There are two things that we should have learned from Kim Kardashian’s recent 72 day publicity-stunt-cum-wedding-extravaganza.
1. Heterosexuals are doing such a fantastic job at making a mockery of the sacrament of marriage that there is no reason to deny homosexuals a chance at cherishing it; and
2. There is absolutely no need to rush into such a big commitment.
But marriage, it seems, is entering my world. In fact today I came to the painful realisation that my friends are going to start getting married.
It all started with a Facebook notification (thank you web2.0) that a comrade had updated her status from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘engaged’. Seeing as I am only 23, still at uni, and unable to fathom the idea that people actually get married before 30, shock and horror ensued. Sure, she’s been dating her now fiancé for over four years, but marriage? Surely that’s a drastic response to the five year itch.
According to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average age at which men and women marry is 31.5 and 29.2 respectively. That means on average, my friends should be waiting at least six more years before jumping the gun. A not-so-teeny-tiny part of me hopes that this engagement is to my friendship group what jeggings are to fashion: worn only by those too naïve to realise how ridiculous they are. I am quite convinced that if the rest of my loved-up couple-friends start dropping to one knee, I’ll have to break up with my boyfriend in protest against having to make up reasons for why I am not ready to settle down and start making babies or how I plan to beat the ticking time-bomb that is my ovaries.
While I promise I am over the moon for her – the whole affair has me completely freaked out. For starters, my friend has never lived out of home, let alone with her partner. For both of their sakes, I hope they have a very long engagement before committing to a lifelong one of perpetual nagging on her part, and selective hearing impediments on his. Secondly, if they are somehow allowed to marry, they will be perpetuating a clan of jersey wearing St Kilda supporters, which in itself is reason enough to want to object. And lastly, she only has 24 years under her belt, which in my humble opinion is far too few to be making such big decisions.
Case in point: when I was in VCE, my first preference for university was a Tourism Management course at Swinburne. Who would want to go to Swinburne I hear you ask? To this day I cannot answer that, but fast- forward six years and I’m studying Journalism at Monash. The point is, such decisions (yes, choosing a life-partner is as tough as choosing a life-long career) require perspective – and at four and twenty – you have very little.
Speaking of Four ‘n’ Twenty – pies have a lot in common with the ol’ knot-tying tradition… If you cook them too quickly they burst, if you leave them too long in the oven they burn, if you take them out before they’re ready you get cold meat and if you leave them in the fridge too long they expire. Getting the balance just right? Well that’s the difficult part. I’m not suggesting my friend should channel her inner Zsa Zsa Gabor and practise until she makes perfect, but maybe the iconic leading lady is proof that good things come to those who wait. After eight attempts at happily ever after, her ninth was the charm.
If the old adage that once you pop, you can’t stop has any credence, then it looks like I’ll be in for a gruelling year of engagement parties, house warmings, weddings, and baby showers, and not necessarily in that order. According to the ABS, children born out of wedlock and shot-gun weddings are all the rage, with 38 percent of children born out of wedlock.
As incredibly happy as I am for my friend, and in my relationship, the idea of making such an outlandish commitment when I can’t even choose a hair colour is extremely perplexing… Since medicine made it possible for us to live for longer than thirty years, ensuring the future of the world (see: populate or perish) is just not high on my to-do list.
Tianna Nadalin is a full-time Editorial Assistant at the Sunday Herald Sun and a full-time communications student at Monash University
Do you ever feel out of step with your friends? Feel like you are moving in a different direction to them or are they moving away from you?
Comments
291 Comments so far
It’s crazy man. Kids getting married because they want to fasttrack everything now. Crazy. All of my friends who got married in their early 20s are all starting to divorce. C’mon, the 20′s are suppossed to be enjoyed. You have the next 40 years to worry about kids and weddings. Enjoy your 20s!!!!!!
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Tianna, I understand what you are trying to say.
