birthing years to the 30s and 40s.

It's arguably a very bad thing.

35? What are you talking about Tonto? 25 is late for LDS culture. What's wrong with waiting until you're 28? Nothing! 28 is better than 23.

I agree. I also hear, pretty subtly, a lot of people say "at 19, 20, 21 I hadn't yet begun to be who I ultimately became and was very immature." IOW, I might have made a better or more compatible choice.

No, but I was married at 24 and had my first kid at 30 so I probably don't count.

My perspective on the issue is that folks should marry when they are ready and have kids when they are prepared to take care of them.

I should mention that I have no regrets (married at 23, SIRS was 24). She is brilliant, gorgeous, and fun, and I couldn't have done any better than I did.

We didn't have any children for seven years.

I married young and have had kids young. Don't really feel like I have missed out on anything. We might have spent a little more time in england this spring if we didn't have to get back to the kids.

It will be cool when my youngest goes to college and I am only 50 and then I take the summer off from work and hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

Your point is taken and I suppose that's in the back of my mind. Even so, there are other advantages to staying single outside of the fun aspects you all are denied: putting the time into building your career without worrying about the strain long hours puts on a family, building a nest egg, you mentioned travel and there's most often a maturity that comes with age. Not just emotional, but in judgment. These are the things I wonder about.

I guess that is what I was trying to say. Judgment only comes with experience and we frequently make the most important choice we will ever make at a time when our judgment is embryonic. But anecdotally, it still works the vast majority of the time so maybe good judgment isn't as important as shared values, community and commitment.

I have long felt that the agrarian culture that early LDS culture was centered around is a big part of this. Arrington's doctrinal thesis was an analysis of the Magic Valley sugarbeet industry and he documented how the LDS famalies cornered the market little by little as they continued having large famalies while the non-LDS farmers famalies better reflected the declining national averages. This was in the first half of the 20th century. Before roundup resistant sugarbeets, raising sugarbeets was very labor intensive as the fields must be hoed weekly to rid them of unwanted weeds that compete with the sugarbeets for water. Large famalies provide a great deal of free labor.

I also think that those who marry early and have a large litter while still struggling through schooling learn a great deal about sacrifice and teamwork. It wasn't the route I went and I would not recommend it to my children as it invites a great deal of stress and pressure that young marriages often don't need, but to those couples who face the challenge head on I think it emboldens and deepens the marital relationship. Overcoming such challenges together creates a deeper unity that benefits the individual partners, the relationship and the entire family. Part of me thinks that given the longstanding belief in LDS culture that hard work and intense challenges is good for individuals and develops faith, by forcing you to seek divine help with your challenges, is what motivates those leaders who have encouraged this approach as the LDS blueprint.

Believe me, I know. I'm not squeamish around needles but damn that thing the stuck into my wife's belly was big. We're most likely done as a result of those issues.

Younger paternal age is asssociated with higher incidence of divorce, child abuse, and just plain bad parenting.

I agree. My point was that if a single LDS male were to delay marriage until his early to mid 30s (the norm for non LDS culture), there would really be no purpose, apart from maybe travel.

The single LDS guy still will not be allowed to sow wild oats, party all night, and get crazy with lots of women. Those are the standard regrets when people look back on their early adulthood.

Education for LDS males is usually not a standard regret.....we encourage the male to get as much education as possible.

I was married when I was 25. It was about right for me. Dating was already getting boring. I don't feel like I missed out on much.

And frankly, judging by the comments and concerns many of my YSA friends have, I don't really want to trade places with any of them. No thanks.

Well, well........SIRS is a little cougar.

Now THAT is hot!

rowrrr!

Does the fact that Wyomingites get married when they are older make SWWYOPOKE's pussy hurt? ;)

two of my best friends aren't married. One never married, the other divorced.

I feel bad for the never-married. I'm beginning to think he will never find someone.

Along those lines, go to any average singles ward in the Church and ask everyone to raise their hand if they are really happy being in their early 30s and unmarried.

He should do what our wives did and lower his standards.

You're going to have to recount the whole SWWYO saga to me sometime. I know there's a backstory there, I just don't know what it is. (Other than he/she being slightly unbalanced due to, I assume, too much exposure to the SLC media.)

I agree, although this is a little bit circular as to landpoke's question. Of course those in the culture will not be happy to find themselves outside the cultural construct. That unhappiness, in fairness, is some evidence of whether the construct is good or bad but I would assume, without knowing, that our culture has a higher incidence of those who are unhappy to be in their 30s (or even later 20s) and unmarried. I think the large culture tends towards marriage, but our culture is up an order of magnitude in intensity on this issue.

To me the optimal age is 25-30, but what do I know.

I admire people who marry and divorce young, before kids. That shows a tremendous amount of self awareness, especially if they have a religious background. That's one thing I've always admired about Mudphud.

So much for not getting started on this thread.

By the way, "I wish I hadn't married so young," is such a common regret it qualifies as a cliche. Still, it's probably a regret many don't divulge. So don't expect to get honest answers to your post, Poke.

By the way, I was 26 when I married the first time, and, yes, I was too young.

I have yet to read a post by him anywhere in time where he doesn't whine like the women of Srbrnica concerning BYU's RMs. I think he had a run in with some Tongan Sister Missionary named Nuiflotasamahemapuna. Apparantly he thought it would be real funny to put a broomstick handle in the spoke of a mormon missionary as he peddled around town whistling an uplifting tune, so after stumbling out of his favorite Diamondville watering hole he spotted his favorite milk-drinking target. He sought to thrust his weapon of choice into the target but alas, he was thrown by the force to the ground and his broomstick handle fell aimlessly to the ground. The fine 260 lb daughter of God and future mother of many 25 year old RM BYU OL, picked up the broomstick handle and with it made sweet love to SWYWYOPOKE. Now getting your ass banged by a mormon chick might be embarassing enough, but he is forced to wear a diaper to contain the lifelong drip he developed as that representative of my faith rode SWWYOPOKE like Lavell rode y'all for so many years. If I was a big and bad Poke from the Cowboy state and was raped by a Sister Missionary with my own broomstick handle, I might hold some long term angst myself.

That is the story as I understand it.

Well, I'm likely done with it because it's not an interesting or debatable subject. I think Poke even meant it as a rhetorical question.

Maturity doesn't come to some people until their 30s or later. Sometimes not ever.

"Shortchanged" and "robbed" are a bit too value-laden for me, but unquestionably, marrying at 22 and 20, with five years of undergrad, law and business school ahead of us, resulted in our missing certain experiences that would undoubtedly have been very nice. But 34 years later, it's hard to imagine having a better wife, better kids (six of 'em), or a more closely knit family. And we've traveled a lot and live reasonably well.

We discussed your questions occasionally at my former law firm (and with a large firm in San Francisco, my lifestyle was/is a bit outside the norm), and while few envied my early years of ascetism-by-default, most allowed that those years tended to make my later years far more satisfying than theirs. Life is filled with tradeoffs, and most of those we've made have turned out very well. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but the life we chose has worked very well for us.

Especially males. This site is exhibit A.