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Is engagement age inherited?

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HopeDream

HopeDream

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Mar 14, 2009
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2,146
A while ago I read something in a science magazine about the age people decide have children being somewhat inherited.

I wonder if being ready for engagement is the same way?

How old was your mom when she was engaged? how old were you when you were ready to be engaged?

My mom was 25 when she got engaged, and I felt ready to get engaged at 25 too.
 
My Mom was 21 and I''m 25 now and only in the past year did I really think I might be ready for marriage. It used to terrify me! lol
 
I'm not sure inherited is the right word. But as with many things we follow the norms of society and the most important norms that we follow are those of people that we trust, i.e., our families. So it isn't surprising that many people "follow in their parents footsteps" with major life decisions.
 
My parents engagment party was also my mums 21st birthday party and they married about 6 months later.

I''m 21 now and *should* be getting engaged this year, however I''ll probably be 23 or 24 by the time I get married.
 
Date: 1/4/2010 1:29:58 AM
Author: neatfreak
I'm not sure inherited is the right word. But as with many things we follow the norms of society and the most important norms that we follow are those of people that we trust, i.e., our families. So it isn't surprising that many people 'follow in their parents footsteps' with major life decisions.
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I agree with this.

My mother was engaged at 22 and married at 23. I have to say I started feeling "ready" at the same age, although objectively I wouldn't have really been in a place in my life to get engaged until I was done with medical school at 25. I am now engaged at 26. But I always had 23 in my head when I was younger as the ideal "marrying" age. Strange, eh?
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Mom was engaged at 19. I was married at 18 the first time.
 
Mum and dad were engaged at 24 and 27 respectively. They had a panic attack two weeks before the wedding and called the whole thing off... they were NOT ready, and had been together for a handfull of months at that stage. Mum thought it was OVER over, until a phonecall from dad a few days later stating he was worried he had no one to wash his undies, and that he was too nervous to do it himself
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And so they reconciled, and were re-engaged and married 2 years later at ages 26 and 29. They have been married over 30 years now! Oh, and the fruitcake wedding cake lasted all that time in the freezer
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DH and I were engaged when I was 22 and he was 29.
 
My mom and dad were engaged at I think 23 and 24, married at 24 and 25, I was born when they were 26 and 27, and they divorced at 35 and 36. (Roughly.)

I''d say somewhere between my mom''s and dad''s ages, I was beginning to think about finding "the one" and all that...and I did, 2 weeks after my 24th birthday! I, however, am certainly NOT ready to have children next year. Or the year after that. Or the year after that, lol!
 
My mom was 22, and I was 26. I was not anywhere near ready to get engaged at 22.
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My mom was 22 when she was engaged, 23 when married and 25 when I was born. When FI proposed, I was 1 month shy of 24, and will be 25 when we marry I July.
 
My Mom was 18 when she got married. When Dh and I got engaged I was 25. I would have been nowhere near ready at 18, thats just WAY too young.
 
Well my mom was 21 and my dad was 26 when they got engaged. They met on a blind date and had only known each other three months!
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But they''ve been married almost 36 years now!
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But, I''m 21 now and I''m ready to get married. My sister was 22 when she and my BIL got engaged. So, we have all decided we were ready for marriage at about the same age. Just a random, weird side note. Me and my SO also met on a blind date! Only difference is that we were both 18.
 
My Mom was engaged at 16, married at 17, first child at 19. (been married 52 years)
Dad was/is 2 years older than Mom.

Me, married at 29, first child at 32.
 
My mom was 26 when she got engaged and married. I was 25 when I got engaged and 26 when I got married. I always thought that was kind of bizarre!
 
Definitely not in my case. My mom was barely 21 when she got married, and engaged even younger, but I''ll be 29 when I get married.
 
My mom was married (the 1st time) at 22 and had her first kid at 23. They divorced when she was around 27 or so and she remarried at 29. My dad was probably around 26 or so when he first married and his first kid around 27. He divorced when he was around 37 and he remarried when he was about 39.

I''ll be getting engaged at 29, and probably married at 30. As far as my siblings go, one sister got married around 26, another sister got married at 35, and my brother got married at 29.
 
Hmmm my mom was 19 when she was engaged, I was 24??
 
My grandmother got engaged when she was 16 and married when she was 17. 51 years later they''re still married and happily retired together now.
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My mom was in her mid-20s when she got engaged and married and then my parents got divorced in their late 20s.

I was actually more similar to my grandmother in terms of age and being ready for engagement. I met DH when I was 16 and felt totally and completely ready to marry him (and he felt the same way). He''s only a year and a half older than me so we had to wait until he had a job before we could get engaged or married, so we finally got engaged when I was 19 and we got married when I was 20.
 
Interesting topic! Our family ranges a bit: parents = 24 (a couple months short of 25), me = 27 (a couple months past 26), brother = 26. But! We were just talking about this the other day and realized we were all engaged for less than a year, and we all found partners who are the same age. And for what it''s worth, for those who believe this kind of stuff, the bloodtype of all three couples are AB + A.
 