I know several people who are 22 or so who have been with their partners for 5 years who think “i guess its time to get engaged”. The amount of time spent with someone doesn’t mean that they are ready for marriage. Engaged is a word that people in my age group throw around lightly. Yes, people who get married at a young age can work. My parents got married when my mum was 19 and dad was 23, and 32 years later they are still happy and in love. However, there are SOME people who are young and have boyfriends who are having babies and getting engaged/married just for the sake of it, and not for the right reasons. Even though Tiannas friend may be getting married for the right reasons, the thought of getting married at a young age when people change their minds like the wind, confuses us. Friends of mine who were engaged, broke up a few months ago. 6 months ago they wouldn’t have thought this would be the case, but all it takes is one thing, or an event of things to happen and the once matured enough couple to get married, are not so in love or mature. Young people shouldn’t rush marriage, it is meant to be a commitment that is not entered into lightly.
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Marriage is something that you have to be ready for. Some people are ready at different ages. I’m 22 and I can’t imagine myself getting married to my 25 year old boyfriend at this point of time. I’m not ready yet.
However there are some people who are around my age that are ready. They may have been with their partners for a long time, have finished uni and have secured stable jobs, can afford to live on their own etc. and are ready to make that commitment.
I admire my poor friends who have received the raised eyebrow and “oh well, it’s practice for your 2nd marriage” comments because they’ve felt that they’ve reached a point in their life where they can make this decision.
I could be feeling this way because of my age and life experience, however I don’t feel that getting married young is always bound for divorce like some people are quick to assume. There’s no set age for marriage and people should be able to choose when it’s right for them to get married, not when society thinks it’s right to marry.
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What a great response to a post which I didn’t think allowed for the fact that people are different and people can be emotionally ready for marriage at 23.
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Tianna I totally agree with you, getting married so young in this day and age when we expect to live into our 80s or 90s seems downright silly to many of us- if the marriage lasts into the next decade it is more good luck than anything else. Why can’t people enjoy their youths without having to tick every bloody life box before age 30? Stint working in London? Check. Fairy tale wedding? Check. Spawned perfect offspring? Check. Amazing career? Check. It’s turning women’s lives into a competitive, boring and predictable to-do list. UGH. And to all of these little hyper-defensive-23-and-married-Swinburne-educated bull-ants leaping about angrily- get the hell over it, it’s an opinion piece- in those people express their opinions. Imagine the cheek of it!
PS Tianna, speaking of people who feel smug about their life choices, why is it necessary for you to point out that you are a “full-time” student and a “full-time” employee at the Herald Sun? Is that so we can be extra impressed by how clever you are at time management? I wasn’t quite sure.
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I got engaged at 22yrs and married at 23yrs having never lived out of home or (shock horror!) lived with my fiance. Who knew my behaviour would one day be considered shocking and counter-cultural? Fifteen years later I say here’s to outlandish commitments!
P.S. I really dislike all the “heteros are making a mockery of marriage” stuff. It does the gay marriage debate no favours.
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My thoughts exactly! I was the same – engaged at 22, married at 23, moving out of my parents’ home on my wedding day. That was 8 years ago. By my 30th birthday, I had a baby that was just 10 days old. I’m quite aware that this is counter-cultural in some ways, but it makes sense to me – at least if you find the right partner, and you want to be parents together. It remains biological fact that sooner is easier than later, even if later is more reasonable than it has been in the past. I certainly wanted to have kids, and that for me meant wanting to be pregnant with my first before I was 30. Nonetheless, we did travel as a couple, and ensure we both completed post-grad study, satisfying our long-term career goals as well. I’m currently a SAHM with the second bub on the way, but in a few years, I intend to pick up a teaching career pretty much where I left off (Yes, I know that won’t be easy, but it shouldn’t be impossible, when the time is right for me and the rest of the family).
Basically, my point is that I object to this article’s suggestion that anyone marrying ‘so young’ as being rash, and doesn’t know what marriage is about. We got married with plenty of planning for our marriage (far more significant than wedding planning!), and with loads of common sense advice, information and support from friends and family.
Quite a contrast with the Kardashian fiasco – *that* I can agree with!
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Whoa, I think a lot of people writing comments need to calm down a little here. I read this piece simply as a reflection of the authors personal experiences. I didn’t percieve any of the “harsh judgement” people are talking about. I just saw someone going through a period of change and relating some of the confusion that goes with this.
It is bizarre when that first friend in your social group decides to get married. And often it does cause an avalanche of “I want to get married too”-s. When you witness friends making a big life decision at a young age, it can be a bit shocking for you, especially when you are not in the same place they are – this is not to say the decision is wrong! Far from it – just different, perhaps, to what you’d expect. That’s what I saw this article being about – relaying these feelings and the confusion they can bring.
