What is your opinion on children before marriage?

becca0417

We lived together before getting married for nearly 2 years and some members of our families turned their noses up. I couldn't care less - we both wanted to know that we knew everything there was to know. We got engaged 3 months after we moved in together (we had been together 4 years) and got married 3 months ago after an 18 month engagement. At no point during this time would I have had a baby with OH. Now we are married, I feel settled and content and ready to move on to the 'next' chapter.
Each to their own!

Torry_Quine

Its up to the couple and personally I would have never had children outwith marriage.

It does concern me that for some people having children seems ill thought out and just something you do. Before marriage and children you really should be talking about the whole idea of children.

jetplane

Oh what a lovely romantic idea courting, becoming engaged, getting married (not pregnant) and then having children. I've been looking around my family (in my head) while I have been reading this, and I have to go back to my parents to find anyone who has done this, and that was over 50 years ago :eek:

I think it takes more legal paperwork to get out of a joint mortgage than it does to divorce, I think commitment is what matters. And yes it does amaze me when people start a family after being together 2 or 3 months.

Idiophreak

Errata wrote: »

Plenty of people living with their parents were having sex outside marriage a couple of generations ago, or did the swinging sixties not happen in your town?

No, I'm from the country...nobody really "swung" there...but in any case, I wouldn't consider the 60s a couple of generations ago. Maybe I should have been more precise, but didn't expect people to take my comments so literally.

Blue_Elephant

Surely it should only be important to whoever's having the kids?

If you don't like having kids before marriage, don't, and if you don't mind then it's up to you.

I find it really weird that in this day and age we're still judging people on either having kids out of wedlock, or on the other hand decrying those who have the "traditional" (read backward) view.

Surely life is hard enough without having to fit into other people's boxes?

Tiddlywinks

Torry_Quine wrote: »

It does concern me that for some people having children seems ill thought out and just something you do. Before marriage and children you really should be talking about the whole idea of children.

I agree with this... an awful lot of couples are only together for a short time before having a child and don't seem to have thought through the whole 'how do I... support / provide for / house etc a baby' or even the 'do we want to stay together for the length of the child's childhood'?

katie1812

I think everybody has their own views and will try and do what they think is best.
Before I met my husband I was only 19 but had always thought I would be married before I had children, it's just the way I wanted to do it and the way I prefer. We are now married and will start trying for children in a couple of years.
Obviously I realise that things can happen (don't like the word accidents!) but I don't think anything less of someone who has had a baby out of wedlock! Everyone is different and asking as the child has loving parents, who cares if they're married or not!

Torry_Quine

It seems strange to me when some people say we always intended to have children after marriage but that I discovered I was pregnant so had children first. Surely if you intended to have children after marriage then you wouldn't be having sex until then.

moneypuddle

Torry_Quine wrote: »

It seems strange to me when some people say we always intended to have children after marriage but that I discovered I was pregnant so had children first. Surely if you intended to have children after marriage then you wouldn't be having sex until then.

Failed contraception maybe? Not everyone abstains from sex completely just because they dont want children

I'm 38 weeks pregnant. My OH and I are not married. For us it was financial ... we spoke about it and could afford to either get married or have a baby. Baby won. Having a baby would have more impact of our lives than getting married would and its what we wanted to do

POPPYOSCAR

Been together over 25 years, not married , had two children.It has worked for us.

Neither of us feel the need to be 'married' we are committed to each other and that is enough for us.

We may have to get married purely for financial reasons now though, and I dread the thought of going through all that ritual.

As someone else said 'each to their own'.