There is no ideal time to get married, and there is no ideal time to have kids. Like any great adventure, both are steps into the unknown. When taking such a leap of faith, it is good to have someone by your side who will stand by you in bad times as well as good. A strong sense of humor is a plus. When our mortal remains are all that is left of us in this Vale of Tears, the family we leave behind, for most of us, will be our legacy. Do all that you can to make it a good one.
…. if you’re choosing career over your other half, you’re making a really bad decision.
Met my husband at age 20. Married at 22, 2 weeks after college graduation. No “marriage prep”. Husband was an Episcopalian but converted to Catholicism after 7 years of marriage. Had our family and was married for 42 years when he passed away.
If I’m not mistaken, sociologists studying family relations have concluded that marital durability is positively associated with your age at first marriage. However, the marginal increment of durability associated with the marginal increment of further delay falls to zero around about age 25, so age 25 is the optimal age to get married, just not advisable in every circumstance. Also, an ordinary woman has only one baby left in her at age 38, so, before then.
NB, the ‘your career’ hoo ha is nonsensical outside of the fancy professions and management. Well, 88% of the working population is not employed in either and even within that 12% you have honest craftsman who want to earn a living and have quite circumscribed ambitions. Even among the ambitious, you find people who were married throughout. The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff married at 27, as did the CEO of JP Morgan Chase.
Married at 21. 30 years next year. We’ve been through some very difficult situations and God has supplied us with Grace to get through it. Both Catholic. Both went to Engaged encounter which had some horrible advice esp re pornography.
When I look at us we shouldn’t be really. It has to be something other than ourselves working in this.
I did make a conscious effort to separate from friends who, through counseling were advised to divorce spouses. It was a trend for awhile in our old circle. I think out of them we and one other are the last ones still married to our first spouse.
The others went on to get annulments eventually and the reason it was granted was on basis of immaturity.
They think I’m crazy bc trust me when I say we went through hell and back, we really did and we are still together.
My husband’s niece who married 3 years ago (both Catholic) were advised by priest to marry outside Church bc they could not do the mandatory 2 year prep classes (had dated 5 years).
It isn’t the length of the marriage prep.
I think it might be good, if they haven’t changed on advice etc.
But I will tell you I had to go outside of my diocese for help w our marriage. It was worth it.
Not many priests are available to help.
I heard one complain that he needs to see you b4 you come in saying you are divorcing
married at 32, wife at 27–both in academic careers (met at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie-Mellon). 61 years and 5 kids later, was glad I waited.
Married at 31 and 29, but we both agree we would have been happier had it happened earlier.
You are 100% correct: you cannot calibrate a perfect time for marriage or children. And while it’s never too late to get married, it can–and inexorably will–be for children.
Plus, Mr. “No Love For You” is ignoring the inertia a career creates and the increasing uncertainty in our society of holding on to said career for even a decade, let alone until retirement.
Industrial work was once a ticket to the middle class, but outside of the skilled trades, it isn’t. Heck, it wasn’t even that long ago that a JD was one of the greatest money magnets in American life. Now, the only certainty it assures is painful debt.
The love of a lifetime will outlast any career–even if that love is untimely taken from you. But while I see “Husband/Father/Grandfather” chiseled on numerous headstones, I have yet to see a career title on one.
By the way, seeing how that reads: My Much Better Half and I are quite happy together, and God’s providence has been great to us. Just so no one misreads.
“But while I see ‘Husband/Father/Grandfather’ chiseled on numerous headstones, I have yet to see a career title on one”.
^^^^ This.
Married at 25 and 27. Celebrated 18 years young last Sunday. We don’t measure up to your 61 years Bob Kurland. Well Yet, anyway. It hasn’t been easy. Family issues, a cancer diagnosis, lack of support from extended family. But if it weren’t for Gods Grace we would not have made it. God has helped us be tough and we are instilling that toughness onto the kids. Don’t let life get you down- rely on God in all you do. Because without Him you can do nothing.
Besides what’s better than to marry young and “grow up” with your spouse and your children as young parents.
Ps. The advice of the world which tells women to have children in the twilight of their fertility is reckless and frankly insane considering how much we know about human biology.
Should add: people I know from the Calix Society (Catholic 12 Step group) have 10 kids, 14 kids, (that’s the most so far); and that is an achievement! Let’s hope if we can’t outvote the materialists, we can eventually outnumber them. Or, as Scripture says: “Be fruitful and multiply.”
What kind of a career is Kempton thinking of? He was an athlete, so he probably had 90% of his earning opportunities in the first decade of adulthood. You also have some lawyers and financial traders who are expected to put in 80 hour weeks in their early career. Um, doctors, oil riggers…are we at 1% of the working population yet?
There’s one other group that this might apply to, and that’s career women, or career-only women. The kind of person whose careers might thank them at age 40, but may forget to have anyone else around them to thank them, or anything to be thanked for.
I was 29, my husband just out of college and 22. I’m glad we didn’t marry TOO much earlier or I would have been in trouble! Always a very solid, mature man, much more so than the “older” guys I had dated. We’ll be celebrating #35 and have only grown closer.
(To be clear, we didn’t meet until he was 19. His mom was very skeptical of the age difference, which I didn’t understand until our kids approached young adulthood. His mom has actually been a great mother in law.)