What age is 'too young' to have children?

[Valden]

Regardless of age, no-one has the maturity to cope with a baby until it is learned by experience personally. That is why it becomes new parents to rely on any experience that parents, their parents, have to offer. But that does not make the new parents mature in themselves. It may give knowledge but knowledge is not experience in their case. That comes by learning to go sleepless, to wash bums, to feed, to dress and most of all to love that little creature like you've never loved anything else. One can be fifteen and do it just as one can be forty and do it.

I respect that, I'm not a parent myself so this is all speculative for me, but how do you answer Himster's view, basics?

In parent teacher meetings I've seen a startling correlation between young parents and struggling children.
I'd strongly advise against having children before 25, unless you somehow know that you're already a rare exceptional parent.
You don't really live your own life until your twenties (during and after college), if you give up your twenties and raise a child instead of living your life what kind of life experiences will you have had, how can you know what you need to know about the world to protect and care for another human being?

It would seem the children described here have all the things you claim a fifteen year old parent to be capable of offering, but that there is nonetheless a correlation between under-performance at school and having young parents. Of course this only means young parents are 'bad' parents if your sole criteria for judging them is how well their children perform academically, but it seems a pointer at least nonetheless. So what are your thoughts on the matter basics?

[Lord Baal]

I'm 25, and in my personal experience I would have to say that around 30 for some people, never for most of them.

[Dance the older]

My friend is 23, he has a 2 year old son (became father at 21). He works a full time job, he finished college at 19. Lives with the GF (the mom) in a 2 bedroom apartment. He handles it pretty well.

[NRohirrim]

When considering social stuff, financial independace of family, medium age of being adult and etc. I would say most likely minimum is 18 years old for women and 25 y.o. for men. But U know, there can be 17teenth girl and 23 y.o. boy ready for child and 25 y.o. woman and 30 y.o. man not responsible enough to have kid.

[Arbitrary Crusader]

What age is 'too young' to have children?

The age which, they can't have children, should be around the early year however there are exceptions.

But to fully answer you question, I think it vary on the person.

Some can handles children early in their life, while some at later in life.

Although, I will said, if you're 21 and had the potential of taking care of a child, and having the financial to cared of you and your family, then I am ok with it.

If, you're 21 and don't want to take having a child, seriously, and having barely any money for yourself then you are not ready.

[Col. Tartleton]

This many. You've got to be at least 4 to get pregnant.

[Lord Baal]

wut?

[I WUB PUGS]

My Sister-in-law is a PhD who studies children for her work in neuroscience. She's 30. I only trust her as a babysitter for maybe 2 hours and my kids are already asleep or at least in bed, so essentially I trust her to do what she does all day which is sit on facebook and tumblr while she watches cartoons but I expect her to be able to call 911 if something goes wrong or god forbid get one of my kids a glass of water.

As already stated in the thread, in this "modern" society more and more people are staying locked in what would've been considered adolescence even 15 years ago. You've got people in their 30s that can't pay rent on time, have mountains of debt because they buy dumb all the time, can't even get to work on time and rely on mommy and daddy to support them, but yet manage to keep in contact with 2000 people on facebook.

We also have a wonderfully high divorce rate in our "western" society. I am a firm believer that it takes two dedicated parents to raise a family these days. And no I don't care if they're of the same sex. I don't think single parents do near enough of a good job, but I also don't think it is entirely their fault. Being a parent is tiring, very tiring and working all day and having to take care of the kids yourself drives some people to take the easy way out, which is to just turn on the TV and order in every night.

All of that said, I was 22 when I had my first kid. My wife was 19. We are about to have our 4th child and we've gotten better with each one, but we also immediately put ourselves aside for the first child. No more going out to the clubs or concerts or getting hammered. We decided to stop being children and we were both very much just kids. She was a college drop out and I was a recent college grad with zero direction. But it was a process and there were struggles.

Statistically speaking my wife and I should have been divorced from each other like 5 times, we are nothing short of a miracle. I don't wish on anyone a child at an early age. The financial hardship is enough and it has nothing to do with the kid. Young people don't know how to manage their money, I thought I did too, I was even investing and I had great credit, but my spending habits were entirely too self-centered. Never mind the glaring maturity issues that come from just being hormonal at that age.

I think 25 is the minimum when the college years can be shaken off, beyond that a couple needs to be in a secure position financially and I would even say that at least for an American, home-ownership would be a big plus. Also minimal revolving debt. I think if a couple is independent and can at least take care of a couple dogs then they can probably handle a kid.

How many 22 year old home-owners do you know? I'm 30 and I still haven't bought a house.

[NRohirrim]

We also have a wonderfully high divorce rate in our "western" society.

