I wanted to get married straight out of college. I just wanted to get my degree and get married. I had one boyfriend propose to me when we were juniors. I told him that we should wait for an engagement until we knew when we were going to graduate. We had both switched majors, and we were going to take longer than 4 years to graduate.
Thank God, I didn't accept the engagement. Over the summer, he decided he didn't want to date an old 22 year old. He wanted to date an incoming 18 year old freshman.
After that, if men found out that I was interested in marriage, they backed off. If I even mentioned that I wanted to get married and have kids, then I was shunned. Most of the men in their 20s didn't want to have anything to do with marriage.
Thank God, I finally met my husband in my late 20s. He wanted a nice conservative woman. He didn't care that I had worked longer than him, and that I made more money than him. He treated me with lots of respect, and we've been married for 15 years.
I just worry now about my nieces that are in their 20s. One of them has been out of college for 2 years, and she has to work a lot to pay for rent of her apartment and other necessities. The other one is about to graduate.
Men in their twenties need to step up the plate and start having real meaningful relationships with women in the 20s. Then they can get married and have babies.
This is exactly true. And what I tell all the younger folk I know. Life is short. if you are planning on ever having children, do it now. My wife and I waited until I was 40 to have our first child (lots of health issues delayed us. We tried to start when I was 30 but it didn't work out). While I was much more financially secure I was also 10 years older.
You can always get more money but you can't get more years.
If everything goes exactly correct I'll be 68 or so when my youngest graduates from high school (My wife died in September and I want more children and haven't met the right woman yet so obviously this is a real wild number).
It's far better to have your kids while you're young.
The second point is we need to revamp family law so that marriage doesn't have as many risks for the man as it does now. It's scary how easy it is to lose your whole life just because the woman went strange on you. If I didn't want more kids I wouldn't remarry at all, I'd just play around. Same as the 20 somethings are doing.
With all due respect, they would have to be chumps. A society that requires that men be chumps to perpetuate the species is doomed.