Interesting!

I don''t know about engagement, but I think marriage age may be somewhat a learned concept. I can get on board with that theory. My parents were both 22, and I was 23 (my two brothers are and will be older, 27 and 30+). Hubs'' parents were 24 and 25, he was 24.5.
 
Date: 1/4/2010 2:08:48 PM
Author: onvacation
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My parents and my inlaws are both [O-] / [A+]
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my mom was 20 when she got engaged and married my dad, i was 3 days shy of 21 when i got engaged and i was 22 when i got married.
 
Well, I believe my mom married my dad when she was 23 or 24 and he was the same age. I just got engaged at 34, so... uh... I''m about a decade off. My little sister got married at age 29, so she''s also "late" compared to my folks.

With that said, my parents divorced while I was in college, and she was in high school, which sort of impacted our view of relationships. We also both moved away from our hometown for college and lived in more metropolitan areas thereafter, which is unlike what our parents did. Not sure these factors had an impact in our timing/readiness, but they might have.

I think I felt ready to settle down sometime in my late 20s. Was I ready before that? Maybe, but I don''t think so. I did a LOT of growing and changing from age 25-30.
 
My mom was 26 and my dad was 32 when they married. I'm 26 and my BF is 31. I was pretty ready to settle down in a serious relationship when I met him a couple of years ago, but I think I'll be ready for marriage in a year and a half or so.

As an aside, do you see"being ready" is being ready for a serious comittment like marriage or do you see "being ready" as more like "I've accomplished what I wanted to do before taking a big step in life"?
 
Hmmm... My mom has been married 3 times and was NEVER engaged. The first wedding was when she was 16- they ran away to Tijuana Mexico. The second was to my dad, and they did not have a "wedding"... they just did the JOP. The third was to my step-dad, and they also just did the JOP thing. So, I can absolutely say that heredity plays NO PART in my engagement/marriage life!
 
Let''s see...my parents got engaged at 18 or 19 (can''t remember which), and were married at 21/22. I''m 23 and nowhere near ready!

That said, as a kid I imagined that was the way things were "supposed" to work, so I imagined myself following in their footsteps. Then I hit that age and was nowhere near ready!
 
Neatfreak : you''re right, inherited isn''t quite the right word ( a little too genetic), but I couldn''t think of a better word for it. ( maybe "Does the age of engagement follow similar trends across different generations of the same family?")

I fully expect women (and men) of our generation to do everything slightly later than our parents did because of our increased awareness of divorce, and the tendency for many couples to have children later in life than they did before.

Kitcha: I was thinking of "being ready" is being ready for a serious comittment like marriage - sort of like a nesting instinct - feeling ready to "settle-down" just a little. More of a gut reaction, or an intuition than a well though out logical decision.


My mom was engaged after 6 months of knowing my dad and they divorced 16 years later (they should have divorced sooner).
I don''t think I could ever marry anyone without knowing him at least 2 yrs.
 
My mom was engaged her senior year of high school but they broke it off before getting married. She was married to another guy at 18, divorced at 21 I think. My dad married and divorced early too, in his early 20s. They met one another at 25 and 28, married not even a year after that, and are still married.

I wasn''t truly comfortable with the idea of marriage till sometime this year, when I was 23. Most likely I''ll be close to 25 when I get engaged and probably just barely 25 when we get married. And I know I couldn''t marry someone I had known less than a year, like my parents did.

I see what you mean about ''inheriting'' it, but I don''t think I did that at all.
 
I don''t usually post here but this topic was very interesting to me.

I was 17 when DH told me he wanted to marry me, 18 for the official engagement, and 19 at the wedding. We tried having kids immediately but weren''t able to until I was 26.

My sis was engaged, married, and a mother at 20.

My baby sis is currently 20 and head over heels in love although she "hopes" to wait a couple years before marriage. Not sure what her "children" thoughts are.

My mom was "ready" at age 15, got engaged and married at 17 and had her first child.

Both of my grandma''s were married at 18ish and had children relatively quickly.


In response to the poster who thought it may have to do with the women we look to, I''m not sure. I''ve never particularly looked up to my mother and didn''t really know my grandmas until I was in my late teens.

I think it may have to do with the way my women family members were all raised, to be mature from an early age and accept and appreciate the responsibilities associated with being an "adult."
 
I don't think it is uncommon to follow in your parents footsteps. I found that the girls that I went to school with who had really young parents (e.g. mum was 16 when she was pregnant) were mostly the ones to also have children very young. Some were by accident while they still in school but many were on planned pregnancies a year or two out of high school with a husband, etc.

I think my parents were 25 and 30 when they got married. I will be 24 or 25 when I get married (engaged at 23). I'm getting married because I happened to stumble on the right guy, part of me always thought that wouldn't get married.
 
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