Age Children Start Drinking

I asked two questions for this. It is become apparent that children are drinking at a younger age, but I want to see just how young people think this is. I have asked the question at what age did you start drinking, and at what age do young people start to drink nowadays. From these results you can compare the ages between the two diagrams, of the people who took this survey that they started drinking ranged from 12-18 (all still under the legal age). The age however that they think people start drinking now is 2 or three years younger, ranging from 10-15 (even younger than the legal age).

Images: Authors own

Growing Younger : Who Took This Survey

These two diagrams are the results of who from my network filled out my third survey. The same principles apply when looking at these two diagrams and the diagrams from 'Age to Have Children : Who Took This Survey'. I had a higher percentage of females, a wide spread age range but with a cluster in the lower region.

Images: Authors own

Growing Younger Concept

One of my three subcategories is Growing Younger, I just wanted to explain the concept behind this before posting my results, just to make it crystal clear. Growing Younger is the title I have given to the idea that children are growing up too fast and adults are infantilising. 

Oldest Age to Have Children

These are the results from my first survey looking at the other end of the spectrum of age to have a child. As you can see the oldest age that people want to parent varies to the age that they feel is acceptable. The number of ages covers the same range but people feel it is more acceptable to have a child 10 years later than they would personally go. The majority think it is acceptable to have children between 45 and 50, but when asked how old they would personally go they chose 35-40.

When asked if women who have passed the menopause should be eligible for IVF. Below are the results I gained. I was surprised that a quarter of these said it was up to the individual. However, in my qualitative data from opening this question further, many comments said that there should be an exception for women you have gone through the premature menopause, which I didn't state clearly in my question. Apart from this other people said that it is your bodies way of telling you your time is up and that it is selfish and unfair. Some interesting comments were surrounding the fact of funding, many said that IVF should be self funded instead of state funded unless premature menopause took place.

Images: Authors own

Youngest Age to Have Children Results

These are the results I gained from my first survey in regards to the youngest age to have a child. I asked parents or expectant parents when they had their first child, an non-parents when they would like to have their first if they do. I have put on the bar charts on the same axis to make it easier to compare the three. It is quite interesting to see the difference between the age that parents became parents to the age that non-parents would like to parent. You can see that people parent over a variety of ages, but most people want to parent (who are not already a parent) between 25-30. From the results in the bottom diagram I can see that the 'acceptable youngest age' to have a child ranges from 16-25.

Images: Authors own

Email Interview Response

I was able to obtain an response from the woman I came across on Mumsnet. It was beneficial to see results from someone who has experienced negativity due to her age. From talking to people and scanning through my 'Age to Have Children' survey, many have said that 20 is young, but not to young to have children. I wonder why she aimed such discrimination, especially from the older generations who previously were married with chidden at a younger age that the current generation. (You can click on the email response to zoom in.) It was interesting that her doubts about becoming a mum where more to due with her individual situation, not actually her age. She feels she received negativity due to the portrayal of 'youth' in the media 'We aren't all drunken, staggering idiots with ASBOs'. She gained abuse for 'being a drain on resources, getting pregnant just because I want a house'. Why though, just because you are younger does it mean you are starting a family for any other reason, that people who may be older? The interviewee said she even 'stopped wearing make-up and cut my hair' just to look older, to stop the discrimination.

Image: Print screen from personal email

Interview Via Email

After finding the above response on a mumsnet thread 'At what age do you think its 'socially acceptable' to have kids? I message the poster through mumsnet, she agreed to do a mini interview over email which i have just sent, I am just waiting for a reply.

Top Image: Print Screen: At what age do you think its 'socially acceptable' to have kids? (full thread) | Mumsnet Discussion . 2011. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1360858-At-what-age-do-you-think-its-socially-acceptable-to-have-kids. [Accessed 24 February 2012].

Bottom Image: Print screen from Email.

Young Models

These of course do not appear in every day life, but these models are extremely young in comparison to the market they are selling towards. Below, Elle Fanning is the face of Marc by Marc Jacobs. Is this a positive influence on children, does it push them to grow up faster to become more adult like, like the children in the photographs, or is it ok as they have children there own age as role models? 

Below Thylane Blondeau was photographed wearing heavy makeup and stilettos on animal print bed sheets for French Vogue. A provocative adult manner or a child dressing up? I have posted these two examples to my Facebook page, hopefully to gain some response. Click here to watch a video on the issue.

Top Image: Marc by Marc Jacobs Fall 2011 Campaign | Elle Fanning by Juergen Teller. 2011. [ONLINE] Available at: http://fashiongonerogue.com/marc-marc-jacobs-fall-2011-campaign-elle-fanning-juergen-teller/. [Accessed 24 February 2012].

