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I think it has a lot to do with your lifestyle and how much "responsibility" you have on your plate. While my friends were in college and having fun and their parents paying for their way (school, rent, car, etc), I was working full-time, attending school full-time, renting an apartment, paying for my car, insurance, etc. I was 21 and felt damned old. By the time I was 30, I was already married and divorced while my friends were barely getting married and having kids. They barely started living a true adult life.
So, at 38, I seriously feel like I have lived a lifetime. But then, I see my friends who are my age, have toddlers and watch them work full-time, go home and work their second job: making dinner, cleaning up, cleaning up the house, bathing the kids, getting them ready for bed, etc...while daddy is watching tv because "he had a hard day working". That's what ages my gf's....they have no breaks. And that's what aged me while I was young (working FT and school FT).
Oh, and those that had kids young (16-21) had tons of help from their parents to the point that their life really wasn't affected too much. They still partied, went to school, didn't have to hold down a job, etc. Those women don't feel old, in face, most of them had a second set of kids in their 30's. Those that didn't have parents to help them like that....oh yeah, they act like they're ready for retirement...and I don't blame them. I can only imagine how hard it is to raise yourself and a kid while working and trying to put food on the table.
I get it. It's not everyone, but I get it. I don't have kids but I feel damned old compared to most of my peers.
People who are that young and have multiple children by the time they are 18 are living in some kind of otherworld mentality whereby life expectancy is still only about 30 or 35, so if you're NOT having babies by 15 you're an "old maid spinster." It's the common prevailing mentality in America's ghettos and even some rural areas. They actually only expect to live about 35 years so that's why they value reproduction in their teens. You will notice that they also come from a world where they don't expect women to have much education beyond the 8th grade, either. It's a whole world view.
The reality is they are not old. When they're only in their late 30s, they still have a youthful appearance like all 30-somethings do. You can't start acting like some of them are acting until you're at least in your mid 50s, and in many cases older than that. Seriously, late thirties is young.
Regardless of whether they have kids in their late teens, do they not realize that they themselves were KIDS when they had kids, and while they were raising KIDS during times when most people are trying to make a better life for themselves, they were taking up behaviors that are generally reserved for people anywhere 5-20 years older than themselves? It doesn't make them old, it simply makes them engaging in behaviors before most people do.
I sometimes wonder if these people say they are "old" in order to make themselves feel more mature people than their own age, in order to feel some compensation for the time missed to enjoy the single life when they were young.
How can one claim themselves "old", standing beside someone who is the same age as themselves, who thinks otherwise?
Why the assumption that there's a certain way to act when you're a certain age? People in their 30s who have children act like parents, not like old people. They have different priorities than someone who's never been married, doesn't have kids. Having families young isn't as common as it used to be, but a 25-year-old person is not a child. And what some people are realizing is that being a young parent means that they have more energy to be running around after young children than they would be in their 40s. Women's fertility also takes a dive they longer they wait to have children, and pregnancy and childbirth can be more difficult.
Why the assumption that there's a certain way to act when you're a certain age? People in their 30s who have children act like parents, not like old people. They have different priorities than someone who's never been married, doesn't have kids. Having families young isn't as common as it used to be, but a 25-year-old person is not a child. And what some people are realizing is that being a young parent means that they have more energy to be running around after young children than they would be in their 40s. Women's fertility also takes a dive they longer they wait to have children, and pregnancy and childbirth can be more difficult.
I'm in my mid-30s, myself. My argument is not about 25 year olds who begin having children, but 18-20 year olds.
I have come into contact with women who are about my age, who say they're old because they have eighteen year old children, in addition to other kids in their upper teens (16-17).
I've come into contact with women my age who walk around with this idea that they're old, hanging around with a husband who is nearly fifty years of age, simply because a near 30 year old shacked up with them when they were eighteen.
It's weird.
No one in their 30s is old, judging by appearance. People in their 30s are youthful looking, by and large. You don't even start to really look like an older adult until you're around 50. So how can someone claim themselves to be old when they look young, and when there's so much life left to live, multiple decades worth. Just because you lived the life of an older adult when you were barely out of high school doesn't make you old. It makes you the the individual who is out of the norm.
Some people are built to handle kids at a young age well and others aren't. That's why you see 23 year olds that are built like 50 year olds. A friend of mine fits this description, she had 4 kids before 23. She's 25 now and looks, walks, and behaves much older then her 35 yo sister who has just one child. Genetics, age and life style all contribute.
If you had 6 kids to care for every day and were in your mid thirties, you'd definitely feel old by the end of the day.
You got it.
I didn't have "lots" of kids when I was young unless "lots" is defined as "two" (I am put in mind of the trolls in Terry Pratchett's "Disc World" series who are rather dim and can only count as follows: "one, two, lots, many"). At any rate, getting married at 19 and having children at 20 and 25 made me feel plenty old by 30.
I love my kids, but they are basically well-meaning energy and romance suckers.
I didn't have "lots" of kids when I was young unless "lots" is defined as "two" (I am put in mind of the trolls in Terry Pratchett's "Disc World" series who are rather dim and can only count as follows: "one, two, lots, many"). At any rate, getting married at 19 and having children at 20 and 25 made me feel plenty old by 30.
I love my kids, but they are basically well-meaning energy and romance suckers.
But think how young you'll be when they're out of the house!
My sister got married young and had kids young, but as she said, "when they're out of college I'll be 45. Some people have barely started their families by then."
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