Posted on 09/16/2005 5:14:37 PM PDT by Crackingham
Let's just say that the love and meaning that come WITH the baby cannot be understood much until after it hits you.
Your own life is right now of paramount (maybe ONLY) importance to you. If you had a little boy or girl, your own life would sink down to a very low priority for you in your mind, heart, and soul. It really would. You might like to think it wouldn't, but babies change everything.
IMHO you are not too old! It will rock your world, dude -- I highly recommend it. All the complaints parents always have: meaningless before the power of love, the secret of life, that is having children. No bull.
While I agree that younger is better, though no fault of my own I got a late start. And being an older parent of little kids, I feel so blessed. So grateful. I am patient. I understand more of the true priorities in life. I am sorry I can't give my kids a really super-young Mommy, but that's something out of my hands. I hope to live a long, healthy life and see them grow up and have families. And I raise them myself -- no nannies. I wouldn't miss a minute of it.
Fertility supercedes that chart, because especially if a woman has never carried to term by 40, the chances she will are extremely small. And even at 40, as you see by your chart, the risk of Down's is less than 1%.
I didn't mean that as a criticism of people who had their kids later - but simply that if you have the option, it's better to have your kids when you're younger. Many young people get married and keep on putting off having children until they get to the point where children would be an "interruption" to their lives. Or they are waiting until it will be no financial strain, etc., etc. It's always a strain, unless you're married to Bill Gates, I imagine!
until they were 16.
http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/1manband/youre16.html
You come on like a dream, peaches and cream
Lips like strawberry wine
You're sixteen, you're beautiful and you're mine
How old do suppose the man in the above song supposedly is?
Yes, of course there are exceptions; however, even back then, 15 year old girls were not usually seen as being ready for marriage,
http://www.truth1.org/lindmeyer.htm
During the nineteenth century biology played an important role in defining when most young people qualified for adult responsibilities. Among females in the working class, held as slaves, or the daughters of the rural poor, the onset of menses, at about age twelve to thirteen, marked entry to adulthood. For males in the same socio-economic groups, physical size, usually at age fourteen to sixteen, brought on adult work responsibilities and personal independence.
Even in ancient Rome, young men were considered to be immature, until the age of 25.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1992/03.05.13.html
The best available ancient evidence indicates that even 25 years is too high as an estimate for Roman life expectancy at birth.
My mother had a best friend that got married at 14 in the '40's and both my uncle's married 16 year old women in while in their late 20's.
We see the stats on teenage sexual activity.
I know you think you are soooooo right, but you really should drop your crusade because it isn't hard to start poking holes in your rhetoric. In anycase, do NOT point a gun at me to enforce your view of the matter.
I remember when I was in school I always wanted to be popular. Never realized that I would be so popular with 5 little people who sometimes get jealous of another sitting on my lap. It is so sweet to constantly get notes that say, "I love mom so, so, so, so, so, (you get the idea) much."
How old is the boy singing the song supposed to be? Probably 16 or 17, or 18 at the most. But nobody I knew of, back then, thought about it.
If you would have read my posts, without your main reason being to look for something to argue with me, over, you would have seen that I stated that menarche had the three year window of 13-16 years of age, for most of history, for European.European descent females. The lower classes, specifically in the mid 19th through the early 20th centuries, were shorter and reached menarche later than their more prosperous sisters, due to diet.
The ancient Roman general. P. Scipio Africanus was still unmarried at 24. Augustus instituted marriage laws, for those of the upper classes ( because so few of the young men and women of the ruling classes were marrying or being faithful, if they were married and they were also OT having many, if any children ), which penalized young men, if they were not married and the father of a child, by the age of 25.
Augustus took a survey of the Senators and knights and found that the vast majority of them were unmarried. According to the historian Cassius Dio, Augustus called in all of the Senators and knights and chewed out the ones who weren't married and the married ones who were childless. He congratulated the ones who were married and had children.
Augustus's marriage laws, Lex Papia Poppaea, was instituted in 9 A.D., but funnily enough, it was named for two Senators were were unmarried and childless .