I honestly do not believe the author wished to attack or pass judgement on anyone. So how about people stop attacking and passing judgement on her?
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Tianna, You dont sound incredibly happy for your friend as you pointed out in the last paragraph….in fact you sound down right jealous. Who are you to judge whether they should be getting engaged/married or not? And how old people have to be before they should….
My husband and I also did not live together before we married (at 28). We both stayed at home with our parents and saved $$ like crazy, allowing us to have an awesome wedding, honeymoon & purchase a house….in Sydney, 5 km from the CBD!!
Let me give you some advise. Dont judge other peoples relationships, you have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.
You sound like some of my “so called” friends whom I have since left behind years ago for guess what?? Judgement & assumptions about my very happy life.
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What’s your problem with Swinburne? How very immature and elitist of you to make such a remark. You might want to look into Swinburnes success rate before publishing such defaming remarks?
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Just wondering if someone from the MM team can point me in the direction of your policy regarding editing comments? One of my comments on this post was edited yesterday, without any disclaimers, changing its meaning and context. While I understand you reserve the right to edit this site as you see fit, I’m curious about exactly WHAT you edit and what you don’t? If I’d written something offensive about the author or another commenter, I’d understand you refusing to publish my comment, or removing the offensive part. However, the part removed from my comment was a quote from the author. I’m a journalist, so I do understand the difficulties of managing vitriol online, but I would love to see any guidelines you had in place regarding what was deemed acceptable tweaking of people’s sentences and what wasn’t.
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God I feel hopelessly out of touch. Everyone my age (30) are buying houses and having kids.
I’ve just gone back to being a student (I dropped out the first time around) and just want to have fun with my friends. The idea of being tied down makes me feel trapped.
Does anyone else feel this way?
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Dude I am right there with you. I’m 28, been single for almost 3 and a half years and am planning on going back to uni mid year. All my friends are in long term relationships, a few are engaged and the first cab off the rank tied the knot last year. I’m equally excited for the possibilities my future contains and petrified that I’m missing the boat. The average age of getting married is 29? Great, I have five months to tie the knot. I never thought I’d be single for this long at this age and without a prospect on the horizon. So while the thought of putting down roots with someone at this point in my life seems like it would be too narrowing on my dreams, it’s also in conflict with my long held assumption that I would be well and truly married with babies by now. Such pressure!
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This is just my opinion as someone who is the product of a teen ‘shot gun’ marriage which still going strong 34 years later, has friends who married at 22 and have an amazing life together 12 years later, is supporting a friend going through a divorce at 30 and who is in a committed relationship and mother to a beautiful ‘b*stard’ daughter….but who are you (or any of us) to judge anothers decision about marriage and when/if it is right for them??
24 may be too young for you to make such huge decisions (as it was for me and probably alot of people) but you should trust that your friend knows her own mind and what she wants for her life…just as she would hopefully support any decisions you make in regards to love, career and life in general – despite her personal opinion…
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My 2 best friends are getting married later this year, shortly after they both turn 22.
They may be young, but they have been through so much. They’ve been together 6 years. He has stood by her as she cared for her father, who passed away from cancer when she was 18. He was also there for her when her mother attempted suicide when she was 20.
They’ve lived together since her father passed away, making ends meet on meager wages and couples youth allowance as they both completed uni degrees. She now works full-time, supporting him in the final years of his (longer) degree.
I can’t think of a couple more perfect for each other, who have survived things that would break most young couples. And yet their love is as strong as ever.
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Age is just a number. I know a few people at the age of 30 (and one 40y/o) who match the stereotype you describe.
each to their own – if you can’t even choose your hair colour doesn’t mean other people your age are the same – I got married at the age of 22 and I was a very mature young woman at that age (I had a stable job, a degree and I had lived in 3 countries and seen a lot). Getting married was the best thing I did in my whole life. My husband and I are incredibly happy together after many years now.
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Even as a fellow 23 year old, with probably as little propects of getting married in the near future as the author, I find the article incredibly immature and judgmental. Not everyone has aspirations to be a sensationalist journalist, so perhaps you should respect other people’s life choices a little more instead of ridiculing them. Celebrate that your friend has found the one she wants to spend her life with…and enough with attacking other friends, we’re a long way out of highschool.
