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

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

The alter egos are the only ones worth pursuing these days.

Out with it Triplet. You always act like you know for a fact which accounts are the dupes. Who is Mindful if Mindful is a dupe?

[Travis Henry]

I wish I had met my wife earlier and got married when I was around 25 or 26. If you're going to live some of the basic standards of the church (no pre-marital sex, no alcohol and experimentation with drugs), then it's really quite pointless to continue to go out and "experience" more once you reach the age of 25 or 26. What are you going to experience exactly and how bad does it suck to not have sex in your mid-20s?

In some of my weaker times I think it would have been great to have not been a member in my late teens, early and mid-20s and had the typical young male fun. But being an active mormon, this not really a regret I have often.

I'm not sure if I would have been ready to have been married when I was 25. Nevertheless, I look at my years between 25 and 28 (when I met my wife), and there was little emotional development, IMO. And there wasn't anything I did career and school-wise that I couldn't have done with a wife (and I certainly would have waited to have children).

I'm a strong proponent of people waiting a few years post-mission to get married. You need to date a lot of people, unless you somehow find that one mature wonderful person early on (and this doesn't happen very often when you're 21). There was a poll on cougarboard about the age that people got married. I was, for some reason, surprised how 21 was the most common answer (excuse me if it was actually 22, but it was one of the other). Then I think about the mission reunions I went to right after my mission and how a majority of my mission got married REAL quick. I went to a mission reunion about a year after I got back, I was only 22 and I already felt like the weird uncle. But, the girls these guys married resembled your average Wal-Mart patron so I felt fine not falling in with the crowd (and I could swear some of these guys worked harder than I).

With that being said and as alluded before, I also think 24, 25, 26 are good times to get married. But I think the bigger problem is not so much early marriage but having kids too dang early. If you want to get married at 21, fine. But hold off on having kids, get your bearings, and then when you both feel you can give the kid a solid shot at life then go ahead. I've never been a fan of the vagina as a clown car mentality that people seem to have where the guy is 21, the girl is 19, and the first kid comes at 20 for the girl and 22 for the guy. Without having wealthy parents, I simply don't see people in this position consistently get the education and foundation they need to be successful.

[Gidget]

Originally Posted by landpoke

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.

I don't feel robbed, but I do wonder. I think it is natural to wonder what could have happened given different circumstances (marrying later). But who doesn't wonder? Surfah and I got married last year. Him 28, me 24. And we already had our little menehune. So we don't get to travel the world for 2+ years or anything like that, but whatever, there are things I wish I could have done, but I still wouldn't give up what I got. And I agree with some earlier posts, that a lot of people consider binge drinking, casual sex, and general carelessness as "finding themselves" and I certainly don't think if I was still single and child-less that I would really be maturing and becoming more cultured by taking part in those things. As far as I'm concerned the term "finding yourself" is just stupid (but that is another thread altogether). You can "find yourself" in any number of different experiences and circumstances. It's not like marriage and kids become some kind of road hazard. I have a father who says he has never done anything with his life, just because he doesn't live in a mansion and has never been on another continent and traveled and such. And when I hear him say that, it makes me feel like crap. Like a family and a marriage isn't an accomplishment in and of itself AT ANY AGE. I feel like it is the greatest accomplishment, but that is just my opinion. And I would never want to look back and say to my kids,"If I would have waited just 2 to 5 more years to have you, I could have done all this cooler stuff that you are SUPPOSED to do at that age." What a load of crap. Having kids and getting married is cool. Do it when you're ready but do it at all, otherwise you really miss out on some of the coolest experiences you could never get otherwise. Hell I can go to Egypt later when I am older, when I am more financially sound and have really "found myself" right? - But I only have so many hottie years to be attractive and only so many eggs to even make children. PRIORITIZE.