My first blog post! Being a Graduate and a Parent is hard.......ridiculously hard! We are living in an age where adolescence is being extended into our 20's and even our 30's! We're flying the nest later and later and taking on as little adult responsibility until as late as possible. If you read my "favourite" newspaper, The Daily Mail, (sarcasm) you'll find that the public is being lead to believe that Generation Y* just aspire to be Reality TV Stars and live off the bank of Mum and Dad, or even worse.....the Taxpayer!
On the flip side, we are currently in the worst global economic recession in modern history and the competition for graduate jobs is brutal! If you don't get a minimum 2:1 from a top 20 university then it's tough cookies! There's always the unpaid internship.....work for free or expenses paid doing the menial tasks that employees don't want under the promise of a potential paid position.....only to be shoved out and the next intern shoved in! The Graduate Unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2011 was 18.9%, not exactly promising......(The Guardian, 2011)
If that wasn't hard enough for 20-somethings in the current day, The Intergenerational Foundation found some pretty alarming statistics. Their research report, The Poor Perception Of Young People In The UK (IF, 2011), found that young Brits were perceived in a much worse light than their European counterparts. In a survey of social attitudes towards young people out of 29 European countries, the study found that:
British people in their 20's achieved the lowest scores of any country in relation to being viewed with respect.
On the flip side, we are currently in the worst global economic recession in modern history and the competition for graduate jobs is brutal! If you don't get a minimum 2:1 from a top 20 university then it's tough cookies! There's always the unpaid internship.....work for free or expenses paid doing the menial tasks that employees don't want under the promise of a potential paid position.....only to be shoved out and the next intern shoved in! The Graduate Unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2011 was 18.9%, not exactly promising......(The Guardian, 2011)
If that wasn't hard enough for 20-somethings in the current day, The Intergenerational Foundation found some pretty alarming statistics. Their research report, The Poor Perception Of Young People In The UK (IF, 2011), found that young Brits were perceived in a much worse light than their European counterparts. In a survey of social attitudes towards young people out of 29 European countries, the study found that:
British people in their 20's achieved the lowest scores of any country in relation to being viewed with respect.
British people in their 20's came near-bottom for being friendly, competent, viewed with admiration and having high moral standards.
In terms of contempt, British people in their 20's came first and in terms of pity, British people in their 20's came third.
When asked to rate overall how positively or negatively people felt towards those in their 20's, respondents from the UK gave its younger people the lowest score of any country, coming 29th out of 29 countries.
However the economic contribution of British young people in their 20's was recognised with the UK coming 13th out of the 29 countries surveyed.
The contrast between the low esteem that British people in their 20's are held in the UK compared to those aged over 70 years was also striking. The scores for those aged over 70 were in line with the average across all the countries surveyed
(IF, 2011)
So, is it really surprising that graduates just aren't planning on parenthood anytime soon? Should I really be shocked that society refuses to believe that I can be a good parent? I mean come on, I have to work for free for "X" months just to prove I'm able to do a job I've spent 3 years studying for!
I'm prepared to accept that being a parent in your early 20's is strange in the eyes of modern society, where the current trend is to delay childhood for the sake of careers and "stability" . The average age of becoming a mother is now 29.4 years in the UK (ONS, 2011), however the number of women becoming parents in their 40's has trebled in the past decade (Telegraph, 2013).
Our society likes to forget the biological fact that our bodies are at their reproductive peak in their early 20's. We are more fertile and energetic during this period, we're also at the peak of our physical health and sexual attractiveness. The risks of babies being born with abnormalities are also significantly lower during this life stage, about 1 in every 1,500 babies will have Downs Syndrome (BabyCentre, 2013). The risk of miscarriage is also substantially lower than other age groups and pregnancies are likely to be smoother due to decreased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and premature, low birth weight babies (BabyCentre, 2013). It is the biological norm.
One argument that really rattles my cage against parenthood in the early 20's is the idea that we are not mature enough to do what nature has perfectly designed us to do:
"Having a child can be tough on your relationship if you're younger. It's easy to feel like the early stages of a baby's life go on forever. This especially may be the case if your baby is a poor sleeper or cries a lot. An older couple, more experienced in life, may find it easier to keep these problems in perspective."
"In your 20s, as well as exploring your career, you may be enjoying lots of nights out, or carefree holidays. You may find you are simply unprepared for the sacrifices parenthood requires."
"Younger parents tend to be more laid-back about bad behaviour than older parents. This doesn't mean that the children of young parents are badly behaved. It’s just that some behaviour problems may be more common for younger families."
(BabyCentre, 2013)
As much as I love the BabyCentre website and I thoroughly recommend BabyCentre for your parenting needs, I found some of the contents Getting pregnant in your 20's, insulting, condescending and making a poor generalisation about young mothers. I find the implication that we are not mentally and emotionally ready to have a child and a stable relationship laughable considering that the 20's are biologically intended to be our reproductive and childbearing years.
Perhaps this again links to the poor perception of youth in the UK and the extended adolescence encouraging our generation to behave childishly and to be treated with incompetence. But whilst there are many graduates and youths falling out of clubs at 3am, I can assure you, some of us are tending to screaming babies! So in conclusion, is it weird to be a Graduate and a Parent? Nope.......but society really doesn't make it easy for us!
Generation Y's supposed Poster Girl (although I do love her! #guilty)
Kim Kardashian
