July 31, 2018

Why are baby brides and moms coming back?

by Flaunt Magazine

Sources have speculated that millennials are getting married older and having children in late adulthood. Yet it seems, with the recent trend of shot gun weddings and using babies as accessories, that officials have the millennial generation truly fucked up. As we look back to baby brides like Aaliyah who tied the knot at 15 years old to 90’s R& B sensation R. Kelly, who was 27 at the time. Later, in the early 2000’s, viewers were obsessed with 16-year-old beauty contestant Courtney Stodden, who married 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchison in 2011. With all of the limelight on the couple, Stodden appeared on numerous reality TV series such as Couples Therapy and Celebrity Big Brother.

Today, Ariana Grande and Hailey Baldwin are also setting the tone for baby brides, with their recent engagements to their fiancés who they have been dating for less than a year. Ariana is engaged to marry Pete Davidson (both 24 years old) and Hailey Baldwin (22) is engaged to Justin Bieber (24). Although they’re not considered teenagers anymore, compared to today’s standards, the majority of their millennial counterparts are just beginning their young adulthood with an enormous amount of college debt, wondering how they’ll be able to pay it off and live comfortably, while simultaneously trying to have a healthy social life.

Millennial, Baby Boomer, and Generation X parents dreamt of starting families, buying houses, and becoming completely independent at the tender age of 20. Today, the social constructs millennial women and men face are polar opposites. They have different aspirations of landing their dream careers, going to college, and having enough money to travel and live their lives before they settling down in their thirties.

This mentality might have something to do, subconsciously, with the growing population. Everyone knows of that one teen mom who had a child back home or the couple in college or the high school sweethearts. However, with the recent epidemic of young moms like Kylie Jenner and model Slick Woods, both under the age of 22, babies seem like a reaction to the technological fatigue of modern times. Are women going back to the baby boomer era where marriage and children meant a simple life, or are they associating becoming a mom or a young bride with social cachet?

Written by Adrienne Hayden