It's not only matter of westernese. For example: in Russia U got more divorces than marriages /per year

[I WUB PUGS]

It's not only matter of westernese. For example: in Russia U got more divorces than marriages /per year

Yeah and they have tons of orphans too. I'd put Russia in "westerness" though. At least religiously and now sort of economically. Russia has more in common with France or the US than it does with say, Uganda.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

As already stated in the thread, in this "modern" society more and more people are staying locked in what would've been considered adolescence even 15 years ago. You've got people in their 30s that can't pay rent on time, have mountains of debt because they buy dumb all the time, can't even get to work on time and rely on mommy and daddy to support them, but yet manage to keep in contact with 2000 people on facebook.

What makes you think this is more common than 25, 50 or 100 years ago?

[Adar]

Personally I would say that generally you are old enough to have a child when you have your second child.

[I WUB PUGS]

What makes you think this is more common than 25, 50 or 100 years ago?

Nothing apart from the shift away from personal responsibility. It's not your fault for anything anymore. Whether it be "Corporations" or "Wall Street" or Obama.

Something has changed. In the 1990s you did have people doing the same sort of crap they've always done. Even Plato (IIRC) has a quote about youngsters behaving baddly. I'm not talking about people doing dumb stuff and blaming someone else. I'm talking about people doing dumb stuff and blaming someone else and society accepting that as a valid position.

Has this existed forever? God yes, how else did Germany come to blame the Jews? But really, how is it Obama's fault that you've stopped looking for work or refuse to get a new skill set? How is it Clinton's fault that you bought a $500,000 house on a $40,000 a year income? How is it McDonald's fault for getting you fat? These are big issues, couple them with the good ole "I'm late because X made me, not because I didn't wake up on time" and I'd say we're at a pretty low point for personal responsibility.

My generation of the late 20's to late 30's age is terrible with this. Most of the people I know from high school and college are still loafing it and this is considered completely legit.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

I think our culture is as encouraging of responsibilty and as pressured against losers as it ever was. You can't open a tabloid without seeing a story ridiculing fat people who want to considered disabled or thin-skinned people getting self-righteously angry over nothing. I have never seen any sympathy for that kind of thing in the media. I think it's safe to say our culture is generally not tolerant of that sort of behaviour.

Sure, there are certain social groups that hold each other back, bums for life who comfort each other, 30 year olds whinging about how the opposite sex doesn't like them and that's not fair etc. But that's a classic case of being "in with the wrong crowd", and is a subculture rather than a representation of mainstream culture.

I've heard you complaining before about lower worker hours and increasing leisure time and I don't think that's connected to laziness and failure becoming societally acceptable. I think it's a beneficial product of a modern economy. Isn't it good that people don't have to work as much, yet still earn more and produce more than 50 years ago?

[I WUB PUGS]

I don't see what you see in our media. American pundits are geared towards supporting the excuses of their viewer base. It is generally more acceptable here to blame McDonalds than it is to blame the people eating McDonalds. There are other factors, like the cost of good food, but no one is going tell a fat person they are fat because they eat like to their face. We'll always empathize with their "thyroid" or "genetic disposition". Not the 4 Big Macs they just inhaled.

Bill O'Reilly will harp all day about how the Democrats have failed us and that's why you can't get a job, or we're losing wealth.

Rachel Maddow will blame the covetous wealthy class and banks for the same.

No one is going to tell you to suck it up and go learn skills and move 2000 miles across the country to use those skills. No, the economy needs to come to you.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Well, perhaps there is a greater cultural difference between Ireland and the USA than I thought. Whenever I hear stories about people suing starbucks because their coffee burned them or someone demanding disability payouts because they are "genetically" 25 stone, it's always in the context of ridicule.

Of course our political system is much tinier and more local so we don't have the same kind of political pundits. Political extremism is virtually non existent.

[I WUB PUGS]

It wasn't always this way. The coffee one doesn't work because that old lady was seriously burned and it doesn't fly anymore because all of our coffee is ing luke warm now.

Fat people will be the majority soon here Deb, soon we won't be able to hold them accountable for their fatness even though they are driving up health costs and cars and planes have to be designed differently.

We love idiots here, used to be able to call them idiots.

[Wartotalworldguy]

basically it really depends on the maturity of the person's involved in the couple and the financial stability both of them have as a couple, also the will to have the child and to raise it, their have been many cases of "mature" people that have financial stability.

[AqD]

1.Financially, when a person has a promising career and is wealthy enough to support a full family; He should at least be able to afford like one week of traveling abroad every year, have cars and large and fine houses. In short, he's capable when he no longer has to worry about money.

2.Mentally, it's hard to say. But a person has never sucessfully run a team of some sort, or knows nothing about politics, history, philosophy or even basic science rules, or lack the ability of critical thinking and analysis, I wouldn't believe he's capable of teaching kids.


Age doesn't really matter. Some Most people are failures in their entire life and no age is enough for them to have kids.

[sumskilz]

We love idiots here, used to be able to call them idiots.

Please, that term damages the self-esteem of the differently-abled.