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Obviously the engagement of your friend has stirred up inner complexes within yourself. Try not to worry so much about the perceived mistakes of others – which by the way is incredibly judgemental of you; and concentrate on your own path and success/happiness. Marriage is a massive commitment and I believe can be successful at any age as long as both people are willing to put in the work.
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Well said!
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Tianna, at least Weddings are fun (usually), you get to dress up buy your friend a nice present get a good feed and free grog, enjoy it while you can. I’m 40, my circle of friends has done the 21st’s, 30th’s and Weddings, we seem to have hit the decade of divorce, and I can assure you it is no where near as much fun. No one throws a party, you don’t get or give presents, and you have to buy your own grog. Enjoy it while it lasts!
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I get that this is intended to be light, irreverent and tongue in cheek – but to me it comes off as naive, immature, and vaguely offensive. Whilst I appreciate that you were mostly referring to the (in your view) premature decision of your friend to get married, generalising about anyone under the average age to get married as being premature, over eager or misguided says more about your naïveté than theirs.
Not everybody only wants 1.3 kids or whatever the average is and has a desperate desire to commit the status quo. Getting married at 29 doesn’t necessarily facilitate smooth, trouble free pregnancies. (If, of course it is important to one to be married before kids.)
Also, as someone who also attends Monash – the Swinburne dig was just plain offensive and does nothing to help rid us of the Melbourne/Monash image as snobs.
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At 30 I am still not married, though I have kids and a mortgage, and right now I really don’t give a rats about it, it’s just irrelevant to me. When I was 22 I had very similar views to the author about marriage and the rest of it (I even had the same views about Swinburne (so sorry Swinburne people I was such a middle class snob!) but now being older and wiser I realise that education is education and it doesn’t matter where it comes from (I’m now studying in a community college)).
Now I look at all the couples I know who got together when they were in high school (and there are so many of them in the circles in now run in) and they are seriously some of the most successful relationships I have seen!
I had the same views as the author when I was her age: marriage, kids, all that was not for people under 35. But then I accidentally got pregnant when I was 26. At this stage of life I had never even held a baby in my entire life, I’m sure many people thought I was crazy for having it, a former best friend was extremely judgmental and told me I “need” to have an abortion. But you know what, for me having kids was the best thing ever! It has taken me on such an amazing journey that I would have missed out on if I had done things the way other people thought I was supposed to. And wouldn’t life be boring if we all did what we were supposed to?
My opinion of life now is don’t do what you’re supposed to, just cram as many experiences that interest you as possible into the short time you have. You can still have a career if you get married, you can still travel if you have kids. The only thing that can stop you from doing anything you want is you. Getting married young is an experience, so is getting divorced if thats how it ends up. These are all experiences you learn from and to me thats what matters in life. Live and learn.
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Your post was inspiring hon
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I want to go to Swinburne. I do go to Swinburne. I really enjoy Swinburne.
I’m not sure how taking a stab at a certain university was relevant at all to this piece.
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“Who would want to go to Swinburne I hear you ask? To this day I cannot answer that, but fast- forward six years and I’m studying Journalism at Monash”
For this sentence alone your entire article is devalued. Just like how your ATAR stopped mattering past week one of uni no one cares where you went to uni once you are settled into the workforce (just working, not studying and working), just that you can do a good job.
I opened this article expecting a light hearted look at what happens when all your friends get married at once, which can happen and the associated issues like all those costs at one time. Or how it makes you realise you are getting older. If this was supposed to a light hearted poke it fell way flat and was downright offensive. Naive? Ridiculous? Those are some heavy words.
I am trying to say this within the comment guidelines. The problem with this article is you seem unable to see beyond your own perspective and opinion. Personally I agree with you to some extent. 24 is young. I believe in living together first and also in dating a variety of other people first. But not everyone is the same. It is perfectly valid to meet someone and marry young.
There is a certain media perpetuated middle-class driven narrative I have noticed and it goes along the lines: finish school, take a gap year, go to uni, get a professional job, date around, move jobs a bit, travel again a little, meet your partner in your mid 20′s or so, get married by 30, have first child by around 32. In certain groups any deviation from this is considered strange. I also read it on MM sometimes, people saying in comments ‘I didn’t do things the way you are supposed to…’. I find it refreshing to see people doing something different or follow what they think is right for them.
