Challenges of young parents!

[90sman]

I think it's better to have your first child young. Although you may not be as financially ready, your body is more ready and your body would probably bounce back from a pregnancy more quickly. You have a child in your late teens and early 20s, by the time your child grows up, you'll only be in your late 30s and early 40s. Still very young and will most likely become a grandparent in 5 years or so (in your early and mid 40s.)

But with your second and or more child, it's okay to have them a little later.

I come from a family where teen pregnancies are common. Probably the majority of people on my dad's side of the family had their first baby from 16-19. It's young, but they were still very young when their kids grew up. As a result of that, most people in my family first became grandparents in their mid 30s-early 40s.

My dad had his first son at 21. Then his first son and his wife had a son (my nephew) at 17, making my dad 38 when he became a grandpa. My Nana and Grandpa were 39 and 43 when first becoming grandparents. My aunt was 35 when she became a grandma 6 years ago. I have a cousin that was 34 when he became a grandpa.

[marmom]

So many interesting stories on this thread. I've really enjoyed reading! I did not begin having children until I was 30, but my parents were very young and that definitely influenced ALL of my decisions about marriage, when to have children, etc.

Here is my parents' story:
Dad was 18, mom was 16 when she became pregnant. They lived in California, but my mom's family moved to another state before she knew she was pregnant. They never married. Dad joined the military, and mom worked retail and tried going to college. She dropped out of college when her father died unexpectedly and she needed to move out in order to ease the burden on my grandmother, who had 4 other minor children at the time. My mom went through three marriages during my childhood. She never returned to school, but started a business (an answering service) with two of her sisters.

Being a young parent was very difficult for my mother. She said she felt robbed of her youth. She had planned to become a doctor but felt she could not fulfill this dream because of having me. Her life was a constant struggle because of me, and she said she felt very relieved when I moved out of the house.

My dad was never really involved, but did eventually go on to marry and have two more children after a motorcycle accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. He needed about ten years to rehabilitate in order to live independently...so that was his path.

My parents both had a ton of obstacles to overcome.

From a very young age I vowed to do everything different than my parents. It was only by God's grace though that I never ended up with an unplanned pregnancy. I married at 26 and had my first child at 30 - after I was completely finished with school and was stable (financially, owning a home, etc). ALL of the components of my life were influenced by being born to young parents.

[HereinVA]

I had my first son at age 24. I never really considered that "young", but I saw that the OP said "under the age of 25"...

Were you going to school at the time? No, I had graduated about 1.5 years earlier
Did you get a chance to go to college? Of course
Are you still with the child's father? Yes
How's that relationship going? Fine, I guess
What kind of obstacles you had to overcome? Nothing major.

I went on to have more children--one at age 26, one just a couple weeks after turning 29, and my fourth a couple weeks before my 31st birthday. I will be 36 next month.

Dh and I are married (13 years in September)--I guess I'd call us middle class? We own our own home (have since a few weeks after getting married), we're definitely not wealthy, but we don't really struggle either...

[LovinBensalem]

I got married when I was 18 years old. We were together about 3 years before we married.

I got pregnant at age 21. I had my son when I was 22. I am 23 now. We live in a small one bedroom apartment with a den. The den is where my son sleeps. We have good paying jobs and we are not pay check to pay check but it does come close. We are trying to work on our credit to have a house within the next 3 years.

We have zero support from our families. My husband family does not live near us at all and my family is poorer then me... I actually send THEM money when I get the chance.

Life is hard sometimes.... but we are a family. We love each other...and we will stick it out and ride this thing until the wheels fall off! We are both madly inlove with our son and we sooo look forward to adding to our family sooner then later.

SN: Anyone having problems marriage wise here is some advice I found helpful. Take time to plan and go on a VACATION. It does't have to be anything grand, something you can save up for and afford. Talk about locations together, hotels. Plan together and set a date and make arrangements to go... it will give you something POSITIVE to talk about while also giving you both something to look forward to. It's helped with us.

[AnotherTouchOfWhimsy]

If you became a parent early in life, lets say before the age of 25 please share your experiences.

I was a few days shy of turning 23 when I had my son, and I was 25 when I had my daughter. DH and I met in high school, and were married for a little over 2 years when DS was born.

Were you going to school at the time? Yes, actually, I was going to college part time.

Did you get a chance to go to college? I stopped going when I was pregnant. (We were trying to get pregnant, and the plan was that I'd stop when it happened.)

Are you still with the child's father? Yep, we've been happily married for 12 1/2 years now.

How's that relationship going? Great.

What kind of obstacles you had to overcome? Related to our ages? We both had growing up to do when we got married/had our first child, definitely. We got it together by our mid-20s, though... if you're talking about obstacles in general, we've gone through miscarriages and moving 1500 miles away from family, job loss and other issues related to the economy. All of those things happened after I was 25, though... obstacles in life come up no matter how old you are.

[beachmel]

I became a parent at a pretty young age and wanted to hear from women/men who were in similar situations.
If you became a parent early in life, lets say before the age of 25 please share your experiences.
Were you going to school at the time? Nope, working full time
Did you get a chance to go to college? Not until I had 4 kids...two of them teens
Are you still with the child's father? Yep
How's that relationship going? Excellent
What kind of obstacles you had to overcome? Probably the thoughest part was that hubby and I were young and he still wanted to play with his friends. LOL He was a loving and attentive dad and a good husband, but.........