Bottom Image and Video link: 10-Year-Old Model's Grown-Up Look: High Fashion or High Risk? - ABC News. 2011. [ONLINE] Available at:http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyResource/10-year-models-grown-high-fashion-high-risk/story?id=14221160#.T1D45ZjZOlI. [Accessed 24 February 2012].

Yahoo Answers

I am gaining some positive response through Yahoo Answers. This is also positive as it enables me to gain response from people I do not personally know and develop my weak-ties. This is the question I created and hope to get some response from:

Image: Print screen: How old is too old to have a child? - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers. 2012. [ONLINE] Available at:http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Apcjw9ocWfaZIhCPOXxM2fsgBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20120223154619AAImalc. [Accessed 23 February 2012].

Growing up too early

This from BBC News relates to my questioning into children growing up too fast. It says that from part of a government-commissioned research into the sexualisation of children, 9 out of 10 UK parents say children are growing up too quickly. Most parents had said that music videos and celebrities where encouraging children to act older. Nearly half were unhappy with pre-watershed TV 41% had seen programs on TV before 9pm that they felt unsuitable for their children and 40% surveyed said they had seen things such as advertisement and window displays in public places which they believed to be inappropriate for their child to see. Areas of concern included adult style clothing, toys and games which were also inappropriate for the younger generation. There were some interesting responses from this article:

When reading through the responses, I came across many saying that yes, children are growing up to quickly in the way they act, dress and behave. But many of the responses included opinions towards the fact that the older generations are becoming more infantilised, thus having an impacting effect on children growing up faster as the media aim towards this market with these 'adult' obsessions such as sex, drink and money. One other comment I found, which I totally agree with and reflects areas of my own personal opinions, that children are acting older but intact 'growing up' later as they leave it till later in life to take on responsibilities, marriage, jobs and independence etc.

Images: BBC News - Survey: Most parents concerned over child sexualisation. 2011. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13034053. [Accessed 22 February 2012].

Mumsnet

I came across this preexisting forum in mums net entitled, At what age do you think its 'socially acceptable' to have kids? This forum has gained a lot more useful responses to the talk I previously created. I will therefore be using the useful information from this talk. Here are some interesting posts I have come across so far. (click on each image to enlarge):

These three posts show the general thoughts of the forum within the topic of age to have children. That the correct age for different people varies, but the majority have similar concepts and opinions on different ages to have children. Most of the posts within this forum stated that it is down to the individual at the end of the day and their own experiences and own society. 

I found this post really upsetting, 20 from my results so far suggest that she is classed as a young mum, but not classed as too young. Why should she be looked down upon just because she is younger, this doesn't instantly make her a bad mother.


Images: Print screen from: At what age do you think its 'socially acceptable' to have kids? (full thread) | Mumsnet Discussion . 2011/12. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1360858-At-what-age-do-you-think-its-socially-acceptable-to-have-kids. [Accessed 17 February 2012].

Mumsnet Response

I managed to gain some response from women on mumsnet, all giving me valuable answers due to their own experiences. There was one issue though, I posted my thread under an elderly parent talk, so most of the responses came from the older mothers. However, there was a post that stood out to me by suggesting improvement for a future questionnaire (click on images to enlarge):

There were also many opinions in the view of the age of parenting, here are a couple:

I gained a few numerical facts from my mini survey, however most importantly I gained knowledge to improve. When designing new questions on this subject I will open up questions about people changing their mind once going through with it. I will also post my questions for a less biased group, or perhaps put the questions up more than once in different categories.


Images: Print screen from: Is Age Really Just a Number Survey... Please help me out! | Mumsnet Discussion . 2012. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/elderly_parents/1403664-Is-Age-Really-Just-a-Number-Survey-Please-help-me-out. [Accessed 11 February 2012].

Are Children Growing Up Too Fast?

This article is written about Primark selling padded bikini's to children as young as seven. Is it things like this which are causing kids to 'grow up' much younger, or are things like this occurring because children are 'growing up' too fast?

Image: Primark withdraws padded bikinis for 7-year-olds | Mail Online. 2010. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265873/Primark-withdraws-padded-bikinis-7-year-olds.html. [Accessed 11 February 2012].

Mumsnet

I have just joined Mumsnet. Here I created a topic to ask questions about the age of having children, hopefully I will get some answers. (I have made a few mistakes here, but these cannot be altered, I will just be more careful when creating an official survey).

Image: Print screen from: Is Age Really Just a Number Survey... Please help me out! | Mumsnet Discussion . 2012. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/elderly_parents/1403664-Is-Age-Really-Just-a-Number-Survey-Please-help-me-out. [Accessed 10 February 2012].