As for limited life experience I think you are too focused on the girl in question. I know of many 24 year olds with amazing experiences and maturity. Professional athletes, soldiers, entrepreneurs, people who have cared for family members from a young age etc. Going back to that narrative this article seems to focused on the sheltered middle class kid. We need to stop infantilising young people. 24 should be adult. Adult decision making capabilities should be expected by then. If ’30′ is the new adult where does it end? And as for medicine extending our lives I will be fine with a push to wait for marriage when medicine catches up with the drop in fertility that happens past 30 for women.
Can we have more from Lucy please, she writes on these kind of 20′s issues well. (I’m 26).
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Statistics nut here again. Statistically young marriage is a big factor in divorce stats, so the author has valid concerns here. However she’s dead wrong on living together – statistically, you are far better off not to, even though it is the more common choice.
Also on the topic of stats, one marriage does not a trend make “ALL my friends are getting married”? We also had an early marriage in our large friendship group and waited 7 years for the next one.
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Tianna, don’t want to attack you because you are entitled to your opinion, but coming from someone who has been in a similar position to your friend (I got married at 25), most of my friends had a similar opinion to you about getting married at my age and I was really upset by the lack of support and thoughtless comments and judgement from them. I know we all want what is best for our friends and sometimes it’s hard not to judge their life choices out of concern but honestly, your friend is most likely getting married because she wants to and loves the guy she’s with, so as a good friend, it’s your role to respect that and be there for her all the way. It’s very upsetting to have negativity from close friends at what should be a very happy time to celebrate.
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Im 28 and lot of people in my wide circle of friends who are in long term relationships are choosing to have children/ buy houses etc without getting married so the 38% statistic doesn’t suprise me at all. Most of them view marriage as an outdated institution and if they do get married its for legal reasons rather than for ceremonial reasons. They feel secure about their partners commitment as a result of their partners actions and communication, so a wedding doesn’t seem so important.
I do think that a lot of women become obsessed with the idea of being married just because other people are getting married, rather than focusing on the actual committment that may already have been proven within a relationship.
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My son is studying at Swinburne- you snob.
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I found this post quite surprising because I am 23 and I know soooo many people my age who are married or engaged. I think I would identify with it more if it was about 18 year olds and that being too young but 23? I’ve been an adult for 5 years, I feel more than confident in my ability to make life changing decisions. I have a partner of 5 years, we bought our house a year ago, we have two dogs, I have been to uni and gotten my degree, I have a good job. Why is getting married so silly??
That being said, although I have known pretty much since dot that my partner is the man I’m going to marry, I would’ve felt a bit silly in a wedding dress at 18/19/20. Purely my personal opinion, I still felt very young and it just wouldn’t have felt right. But now? No way. As many have said before, there is very little difference between living together and being married! I certainly can’t see a drastic change when we get married. And my partner often says he views us getting a mortgage together as just as serious as marriage. The author doesn’t seem to have any issues with couples settling down, just the “M” word? :S
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I do kind of agree with thinking you should live together before marriage though. There’s quite a few teething issues when you first live with someone and although my partner and I never had any huge fights, I can imagine it would be easy to find out some dealbreaking issues after moving in together. Just IMO
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Some would say this is an argument *for* marriage. As the minister at our wedding said (paraphrasing), there may be tough times ahead, but having made this commitment to each other, here, in front of God, family and friends, the one thing you know is that quitting is not an option. As we headed o/s together within a month of getting married, for my husband’s postgrad study, this commitment was very important to us!
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This article pretty much mirrors the things I remember thinking when I was 23. I’m 30 now, in a 2 year “promising” relationship, and one of the very few amongst my wide group of friends who isn’t married or at least engaged. It’s a very personal reaction to this sort of stuff and while I wouldn’t say I personally agree with the views of the article now I thank the author for putting it out there. I note that most of the criticism comes from people who happily married young – good on you, but you have clearly had a different experience to the author – you should allow her to freely express her feelings about her experience.
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um… work / life balance….
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I work in family law…if there’s anything to make you think very, VERY hard about marriage, it’s seeing what can happen when it doesn’t work out. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t turned me off for life or anything, but it has made me see that you really need to be very sure of what you’re getting into and what you’ll face if it comes to an end.