Between 300 A.D. and 600 A.D., the average age for Christians' first marriages, in the Roman Empire, was as follows:
300-399 A.D. men: 30 1/4 women: 18
400-499 A.D. 22 1/2 16
After 500 A.D. 25 19
Last week, all week, the History channel ran programs, all night long, about life in Ancient Rome. That's where I got the info about when men were expected to be full adults and ready to settle down and be husbands and fathers. I'm assuming that they got their info from historical sources. The Romans DID keep very good records. And if you want me to pull even more books, and cite them all, I shall. But I do remember from Latin classes ( I took 4 years ), that male children wore bullae ( they were something like large lockets, on heavy chains ), as symbols of their high class and childhood, until they were around 18; when coming of age/adult ceremonies were performed. But I suppose, I could look that up too, since it's been a very long time since I was in Latin II.
A couple of anecdotal references, does not make for substantial rebuttal. I said that there have always been a few exceptions; they aren't the norm, though. And yes, I actually DO know this topic; unlike you. But NO, I am not on a "crusade".
But here's a question for you...........
In this day and age, do you honestly think that 14,15, 16 year old girls and boys should get married and have babies, dropping out of high school or trying to be a wife and mother, while completing high school, when a college degree is barely enough of a requirement for getting a decent job ?
Your loss ! LOL
I'd consider 14 to young. I do recall that God impregnated Mary around 15/16 years of age, although I doubt that you'd allow God's standard as an example to follow. A majority of teens by 18 are having sex, and a substantial percentage are by 15. Also 25% of adults 18+ have herpes, and it isn't those in monogamus relationships that are getting that. Yes, I think marriage by normal teens 15 & up is acceptable. Why do they have to leave school? Marriage does not equal pregnancy. If society allowed teens to marry I think many of the issues around teen sexuality would abate.
I still think teens marrying was more prevalent in the past than you allow and your Roman Numerals are not as solid as you assert.
Believe it or not, in the not too distant past, most, though admittedly not all, teens didn't have promiscuous sex, willy nilly. Most girls graduated from high school as virgins. Many graduated from college as virgins, too. Fifteen year olds marrying, is not the answer to today's problems !
So, you think that it's okay for a 15 year old girl to marry , keep house, and still go to high school? And what, pray tell, is her 16 or 17 or 18 year old husband doing? And if you're going to throw Mary into the mix, then why shouldn't the girl get pregnant right away ( by GOD, naturally ! LOL) and then there'll be 1,000s of Messiahs?
We don't live in a time when 15 year old girls and their slightly older husbands can make it on their own. The answer is for boys to keep it in their pants and for girls to go back to keeping their knees locked. And don't tell me that they can't do it; previous generations did it.
How old are your children? Do you have a daughter/s? Do you want your children to marry at 15 or 16?
Those are the rewards in life that you just can't match. 5 little ones vying for your lap. You are blessed.
Anecdotal again, I know, however married teens is really not so rare as to be exceptional.
And now I recall another young woman, the daughter of a friend of my wife, that married at 16.
The longer I sit here & think about it the more I remember, not that I want to.
They are boppin' & boppin', why not allow a situation, marriage, where the personal price for them is not so painful?
The woman you knew, who married at 14, to a man in his 30s, was a victim and thankfully a rarity today.
Just sit there and think about all of the people you knew/know of, that belong on Jerry Springer, if you like. That in no way has much of anything at all to do with the topic of this thread, nor easily substantiated, factual history.
Hey..you want anecdotal stories? When I was 19, I heard about a girl I had know slightly, who got knocked up at 18 and married the guy. He was 19, in college, and their parents ( both sets ) had to support them all. They got divorced in less than five years.
I'll ask you again...DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO MARRY AT 15 ?
Nope, I wouldn't allow bundling! Would you?
DO YOU WANT, WOULD YOU ALLOW, YOUR CHILDREN TO MARRY AT AGE 15 ? Come on...it's a simple query, so why are you ignoring my question ?
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I agree 110%.
I have 6 kids.
I am 25.
I am proud of it.
And now I'm not afraid to admit my ager here lol.
Re your tagline. Having 'competent' and democrat in the same sentence should be illegal ;)
For the record I was 16 when I had my first child. Nice to meet you.
What does this have to do with teenage sexuality?
The woman you knew, who married at 14, to a man in his 30s, was a victim and thankfully a rarity today.
She didn't think so, nor did her parents who gave permission and certainly her husband didn't think so. She wasn't preggers at 14 either. Do you think you determine whether others are victims or not when they are making informed, freewill choices?
Just sit there and think about all of the people you knew/know of, that belong on Jerry Springer, if you like.
Oh, you like that show too? he he he
I gotta go. Have a nice life & God Bless.
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