Marriage, divorce and millennials: teen pregnancy

Teen pregnancy. It’s never a phrase that’s spoken with any level of pride and rarely without notes of pity or derision. With young parents – especially mums – being looked down upon by society as a whole, those who fall into the centre of this Venn diagram are particularly poorly received. One high-profile example of this is Jamie Lynn Spears (mainly known as Britney Spears’ sister, but also a TV actress and reality star of shows like I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here). She became a mother at 17 years old in 2008 – herself a millennial – and was publicly shamed by many tabloids during her pregnancy and the subject remains fodder for media outlets to this day.

One way of mitigating the negative connotations of being a young mother is to get married. Marriage, as we’re often told by our neighbours across the pond, is the real foundation of a family, and faced with such an insistent narrative, it can be hard to decide against such a course of action. Grace, who we spoke to for some of the other articles in our millennial series, says this is exactly what happened to her. “If I hadn’t fallen pregnant there’s no way my (soon to be ex) husband and I would have gotten married. It was definitely a ‘stay together for the kids’ type thing.”

As we have written about previously, statistics show that fewer and fewer millennials (those between 28 and 43[1]) are getting married – but this is coupled with a rise in childless women. For those people who do wish to become parents, this decision comes with extra pressure and the complications of a modern society fuelled by the dangers of social media, a cost of living crisis and continued gender pay disparity. A marriage that’s based on a feeling of obligation or driven by societal pressures/expectation sounds like neither a good idea nor something that should take place in this day and age. The so-called ‘shotgun’ weddings are neither common nor expected in the Western world, but there still, unfortunately, remains negative social stigmas for many unmarried young millennials.

And it turns out that’s exactly the case. In recent years fewer and fewer teenage parents have chosen to get married. The myth of the nuclear family unit – one mother, one father, and however many children – being the best way to parent has become increasingly destabilised, which is good news for both those who choose not to marry and divorcees, not to mention the LGBTQ+ community.

As time has passed, we’ve learnt to uncouple parenthood and marriage and instead view each as distinct concepts which can but do not necessarily need to go hand in hand. On a final note, one statistic yet to be mentioned is that teen pregnancy rates in the UK have reduced dramatically in recent years. Times, and stereotypes, are clearly changing; millennials seem to be making safer, more informed choices about their family planning and sexual health, and those who do have children at an early age are not feeling the pressure of inherited stereotypes when it comes to marriage, although they may feel the pressures of modern life.

It can be helpful to have the advice and guidance of a family law expert if you are considering marriage or starting a family. Vardags has a dedicated team of highly-experienced family lawyers who are adept at providing tailor-made advice to meet your needs, as well as safeguarding and representing your interests in and out of court. We offer a free consultation with one of our experts, so please do get in touch with us to arrange a meeting.