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Nagging and selective hearing impediments? If that is what this author thinks marriage is, no wonder she seems so against it.
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After exchange and travelling through Europe with my boyfriend, I got ‘la dolce vita’ tattooed on my shoulder the day before I was due to fly home. Little did I know, I was about 3 weeks pregnant at the time!
People laugh when they see that, like it’s somehow ironic that I got ‘the sweet life’ tattooed on myself when everything was about to take such a drastic change. I maintain that life is what you make of it – yes, having a child at 22 is a major life-changing decision, but I think my life is sweeter now for having my beautiful baby than what it was beforehand. I’ve discovered that I have to live my life for myself, and not to meet other people’s standards and I’m so much happier for it.
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I got married when I was 26 and my (now) husband was 31. At the time I did not know a single person my age who was even close to getting married, where as all my husbands friends in their early/ mid thirties were all starting to get engaged, buy a house, have kids etc.
I understand that age has no relation to the success of a marriage but i completely understand where the author is coming from, if a friend of mine had told me she was getting engaged at that age I would be pretty shocked and concerned about her decision. Of course I would support her, but I would also be like “how the hell can you marry someone without living with them?” I guess each to their own though..
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I got married at 22 to my first boyfriend… I never expected that would happen to me but it was the right thing for us. We’ve enjoyed 8 years of travel and fun and have just had our first child.
It’s never ceased to amaze me how opinionated people are about the fact that we got married young – including a shop assistant who told my mum how sorry she was when she found out I was getting married at 22??!!
I don’t understand the need people feel to apply their views to other’s lives. How boring would it be if we all waited until 30 to consider marriage! I think difference is what makes life interesting!
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Just skimmed the comments – but soooo much judgement! I seem to remember a similar response to Lucy’s first Mamamia article. I can see where the author is coming from but I guess it comes down to personalities and priorities. That 22-24 year old age bracket seems to be when you find more clarity in life, and start making adult decisions. Or maybe it’s just me…
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This article came off as extremely bitter. I’ve been in a serious relationship with the same man since 16, engaged at 18 and the wedding is going to be in 2015, when we are 23. What works for your friend and I obviously doesn’t work for you – that’s fine, because your life probably wouldn’t work for us either. Wouldn’t life be boring if we were all the same? To imply that people who find their life partners early in life and choose to marry are “naive” and “ridiculous” says much more about you than it does about us. The green eyed monster can be a b*tch…
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My friends started walking down the aisle when we were 20! That was six years ago and needless to say, weddings, engagements and hens celebrations are currently responsible for stealing many of my weekends away from me!
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lol!
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Finished law and PR degree at 22 and married a few months later.. We had a 2 year engagement so I could finish Uni. Now 26 and we together run two businesses, a real estate and a PR firm. Living out of home since I was 18.
Many of my friends are unmarried and and remark how much they wish they had someone to go home to.
I know I love having someone ‘in my corner’ offering unparalleled support and encouragement as I make the big life decisions that are critical at this age and really set up our future.
When I was getting married, dubious colleagues and my boss said.. ‘but you haven’t even travelled!’.. But once you combine income and life synergy we got that Europe trip much quicker, on a luxury budget AND I got to travel with my best friend.
Marriage rocks
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Marraige is AWESUM!!! <3<3
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Marriage is AWESUM!!! <3<3
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Tianna- I totally get where your coming from. I’m 22 and one of my best friends is engaged (she’s 21 and getting married in a few months) Personally the idea of getting married (or even being in a proper long term relationship) scares the crap out of me! I’m having too much fun being single, living out of home and going out with my friends all the time. My friend and I live very different lives- I’m out 3-4 nights a week, she’s out maybe 2 nights a month…I’m certainly happy with how my life is going atm and I’m fairly sure she is too so each to their own and all that….
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i got married at 24 (now 25) been married 6 months now! more in love than when we first met!…before i met my husband i wasnt into marriage or settling down in my early 20s and to be honest i didnt want to get married until like late 20s i just wanted to live life and have fun and then i met him at 22 and it was special and knew we i wanted to spend the rest of my life with him….and that changed my views completly ….we are having lots of fun and i love being married and spending my days with my husband/best friend and as mentioned below in a few comments life doesnt stop when you get married and yes its a major commitment but worth it..life is too short and if your in love go for it!
