There are very few decisions in life that you just can't go back from, and having kids is the biggest one. I fathered early, and though I don't regret it, I wouldn't advise it either. Take your time, enjoy being an adult, travel, sleep around, bank some cash, make some regrettable life choices to learn from, then once you are a bit older and wiser,become a parent. Your little spawn will benefit from your added life experience I guarantee it.
That's all true. But let's say, what if instead having kids at that early age, I could marry early. I feel the marrying earlier is better. This may seem ludicrous, but I believe in marrying early because once you marry, you spend your entire life with your "soulmate." I feel like marrying at earliest (age 16), and latest (age 18), and just go through life, go through college forever. Maybe like you said, travel, sleep around, etc together, because it will help on the long run and just strengthen our relationship. There is this guy that I've known for quite a while (the guys I said I talked to about marrying early) and right now, it seems so real. It seems like we might have something going. And please don't make fun of me for this or anything, but honestly, I think marrying early is a great idea.
I was thinking whilst reading this, kind of 'pre-posting' "Listen to Barto" and then saw Blob's post. 
Anyway, LISTEN TO BARTO!
I am 26 and am just now starting to think that I'm becoming 'me'. You're going to change so damn much it's not even funny. Think of it this way: At this point, your BODY isn't even close to becoming matured, and it won't be for a long time. That's just your physical self, the bare bones (no pun intended) of 'you'. For all we know about the human body at this point...even the most obsessed, knowledgeable people on the planet still know jack shit about the mind, emotions, and the real 'self' when you get right down to it. So just think with all the changes your body is going to go through...you're going to go through one hundred million fold of changes mentally, emotionally, intrinsically...it's not even worth thinking about at your point in life, is my own perspective on it. I say that very lightly, because of course it's worth thinking of, but talking big picture here...it really isn't. Chances are you won't even remember having this discussion (though I hope you will and hope we're all still here) by the time you're my age.
I myself thought I had my soul mate early on and now I don't even know if she is alive or dead (that's probably just because I don't do social media but my point stands). Keep in mind...it wasn't as if I was the guy who just randomly thought I was in love. I was the person that was in a committed, very mature (for our age) relationship for 8 years. Then we both actually grew up and it ended as quickly as it began. This was at the end of high-school, just to put things in perspective for you. But as Barto put it...if you're under the age of 25, you're a kid. You, little miss, are a pupa. Which is awesome! I grew up pretty early on in my life and have still probably seen and done things a lot of people won't ever see or do in their entire life. Even still, there's others out there that could say the same about me. Case in point: I STILL feel like a kid at heart. Maturing isn't all what it is cracked up to be and one day you'll know what I mean. So my advise is to focus on having fun and making mistakes (though not too much or too severe) and putting the maturity out of your mind. Mark my words, the moment you do actually mature will be the moment you slowly begin to start reminiscing the days of old.
There's some old saying about never knowing the best moments of your life while you're living them. All too true. Hindsight is 20/20. Er...if you stick around long enough you'll learn that pretty much all of my posts are novels so, sorry about that. I don't mean to lecture. However, having two younger sisters and a niece, my brotherly side is pretty much all I have in me anymore. Long, long story short: RUN AWAY FROM THE GUY WHO ASKS YOU TO GET MARRIED! But srsly...run. Run into the rainbows of life and away from the thunderclouds of marriage. Also listen to the song 'Marriage' by Devin Townsend, cause it's awesome and it's true and it's awesomely true. I'll say that I'm also highly biased because at 26, I still don't ever want marriage and after being in at least a handful of relationships that I thought were 'the one', I'm now learning that sometimes, for some people on this planet, marriage really is a horrible idea. For you, who knows? It may be your dream right now. You also very well could end up hating it more than I do when you're my age. Not even you can say because...we change SO much, as will you. Looks aside, if the me of yesteryear met the me of today, I'd not have a single thought that I was speaking to me...I...er...he...wait....AHHHHHHH *Time collapse*
I do hope you stick around as does this site and the robots running it because I would LOVE to revisit this thread with all the peeps posting in it a decade or so later. Our own little DT time capsule.
Thank you for your answer!
But I do think I'm mature enough.
I don't possibly see how my body could change anymore. Can it? All I know is that I should grow a bit taller here and there and done! I think my brain is at least 95% developed fully and it's pretty close! The boy and I, it just seems so real. It seems that my future is just right there and it's just waiting for me to come. It's standing there with its arms wide open and it's just right there! Though, I've heard stories that some people who took that opportunity, sometimes it failed and they came out as depressed as ever. And hopefully I will stick around too. IT will be so nostalgic ten years later just to see what I wrote and I'll bet I'll be facepalming on some stuff.
When I was young, getting married and having a family sounded awesome. It is awesome, but I spend a lot of time now wishing that I was young and single, or newly married again. You lose a ton of freedom having kids, which can be very frustrating at times. Just take advantage of being young. When the right person comes, get married if you want to. No reason to force it at such a young age. Make sure you've spent at least a couple of years in the real world out of school first.
Hmm, what if I just thought of marrying? No kids yet and just marriage. Just marry that perfect guy, attend Dream Theater concerts together and all that nice stuff. And right now, I"m enjoying the benefits of being young and will continue that for like another 3 years before I might get married and then me and my boyfriend, or husband can explore the world together. We could stick by each other and help each other when we go through tough times.
I think 18 is ludicrously young to get married. If you have a kid the same year - when your kid is 18 - you're only 36.
