This past week there has been a lot of talk online about Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi announcing their engagement.\u00a0 Yes, Jake is the son of Jon Bon Jovi, but that’s not the reason people are talking.\u00a0 The main conversation centers around Jake being only 20 years old, and Millie only 19.<\/p>\n
I agree with the majority of folks who are saying they are way too young.\u00a0 Sure, they might have a long engagement, but that’s not the point.\u00a0 Many studies show that the human brain doesn’t fully mature until around age 25.\u00a0 \u00a0There is also plenty of data showing that getting married under age 25 greatly increases your odds of getting divorced.\u00a0 Simply put, when you are under 25 you are still a kid in a LOT of ways.<\/p>\n
And yes, I know we all know people who got married super young and made it work.\u00a0 Hell, I work with several women who married before they turned 20 and it’s worked out for them.\u00a0 But there are many more for who it doesn’t.\u00a0 I got married at 22, he was 21 at the time.\u00a0 We both thought we were mature enough, but honestly neither of us were.\u00a0 Thankfully we are good friends now, but it took us a long time and a lot of tears to get there.<\/p>\n
But in spite of all the information out there showing why it’s a bad idea, people do still get married super young.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
Glad you asked!\u00a0 \u00a0I think there are 2 main reasons why kids do it.<\/p>\n
#1 They want to have sex.\u00a0 I respect people who choose to wait until marriage to have sex.\u00a0 \u00a0BUT.\u00a0 That isn’t a good reason in and of itself to get married.\u00a0 Having normal human emotions and sexual urges is, well, normal.\u00a0 You know what’s also normal at 20?\u00a0 Breaking up with your significant other.\u00a0 Having multiple relationships.\u00a0 Trying to figure out who you are as a person.\u00a0 Committing the rest of your life to someone because you are afraid of God or your parents?\u00a0 Not a great foundation for a life of happiness.<\/p>\n
Sure, there is that initial joy at making love to your partner.\u00a0 But what happens in a few months when the newness has worn off?<\/p>\n
Jessica Simpson famously stated waiting for marriage to have sex was one reason she married Nick Lachey at the young age of 22.\u00a0 Spoiler alert- they got divorced only four years later.<\/p>\n
#2 They have had to be adults in other areas of their lives younger than most.\u00a0 This is likely the reason so many actors and musicians get married young.\u00a0 They are already working full time and getting treated like adults.\u00a0 Or maybe they had a parent battling addiction issues or who worked multiple jobs and they raised younger siblings.<\/p>\n
There is a laundry list of young celebrities who married AND divorced young- Solange Knowles, Macaulay Culkin, LeAnn Rhimes, Reese Witherspoon, Hillary Duff, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Avril Lavigne- the list goes on and on.<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong-\u00a0 I love marriage.\u00a0 Hell, my love of writing about marriage played a large part in naming my blog Knotty Things, even though I don’t write about it as often as I used to.\u00a0 I think when done right marriage is the most amazing thing you can have in your life.\u00a0 But I also know a lot of things that make a marriage harder.\u00a0 And getting married super young is one really easy way to start off with a lot of extra hurdles to overcome.\u00a0 No one needs or deserves that.<\/p>\n
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This past week there has been a lot of talk online about Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi announcing their engagement.\u00a0 Yes, Jake is the son of Jon Bon Jovi, but that’s not the reason people are talking.\u00a0 The main conversation centers around Jake being only 20 years old, and Millie only 19. I agree with the majority of folks… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[24,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-its-all-love"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/flower-girl-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}