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Ps…by being married earlier we get to enjoy time together and go travelling and build a life before we settle down and have babies…
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It always surprises me what articles blow up on MM! The only thing that offended me in this article is the comment about Swinburne. It’s a great uni and I’m not quite sure what the author’s implying. Also, the comments below are so negative about this author just because she’s 23. Seriously, she can’t do anything about her age.
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I don’t have anything against Tianna not wanting to get married young – each to their own. But I think what most people have the issue with (and have articulated well) is that she is saying that her friend, at 24, isn’t mature enough to make a decision on who she wants to spend the rest of her life with.
People are ready at different times, there is no “one age fits all” for when you are “mature enough” to make the decision to get married.
It’s fine Tianna doesn’t want to but she just seems to attack her ‘friend’ as being stupid and naive and this is the problem.
MM staffers have said this is a piece about how she feels she’s moving at a different pace to her friends, but really, it’s her saying that she thinks anyone moving faster than her pace is too immature to be making those decisions.
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well said Monique!
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Thanks
I was just trying to articulate, without being narky, why I think so many had an issue with this article.
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Perfectly said.
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exactly Monique.
“The point is, such decisions (yes, choosing a life-partner is as tough as choosing a life-long career) require perspective – and at four and twenty – you have very little.”
I can tell you I had plenty of perspective at 23, which is how old I was when I married my 21 year old hubby. I didn’t need to travel the world to get it either.
Both of my siblings had dealt with very different, very serious/life-threatening illnesses, and I knew that life could be short, and was hard, and not fair.
I had a partner that I knew “had my back” and I believed was emotionally mature enough to cope with the trauma of a seriously ill child (the imaginary yardstick that was in my head, for obvious reasons).
Neither of us had “too few years under our belts” to make such a big decision, because we had not lived pampered lives that kept us as artificial children. Yes we were young, but we knew our own minds and neither of us had personalities that freaked out about responsibility.
And time did tell, we have been married for 14 years, have 3 kids, a mortgage, and have weathered all kinds of storms together, as a team.
I really don’t think getting married in your early 20s is for everyone, but give me a break, not everyone is still irresponsible, and unable to know their own mind in their early 20s.
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I think your last sentence summed up how lots of people on here felt. Fantastic comment.
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I’m not sure about this article. I understand that the author is expressing her views about getting married, and quite obviously she doesn’t plan on that happening anytime soon! But I have been on the otherisde of this. When i became engaged I had friends telling me I was too young and were we sure and I have so much of life to experience etc etc. And during a time in my life that was so exciting it was disappointing and hurtful to be hearing these things, especially from ‘friends’. I figured they were just jealous because there was just no other reason for it.
I just think the author needs to be mindful about how her friend might feel if she new this was how she felt?
Needless to say I am very happily married and are having the best time experiencing life with my best friend! And life doesn’t stop just because you are married.
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Age has little to do with it me thinks- I have friends who are 30 and 31, were married for two years and recently separated…riddle me that!
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Has Tianna replied to anyone on here? I just haven’t seen anything from her…not that she has to, just curious!
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Is it just me or has the ‘bastard’ part of the article been removed with no edit comment?
I swear I’m not crazy?
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No, not just you! Lana commented a bit below in response to some others and removed it (and apologised)!
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Ah thankyou!
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whippersnapper, you seem so lovely! Make sure he really is your choice and not just ‘the next step’. I wish you the best xxxxx
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I have no idea why Susan, but your comment just appeared on it’s own and not in reply to any of mine – I just randomly saw it! Thanks for your comment, I’m going to be spending the next year focused on just this
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I’m a couple of years older than the couple described in this article and so far from the marrying stage of life, it’s hilarious. When I was 24 I was at uni, living at home, going on massive benders and kissing lots of boys. However, there were quite a few people I knew who were the same age as me who were accountants and lawyers or graduating from medicine and getting engaged to their long term partners.
I don’t think I should even consider getting married before I’m 30 because I suspect that’s the minimum amount of time it’s going to take me to shake off my abysmal taste in boys (seriously, I date real winners). However, that’s my personal experience, not other people’s. Everyone’s different. What might be a TERRIBLE idea for me to do in my situation might be a totally reasonable and appropriate for someone in a different situation to do.