Although I suppose the upside is - when they go off to college or whatever you're still pretty young.
What if a relationship develops from like 13 years old and I end up marrying at 18. Isn't five years in a relationship fulfilling enough? And yeah, staying pretty young when my kids are like 10 or 11 seems tight also.
It's not only about age, but about life circumstance.
If after school one chooses not to go to college/university, it's possible to be in a pretty settled career/lifestyle by early 20s, in which case one might well be ready for marriage and family.
These days, as El Barto rightly says, most people find they are still learning all sorts of things about themselves throughout their 20s.
So the best advice I think would be don't rush it. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it until your 30s just because that's what most people do these days.
Yeah, I'm saying this because I think the circumstances are just perfect. It just seems perfect. It's because currently, we go to the same school and we are thinking of going to the same university, getting the same career, etc. We also don't live too far apart (10 minutes on foot). We hang out most often together and he is really funny and makes me laugh. After all, his knowledge of Dream Theater sorta helps me. He just seems so perfect and *sigh* I could just look into his eyes forever~ ANYWAYS, just to stick to the topic, I have no means of rushing our relationship. If we start really soon, we can develop our relationship and our perfect life is paved right there for us.
I'm going to be another to say "don't do it," but as someone who's a little closer to your age (actually in the range you described for wanting to having kids) and can understand your interest in the idea.
So you know where this is coming from, I'm 19 and male—a second year university student.
To be straight up, when I was 13 I totally believed that I was ready to go out into the world. And I was probably right only in the strictest sense, that I probably wouldn't have died or anything. But emotionally, intellectually and developmentally, lolno. A lot happens just in the years 13-19, and as I'm sure others will testify, more happens in 19-25. As condescending as it sounds, you really only have a slight idea of who you are at 13. When I was 13 I wanted to go out into the world, but I didn't want to get married or have kids. Now, I do want those things... down the road.
As I said, I'm 19 now, and me having children right now would not be the best idea. For one thing, I'm not in the workforce yet. I don't have a solid means of income, and if I had a child, I would definitely have to drop out of college and work full-time in a job that does not require a degree. Which would probably be fine in the sense that nobody would outright die of starvation or disease, but still, far from the optimal situation, far from giving the best life possible for the child, which is the goal. I also think that I'm not fully an adult person yet, and could still change my mind about a lot of things. Another reason not to have a human being that is dependent on me at this time.
Up until a few months ago, the idea of having a child scared me. Recently (and this sort of scares me too), I've been finding that I'm interested in it, like in a serious way. I'll watch a movie where there's a family and a father, and I'll think, yeah, I want that at some point. But right now it would just not be a good idea. It would cut off my career (my career, and I'm male... imagine how it could be different for a woman) before it even begins and set me up with a long-term obligation before I'm even really out in the world yet.
If an accident happened, I'm sure it would work out somehow, probably as a result of help from my and/or her family (which is not really something I would like to ask them for). But I think my age is insanely young for marriage or children, because those are lifelong commitments, and I've been living away from home for just around a year. If I had a kid right now, I would be accepting a commitment to have another human being pretty much be entirely dependent on me for the same time span as I've been alive.
The arbitrary ages that exist as kind of lines in my head are don't get married before 25, don't have kids before 28. Those aren't hard and fast rules, but those seem like far better ages in terms of being mentally prepared for a long-range commitment to marriage or children (younger for marriage because obviously marriage preferably precedes children and because marriage is not a situation where one person is wholly dependent on the other).
I also don't even know who I would marry right now even if I wanted to marry someone. Not to be negative, but there's no guarantee that you'd even find someone you want to marry by the age you're talking about.
Tl;dr: You're 13, this isn't something to worry about yet, and no, don't expect to be married and having children when you're 18-24, and really probably don't do those things at those ages even if the opportunity is there. It would not be the best thing for you or for your hypothetical children.
Actually, it might be false, but I have a strong desire to either become a musician (a guitarist), or if that path doesn't work out, I could possibly be a marine biologist because I just love the ocean. What about marriage? Couldn't you, with the help of your wife, develop a steady income? Won't it be nice to have a soulmate pretty early? Have someone you can eat with, keep you company, go to the movies, sleep with, etc. For me, marriage and having kids don't scare me, but I feel very excited. Well, the prospect of having kids have died down after reading your posts, but the prospect of marrying the guy I love just rose up sevenfold. You have a point in saying about marriage being a lifelong commitment, but with the person you love very much, I can see that happening if you develop a relationship. Having a kid so early might be going too far, but marrying and being happy and exploring the world with your spouse seems so perfect for me. And yeah, there is someone right now that seems so perfect for me. The Dream Theater fan guy I talked about. His name is Blake, if you are wondering. Right now, it seems it's in my grasp.
Obviously I don't have kids or anything (well for me that's obvious at the age of 20, apparently not for everyone), but I know a girl who has a two year old kid at the age of 19, now I'm not encouraging it per se, but she is one of the most caring people I've met, needless to say she acts more grown up, and you could debate whether that's a good thing at this stage, I'm not entirely sure.
That's right. In order to take care of the kids, you have to have that maturity and that carefree-ness. That's the characteristic once must have in order to take care of a kid. Sure, they may be a pain in the behind, but you have to have that patience and that gets developed. Sorry about this. Many of you think that I'm like a crazed lunatic, but I am feeling this strongly right now some I'm sharing this.
Topic: Marriage and Family (Read 4623 times)
