Families are Forever

In this blog post I am going to talk about trends.. but not the trends you are thinking about. The trends that are currently affecting the way that Americans are making decisions related to their marriage and family.
“Everyone is getting married so young now a days”
A lot of people believe that people are getting married right after they graduate college, but that is not true. The average age for marriage in the United States is 28 years old for women and 30 for men. But why is the age for marriage increasing? Is it because more women are going to college and working or do people just simply not want to have a commitment?
A huge reason for couples to wait to get married is because they can not afford a wedding. The average wedding costs about $26,720, I do not know about you but I do not have that much money laying around. Couples may want to get married while they are in college or right after they graduate, but that is most likely not realistic. It would be smarter to just wait until you get a job and financially stable once you are in your late 20’s.
I am an outlier on this trend because I got married at 19 years old after I finished my first semester of college to a 22 year old. The day I met my husband at bonfire I knew that he was the one and one thing led to another and we got married 8 months later. I will admit that my husband and I did not have a set income and any living plans before we got married, but we had faith that it would work out and it did! I got really lucky in my situation and I am happy with the decision that I made and have no regrets.
So the question is when is the right time to get married? That question is the most important one of your whole life. I know that if I did not get married when I did then my life would not be as amazing than it is now. If you know that your significant other is the one, why wait? You can figure out the rest when you are married together.
“When do I have children… Should I have kids?… How many do I have?!”
Having children is a huge decision between you and your significant other. But there has been a decreasing birth rate in recent years. I was shocked to hear that the fertility rate is going down at 1.8%. Mainstream knowledge is that birth rates need to go down because in 50 years there is not going to be enough fossil fuels and food because of over population… but that is completely false. Although social media portrays starvation as a common occurrence, but in fact it is extremely rare. We also have never had more access to fossil fuels than right now. Currently couples are deciding not to have children because they think that by the time their kid grows up the world will be like Hunger Games. That is not a good enough reason not to have kids because there are plenty on resources to last the world many many more years.
Every couple is different with deciding how many children they want to have, and in some cases there is physically nothing they can do about it. But, if you are healthy and financially stable enough to have children, consider the following factors. If you decide to have one kid then they are missing out on learning meaningful social skills with their siblings. I have 2 older brothers and they taught me to be tough, strong, and a leader and honestly do not know how I would have gotten through life without those powerful traits. People ages 18-26 are reporting to be the most lonely and that could be because they do not have a lot of family to lean back on. Family is the most important thing a person has because no matter what they will always be there for you. Do you want to give that up?