My BFF’s parents got married when they were 20 and 21, respectively. They’ve been together for nearly 40 years now. On the other hand, I know someone whose 30-something year old fiancee broke off their engagement via text message.
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Tianna, I find your article immature and offensive. I got married when I was 22 and it was the best decision I ever made. Unlike your presumption that people who get married immediately “settle down and start having babies”, my husband and I had many years of fabulous times before having kids – incidentally we are still having a great time with two babies in tow.
It seems odd to me that some people appear not to understand this simple truth: most people (regardless of their age) get married for the reason that they cannot bear to spend another day away from each other.
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I really find this article quite condescending and insensitive. Who are we to judge someone else’s relationship and ‘readiness’ for marriage. Everybody is different and everybody’s relationship is different.
Yes I agree with the fact that some people are in love with the idea of the wedding instead of the marriage but that does not apply to every single person who has got married under the ‘perfect’ age of 30. Since when did we become such a pessimistic society? If you start out with such low expectations of marriage, how do you ever expect it to survive?
It is such an overwhelmingly beautiful feeling to know without a shadow of a doubt that you will and want to spend the rest of your life with someone. Why does that have to happen at a set and certain time in our lives?
Yes, everyone is absolutely entitled to an opinion…. about their own lives. I think it is really unfair to make these personal judgements on anyone else’s.
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Apparently one of the reasons that we marry so late these days is that we always think we might find something better. Or so I read but it makes sense in the context of the modern world and the freedoms we have.
Of course the obvious reason people marry later now is because we have contraception and can have sex without the worries of old.
We leave school later,study for longer, are more able to travel than people in the past..all these things lead to later marriage. I don’t think it has anything to do with maturity.
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Honey. I’m 41 years old and finally got around to marrying my partner – the father of my two children on the weekend after 10 or so years. My biggest dilemma? Hair colour. It doesn’t get easier. Different, yes. But not easier!
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I agree with Belle, I thought this would be a nice article about how your friend’s life is going in a different direction than yours and isn’t that interesting and funny?
Instead, you have passed a whole lot of judgement on your poor friend. I really do hope she doesn’t read this, actually.
I do get where you’re coming from, because I thought there was a right age to do things and 30 was the only age I would even consider getting married.
But you know that they say about the best laid plans…..
I was lucky enough to meet the most amazing man on the planet, and it happened a lot younger than I thought it would, at 22.
What are people my age supposed to do? Just refuse to be with the person we know is 100 per cent right for us because THAT WASN’T THE PLAN?
I also think you need to realise that an age is just a number. What I had done and experienced by the age of 22 was a lot different to every other person in the world. Because we are all individuals.
So please don’t assume there is a “right” time to get married and have other life experiences, because it varies with everyone.
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Ah yes – THE PLAN!!
I had one of those. Married at 25, all my babies (four, to be precise, two girls and two boys) by the time I was thirty….. ahem.. Well, that was my plan when I was 15.
My next plan was to get married at 31 to the man I met when I was 26. We’d travelled the world and returned home to “settle down”, get married, have babies yadda yadda. What we didn’t know was that he would die a few months after his 30th birthday. I double checked, but I was pretty sure that WASN’T in the plan.
So I stopped planning. It took me a little while to get back on my feet, but I ended up marrying the man of my dreams at 35 and now, three years later we have two beautiful babies.
My point? Some people are ready at different ages for many many different reasons. My sister married her first boyfriend when she was 23 and they are still going strong 12 years later. My other sister married her boyfriend of 5 years at the age of 32 and he left her four months later…. Maturity reaches people at different times. Fate and a whole lot of luck come into meeting your life partner too (regardless if you get married or have children).
I don’t blame Tianna for projecting her own feelings onto her friend – I think we’ve all been there before, but lets not be too judgy judgy ourselves. You never know what is going on behind closed doors, you’ve just got to wish the best for everyone – whatever their life stage or circumstance.
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Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. I bet it wasn’t in the plan!
I am glad that you came back from that and your life has fallen into place, plan or no plan.
I often think about how different my life is from THE PLAN, and each incident that led to the next.
It makes me 100 per cent, completely and utterly convinced that everything happens for a reason.
You can’t usually see it at the time, but when you look back, it makes sense.
I totally agree with you and I didn’t mean to be hypocritical, and start judging the author, but I think acceptance that there is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ when it comes to life milestones is a good concept to grasp.
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