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Josiah & Lauren 17: Proud parents to Lauren's hat...and Bella


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22 hours ago, Marly said:

I would say it is the same here in the Netherlands. People don't necessarily get married before they have kids.
Also, people don't tend to get married young. The average age for women to get married here is 31 and for men 34. (The exceptions are fundamentalist religious people, who tend to get married young). 
Usually people have lived together for a long, long time before they get married. A lot of people that don't get married get some kind of domestic partnership when they get older and have been together for a while. 

I would say living together before getting married or without being married is definitely the norm. This is also what I considered normal, and is why I was so surprised when I heard people say that "marriage takes a lot of work! It can be really difficult!". To me, that doesn't have anything to do with marriage, but with relationships in general. I got married last March, on my and my SO's 8 year anniversary. Exactly NOTHING has changed for us. We had already been living together for 5 years, and we stayed in the same appartment we had already been living in. Our relationship did not magically change because we got married. The only thing that has changed is that we will now receive tax benefits, and if anything were to happen to my husband (he has T1D) I am the person who will be called and who will be allowed to be with him in the hospital. That's it. 

It is also quite normal here for women to keep their own name after marriage, and it is becoming more normal (as in, no longer taboo and you won't be laughed at) for men to hyphenate their last name when they get married (which my SO and I have done), though the latter is still not very common.

Divorce is also not taboo, except for fundamentalist religious people, but they are in the minority.
 

I agree on this except for that it seems that since 5-10 years it is becoming more common again to get married before kids, at least in my circles.

I also wanted to get married before kids but that was more not wanting to get married pregnant or with a newborn.

Today is my three week anniversary and we just got rid of birth control ?

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49 minutes ago, lumpentheologie said:

I know several married couples who live separately, because their jobs are in different cities. Even when they have young children. It's not that uncommon among academic couples since there's fierce competition for 1-3 year postdocs, visiting professorships, etc. Usually if one partner gets a tenure-track position the other will put their career on the back burner and move to where that job is, but not always. Many people will go through a lot (often too much, imo) to pursue a job they spent 10-15 years in higher education for. 

I run into with dating a lot. I already have a tenure track job, and I’m in a field with very limited options in terms of institutions (must have schools of public health and medicine). I was in the initial online chat phase with a guy who was on the job market for TT jobs. He ghosted when he learned I already have a great job and no plans to leave any time soon. He did not want to be the trailing partner and also wasn’t interested in long-distance.

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I know many couples that marry when kids are toddlers or even school-aged. And many others who just don't marry. In Spain you can get some marital benefits (pensions etc) if you remain single but can demostrate you've been living together + have children. However, some burocracy is easier for married ones, so some couples marry when they get old.

Here it's very strange to marry young and young parents seem to be a minority, too. Financial insecurity plays a big role, but in general marriage and kids are seen as the end of youth, and people tend to do it later.

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I see the benefits of waiting but we are so happy we had kids young... we will be early fourties when they are off to college and we will be enjoying all the things we couldn’t afford to do right now anyway. We are middle class and with my husbands next promotion in a year we will be upper middle and i don’t work so we are fine financially but his projected income by then plus me working later on and no kids we are going to have a hella good time ✌?We take our kids to do all sorts of things now And vacations, they still have every opportunity plus they will be going to private schools so it’s not like they are getting shafted either

Edited by Daisy0322
Typo
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Here's the other thing- if you career involves frequent and regular international moves, being married makes it a lot easier in terms of dealing with immigration, visas, etc.. 

That was a consideration for us on the "married vs not", and definitely for my brother and his wife. 

The funny/ironic thing is, my husband and I have always been globetrotters, but have "stayed put" since we started dating, into the marriage, and until now. On the other hand, my brother and his wife, who were the ultimate homebodies, got married after living together for several years because of the prospect of an international move, and have had 2 more international moves since! ?

