200,000 Child Brides In America. Worse than Afghanistan?

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: rickymouse
I think it is a mistake trying to judge those marriages years ago by today's standard.

My mother married at 17 but she also had a job bringing in income when she was 10 years old. She assisted in the kitchen and baby-sat for a wealthy family that owned a home on the beach. Times were different and children were far more mature than our children today.

I am in my mid sixties and even when I was a child, things were different. We were much more mature than young people today. We had responsibilities and much more was expected of us, and not just household chores. I grew up in the country so we worked in fields, worked on the docks, and many of us did odd jobs at local farms and businesses. We had to earn our own money of we wanted something, going to Mom and Dad and saying I want, got you the "People in hell want ice water" retort.

My work as a Forensic Nurse places me too up close and personal with young boys and girls that have been victims of inappropriate adult contact. It is not something that is taken lightly and it is a problem that is being aggressively fought, so by no means am I excusing any part of child abuse or child marriage. But we can't lump the marriages of young people today in the same category of the marriages of the past.

My oldest daughter got married when she was seventeen too. They are still married, my oldest grandkid is nineteen and she got married at eighteen and now has a six month year old girl. She married a real good guy, he is twenty one and I feel they will be married for a very long time. You cannot just consider age when figuring things. My oldest daughter and granddaughter like married life and commitment. Lots of people who get married at an older age wind up divorced, from what I see the ones who get married younger stay together, their family is important to them. But that depends on their upbringing, and how much they desire to be part of a family. People who are older when they marry tend to be more independent, not needing a life partner because they found they could make it on their own and do not want to even work out the problems in a marriage because they know they don't have to. The single parent situation is harder on the kid, the kids do not bond to family living as well when they spend time in a daycare.

But what do I know about the subject, I am a sixty year old guy who is very much into observing what was happening all my life. I have always thought the people running the child services programs were messed up. I knew two or three people working for those services who had kids that were all messed up and in trouble because the mother was spending too much time on other people's kids to see her own kids were going astray.

I kind of think that our society went astray when woman's lib came into play. The woman had a real important job, teaching good principles to the children back when I was young. The guy made enough to support the family, and most guys did do a good job at providing for the family with one income. It was a different world back then, most times now both parents have to work to make it. Most of the married men when I was a kid provided for their family first, there were some who did go out and blow their money on junk they really did not need, now it seems everyone is doing that.

a reply to: rickymouse

"I kind of think that our society went astray when woman's lib came into play"

People have a romanticized view of life back when, I'll admit sometimes I do too, but we cannot forgot it wasn't all roses back then. Women had very little voice, a lot of them were downright miserable. Many stayed in loveless abusive relationships because they had no other option. I'm no feminazi but I can assure you not everyone was happy back then, that's why thing changed. Talk to any ladies over 75 and a lot of them share the same view. Rape was perfectly acceptable back then too.

People could still have a one earner household now (yes it is harder now) but many don't want that, why is that? Maybe women wised up and realized that by always relying on men they would never be ok. Way way back in time my dad told me never count on a man, men die, men leave, men get sick. He said if I learned to take care of myself I would always be ok. This is the same advice I gave my daughters.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Ah, San Angelo. Born and raised there before moving off to greener pastures. Get out around Wall, Winters, Bronte and Brady & you'll come across this a LOT. Teenager gets pregnant & the kids get a shotgun wedding.

a reply to: JAGStorm
I grew up in a family of very strong and educated women, going back as far as my great grandmother. Unfortunately some of the men in my family were manly but had their weaknesses, mostly with wine, women, and song.

I learned that independence and being able to care for yourself was a requirement, even if you had a wonderful mate, because life happens.

Not to romanticize the "good old days", because they did indeed come with their own set of obstacles, but today is not much better, just a different set of obstacles. I have to agree with rickymouse, for all the good that may have come with women's lib, it left some serious damage in its wake. To steal a bit from Margaret Atwood, change is never better for everyone... It always means something worse, for some.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: rickymouse

"I kind of think that our society went astray when woman's lib came into play"

People have a romanticized view of life back when, I'll admit sometimes I do too, but we cannot forgot it wasn't all roses back then. Women had very little voice, a lot of them were downright miserable. Many stayed in loveless abusive relationships because they had no other option. I'm no feminazi but I can assure you not everyone was happy back then, that's why thing changed. Talk to any ladies over 75 and a lot of them share the same view. Rape was perfectly acceptable back then too.

People could still have a one earner household now (yes it is harder now) but many don't want that, why is that? Maybe women wised up and realized that by always relying on men they would never be ok. Way way back in time my dad told me never count on a man, men die, men leave, men get sick. He said if I learned to take care of myself I would always be ok. This is the same advice I gave my daughters.

I definitely agree that there were men that abused their marriages. But where I came from, most men were actually good to their wives. In fact, my mother was more of a spendthrift and outgoing than most women in the area, she held a full time job back in the sixties. My father worked full time, he worked the farm, and also did side jobs cleaning a business with my mother. My mother actually made just as much as my father did, in our area the wage imbalance was not as bad as others. There were a lot of Finnish families in my home town, the women usually ran the household and the guy would make sure they had plenty of money. But not all the people were conservative, some blew all their money on wasteful things, they bought new cars at expense of food on the table, something lots of people are doing more of today, But not cars, their cell phone and internet packages and tv packages often are more than they spend on food to eat. Our society promotes waste as normal. It is a problem with the economy.

I do remember there being guys who would blow their paychecks in bars, or buy fancy fishing boats with the money they earned, not providing enough for the family. That still goes on, most people back then did not have the debt they have now. I know a lot of people who are under water financially, that is the new way, charge it and be broke all the time.

Maybe I was in a better area to grow up in, I would never have liked living in Detroit, they acted like big shots down there a lot and people there were not very friendly and helpful like in my town. We took care of our own back then, people took in their parents when they got old. Now the way is to stick them in an old age home or nursing home, I am not for something like that. When my mother could not stay in her own appartment anymore she came to live with us till she died. Most people today do not do that anymore, what a shame.