Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:While I think the NPR piece that was referenced by some PP's is interesting, everything is so individual-what's right for some may not be right for others. Some people (I am one of them!) are not meant to marry young. My senior year in college I was engaged to a guy who was in medical school. He was a nice guy and went on to have a great career, but we weren't right for each other. I was not ready to be in a serious relationship and ultimately I cheated on him and broke things off. I have no doubt that if we had done the whole "marry shortly after graduation" thing (that we had planned on doing) we would have divorced. Interestingly enough, he ended meeting and marrying someone (another medical student) shortly after our relationship ended. They had kids, both became physicians, did well financially, etc. but their marriage didn't last.
I didn't get married until I was in my early 30's. My husband and I chose not to have children but if I had gone that route there's no way I would have been mature enough or financially secure enough to have kids until I was in my 30's.
I think many people just aren't ready to get married in their early to mid 20's. Some do and that's great (I have a SIL who married at age 20...almost 20 years later she and her husband seem very happy, my sister married at 24 and she and her husband have been married 15 years and are doing great, etc) but I have seen just as many or more situations where the marriage ended in divorce. You change a lot in your 20's and often what you look for in a partner in your early to mid 20's is different than what you would look for in your late 20's and beyond. The tough thing is when you are that age most of the time you don't realize that. I miss looking and physically feeling like a 20 something but I am a much better and wiser person as a 40 something.
NP here. I'm similar to you. I didn't get married until my mid-30s and we don't have children. I'm 40 now.
I don't regret a thing about my 20s. I grew up seeing a lot of very unhappy women in unhappy marriages. They all say their kids are the best thing that happened to them and pretty much see their main value in (1) being mothers and (2) remembering how thin/attractive they were at 18-20 when they got married. It's bizarre. They are all also heavily reliant financially on their husbands. And for every.single.one of them, their marriages got progressively worse after the kids left the nest. I think a huge part of that is because their entire identity and even marriage was centered around kids. The only ones who seem remotely satisfied or happy are the ones who have grandkids and are heavily invested in their grandkids lives (for instance, providing daycare or after care).
I'm sure there are plenty of happy women who married youngish, had kids, and are doing well. But I knew it wasn't for me. I wanted to live on my own, do my own thing, and I did that. Personally, it would have been hard for me to get my financial footing if I got married and had kids young.
While that NPR segment might have merits, my own observations is that it is hard for women (of any age) to jump into a career after a long hiatus of being out of the workforce. It depends on what field you are in. If you are in education or nursing, then it's not as much an issue. But in other fields, you have to work your way up through entry level jobs at first. And a lot of employers are more willing to hire people fresh out of college who have no experience than they are hiring people who are 28, 29, 30 with no experience.
The only women I know (again, this is all anecdotal) who were able to get good-paying jobs or career-advancement-potential jobs after being home with kids for 5 years or so (aside from teachers or nurses) were people who actually had a friend or family member or a husband who was able to get them a job (a job they would never have gotten if they didn't know someone who knew the hiring manager).
But those women would NEVER admit that to people who don't know them. And I think that's what things like articles or NPR segments probably don't capture.
I also don't believe the "it gets easier once they start school" line. Maybe in the past, but everyone I know with school-age children has kid-related commitments around 5:30 pm at least a few nights a week. Again, depending on the field you are in, if you are trying to work your way up professionally, it's pretty difficult to stick to strictly 8-hour days where you can leave at 5 on the dot. I think it's actually easier for women who have paid their professional dues to shift toward more stable hours than it is for women jumping into the workforce to demand those hours.
I'm sure a ton of women are going to post how they were able to do it, but I suspect a lot of them knew someone in order to get the cushy family-friendly job (having no experience) that they got. They won't admit to it, though.
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