Edited by Shouldabeenacowboy
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It's in most cases really anecdotal--some people, including my own sister, married as a teen and have had wonderful successful marriages. Some other people (like me, her sister) marry late and stupidly. Some women have children at young ages, even lots of children, and are wonderful mothers and have great kids and great families (anecdotal, again, but in this case I suspect the minority). Others have one or two children late in life and are miserable parents with miserable children.
When you look at individual people, it can be anything. But when you look at the Duggars, et al., it isn't about individuals, it's a culture that's strongly encourages, if not psychologically at least coerces, young people with no education, no meaningful interaction with the world outside their culture, and no modeling of healthy family dynamics to marry early and to people who are vetted by, if not overtly chosen by, the cray-cray parents. 

Ironically, it may be Jill, who was the biggest tattletale, and married a major douche, who may be the first one to be gobsmacked to find out she isn't a frigging midwife, the Kool-Aid is laced with anti-freeze, and there's a world outside.

And yeah, Lauren wearing a hat. I have a name, it is Lauren, and I'm the one with the hat.

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On 10/1/2020 at 6:32 AM, Melissa1977 said:

I know many couples that marry when kids are toddlers or even school-aged. And many others who just don't marry. In Spain you can get some marital benefits (pensions etc) if you remain single but can demostrate you've been living together + have children. However, some burocracy is easier for married ones, so some couples marry when they get old.

Here it's very strange to marry young and young parents seem to be a minority, too. Financial insecurity plays a big role, but in general marriage and kids are seen as the end of youth, and people tend to do it later.

It is actually beneficial to marry in the US for many reasons. Depending on income level married filing jointly can save you quiet a bit of money, other times you have to file separately so it doesn't matter. IT really matters in the cases of medical benefits, especially if you have kids, as most of you know health care in the US is INSANLY expensive and most companies will not allow you to have an SO on your insurance so if one person has a really good insurance and the other doesn't it makes sense to be on the good insurance.  Also hospitals do not allow non family to visit critically ill patients, and this was very important to the LGBTQ community, families that did not approve of their "lifestyle" would keep a SO from a dying loved one and not allow them to visit or say goodbye, it was/is cruel. Marriage here allows a spouse access to their social security after their spouse dies, usually if the bread winner dies first and you've been married over 20 yrs (I think it is 20 yrs) you can claim their benefits instead of your own.  

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Just chiming in to say the rules about hospital visitation have largely changed or are changing. Many hospitals let the patient designate who can visit them regardless of familial relationship, and others allow anyone to visit as long as they are not disruptive. This is part of a shift towards “patient centered care” -  generally fewer limitations on visitation hours, and most visitor limitations are based on safety and patient care. For example, limitations on visits from young children during flu season, or limits on the number of people visiting in the ICU (regardless of relationship).  Familial relationships do still matter in terms of legal decision making, but even then a patient can designate medical power of attorney independent of familial relationships. 

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33 minutes ago, mpheels said:

Just chiming in to say the rules about hospital visitation have largely changed or are changing. Many hospitals let the patient designate who can visit them regardless of familial relationship, and others allow anyone to visit as long as they are not disruptive. This is part of a shift towards “patient centered care” -  generally fewer limitations on visitation hours, and most visitor limitations are based on safety and patient care. For example, limitations on visits from young children during flu season, or limits on the number of people visiting in the ICU (regardless of relationship).  Familial relationships do still matter in terms of legal decision making, but even then a patient can designate medical power of attorney independent of familial relationships. 

In the late nineties, a friend of mine was injured when her horse stepped in a hole and somersaulted. She was taken to the same hospital she had retired from a few years earlier (so she could run a small horse boarding/training facility) by Flight-for-Life and put in ICU with a closed spinal cord injury. 

We were a small group of family-of-choice: my partner, myself, my injured friend, and two other women. We told the ICU staff that we were her family, and were allowed the visiting privileges of family. One of us also held her MPoA. She was lucid in the ICU and I asked her if she wanted me to contact some cousins, who were local. "No, not until I feel better." (We had already contacted her brother who lived in another state. She is very organized and had a list with telephone numbers.) After she got out, we discovered she did not remember her time in ICU. 

She was in the hospital for four weeks, though that included two weeks of rehab. I got very familiar with it, since I would leave work, visit her at the hospital, then swing by her house and barn to make sure everything was okay. Fortunately, she had many friends, so we were able to set up a rota to take care of the barn. I even took her small dogs to visit, since the hospital allowed it. 

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Married 25 years, together 29. Chiming  in to say I'd be ok with separate bedrooms at this point. 

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On 10/1/2020 at 3:24 AM, Austrian Atheist said:

Hi fellow Europeans,

it's exactly the same in Austria. In my social circles and generation it's more surprising if a couple marries than they don't. Also what the Australian said above: if you didn't inherit real estate you often couldn't afford to life alone - at least in urban areas. I have a single friend who had a hard time to find an affordable apartment. 

I’m in California and the married or not thing varies a lot.  I just tried to mentally go through the list of my kids and all their first cousins and think if they were married or not when they had their kids - and some I really have no idea. I know they have kids, and partners (mostly) , but whether they did an official ceremony - some I don’t know. 

There was an interesting article I saw awhile back that talked about if women saw marriage as a stepping stone or a capstone in their lives. And mostly had to do with college education. Women who went to college tended to see marriage as a stepping stone in their life plans - college, career, wedding , children . Women who didn’t graduate college tended to see the wedding as a capstone - prioritizing the job, children, and then a big wedding. 
 

I don’t remember exactly, but I assume this applies more to areas / people that aren’t hard-core religious, and probably higher cost of living areas. I thought it was interesting, and seems to roughly check out among people I know. 
 

What I found -perplexing? Infuriating? among the Catholic men I knew growing up was a tendency to be totally fine making babies, with more than one woman, but not wanting to get married because “divorce is a sin” and they just weren’t sure about all that. 
 

 

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While German people - on average - don’t marry very young (as in “fundy young”), I was rather surprised that quite a few of the classmates who I graduated high school with married and/or had children in their early or mid twenties. I hadn’t expected to hear about babies and weddings before we’re all in our late 20s or early 30s. But as long as it’s a free choice and not the result of cultish indoctrination, I don’t judge their decisions. 

Regarding marrying and getting tax benefits, Germany does indeed advantage married couples and disadvantages unmarried people in partnerships and singles. Though I’m married myself, I don’t find this system to be fair at all and wish it would be changed. 

And you’re right, @allthegoodnamesrgone, it is absolutely heartbreaking to hear about members of the LGBTQ+ community who have to suffer because blood relatives don’t allow them to see their partners during a medical emergency. I’m very glad so-called gay marriages become legal in more and more countries around the globe. 

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We married fairly young (21 and 23) and started having children the following year. It has worked well for us. My husband will be retiring when our youngest turns 20. We have done pretty well and I will be switching to part time work around then so that we can travel more. We travel quite a bit with the kids for now but rarely travel without them. We have had a few nights away here and there, and one out of town wedding that we went to years ago but most of our traveling has been with the children. It is getting harder and harder to travel with them and their schedules so our trips as a family are becoming shorter and shorter. We have talked about having one parent take one child somewhere so we don't have to figure out a schedule that works for all 3, but who knows what will happen with future travels because of Covid. 

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Today is my husband and my four year wedding anniversary. We have been married the longest out of all our friends, so occasionally I’ll get asked a question or advice. But I don’t ever assume that I’m some subject matter expert or that whatever works for us would automatically work for any other couple. I think I’m most thankful that during the pandemic when we’ve spent SIGNIFICANTLY more time together than ever before, that we don’t want to kill each other (at least most days ???). 

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@front hugs > duggs happy anniversary! I’m getting married this weekend and though my fiancé and I have been together longer than any of our friends have been with their SO, we’re towards the end of everyone getting married and we’re only 24! It seemed like everyone I knew was getting married a couple years ago at the end of college, but most of my friends are now buying houses, settling into a solid career, and starting to plan to have kids in the next few years. My single friends are finishing Master’s degrees or starting their careers and don’t even think about dating, especially now that we’re in a pandemic. It’s crazy at this age to see how different everyone's lives are and the stages we’re all in. I live in the South so it’s very much expected to be married before you have kids and none of my friends that have kids had them before they were married so it’s such an interesting concept to me to have kids beforehand. I think that I wouldn’t want to have kids with someone unless we’ve made that lifelong commitment to be together and have been together for at least a few years of it being just us before we bring kids into anything. But I think the difference in ideas from what I grew up in to some of y’all’s experiences is really interesting. It definitely gives me something to think about. 

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I've been married for five years now. It's my second marriage, my husbands first. It's no secret why this marriage works while my first one didn't. I'm now married to someone who is kind, smart and behaves like the adult he is. The last of these three was a big reason why my first marriage ended.

My husband carries his own weight. I don't have to tell him what to do around the house or elsewhere. He sees what has do be done, and does it. I don't have to double check that he does things he says that he's going to do, or keep track of his relatives birthdays and a thousand other small things that I got used to doing in all of my previous relationships. I've realized that I've never been together with someone who's actually an adult before, and I met my husband when I was 43 (I'm 50 now).

I don't have any opinion about marrying late or early in life. Both could work. And I don't have any specific marriage/relationship advice. But marry someone who behaves like an adult. 

Edited by xenobia
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18 minutes ago, xenobia said:

I don't have any opinion about marrying late or early in life. Both could work. And I don't have any specific marriage/relationship advice. But marry someone who behaves like an adult. 

Agree with this. I dated someone who was immature & emotionally unstable. He would get mad when I didn’t want to hang out with his grandparents.  

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2 hours ago, xenobia said:

I don't have any opinion about marrying late or early in life. Both could work. And I don't have any specific marriage/relationship advice. But marry someone who behaves like an adult. 

I once dated someone who got upset because, when he did the dishes, I was not appropriately excited enough? It felt like he was my child and I had to encourage him with rewards for basic chores. It was bizarre. It did not last.

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  • 1 month later...

Bella is a year old. No baby announcement from these two, but they did have a professional photo shoot with that Darian person so 50/50 an announcement was also photographed. Extra photos in spoiler to save you a click. 

Screenshot_20201110_160232.thumb.jpg.9c92ae9d787c761274628ebeba01b547.jpg

Spoiler

Screenshot_20201110_160602.thumb.jpg.10c900cfb07bed6e424f13460507d3c9.jpgScreenshot_20201110_160544.thumb.jpg.d577160fdfa574529ee54f2a2672edee.jpg

 

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I agree this does seem to be a combo birthday/baby announcement post. I’m better the chunky cardigan comes off in the baby announcement photos. 

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I also think this shoot is more than just a first birthday photo shoot, I can see them announcing they are expecting soon. 

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The only reason they might not is because Lauren didn't seem to enjoy her pregnancy and labor/delivery was difficult. Maybe they'll hold off a while?

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38 minutes ago, Not that josh's mom said:

The only reason they might not is because Lauren didn't seem to enjoy her pregnancy and labor/delivery was difficult. Maybe they'll hold off a while?

Gosh, I really hope so. The fewer children they have the more chance they have of escaping fundiland imho.

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Maybe Jimbob is making Lauren what on an announcement and Kendra on her gender reveal because they know if in the next month they announce a Clairitin engagement there might be some backlash because of his age.

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I have to say Bella is a stunning baby. Gideon is my llittle pet goof ball fundie baby, But bella sure is a cutie. All I see is duggar though. I see Jessa in her so much. 

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