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Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is editor-in-chief of Catholic Digest and Faith & Family. She is author of My Cup of Tea, Mom to Mom, Day to Day, and most recently Small Steps for Catholic Moms. Though she once struggled to separate her life and her …
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Rachel Balducci

Rachel Balducci
Rachel Balducci is married to Paul and they are the parents of five lively boys and one precious baby girl. She is the author of How Do You Tuck In A Superhero?, and is a newspaper columnist for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. For the past four years, she has …
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Lisa Hendey

Lisa Hendey
Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com and the author of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms and The Handbook for Catholic Moms. Lisa is also enjoys speaking around the country, is employed as webmaster for her parish web sites and spends time on various …
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Arwen Mosher

Arwen Mosher
Arwen Mosher lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband Bryan and their 4-year-old daughter, 2-year-old son, and twin boys born May 2011. She has a bachelor's degree in theology. She dreads laundry, craves sleep, loves to read novels and do logic puzzles, and can't live without tea. Her personal blog site …
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Rebecca Teti

Rebecca Teti
Rebecca Teti is married to Dennis and has four children (3 boys, 1 girl) who -- like yours no doubt -- are pious and kind, gorgeous, and can spin flax into gold. A Washington, DC, native, she converted to Catholicism while an undergrad at the U. Dallas, where she double-majored in …
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Robyn Lee

Robyn Lee
Robyn Lee is a 30-something, single lady, living in Connecticut in a small bungalow-style kit house built by her great uncle in the 1950s. She also conveniently lives next door to her sister, brother-in-law and six kids ... and two doors down are her parents. She received her undergraduate degree from …
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DariaSockey

DariaSockey
Daria Sockey is a freelance writer and veteran of the large family/homeschooling scene. She recently returned home from a three-year experiment in full time outside employment. (Hallelujah!) Daria authored several of the original Faith&Life Catechetical Series student texts (Ignatius Press), and is currently a Senior Writer for Faith&Family magazine. A latecomer …
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Guest Bloggers

Kate Lloyd

Kate Lloyd
Kate Lloyd is a rising senior, and a political science major at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. While not in school, she lives in Whitehall PA, with her mom, dad, five sisters and little brother. She needs someone to write a piece about how it's possible to …
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Lynn Wehner

Lynn Wehner
As a wife and mother, writer and speaker, Lynn Wehner challenges others to see the blessings that flow when we struggle to say "Yes" to God’s call. Control freak extraordinaire, she is adept at informing God of her brilliant plans and then wondering why the heck they never turn out that …
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More on Marrying Young

A personal reflection

Needless to say, I’ve been following the comments on Rebecca’s post from earlier this week with much interest.  I don’t have much to add to the arguments - I think Rebecca’s elegant thinking and concise writing have covered pretty much everything I’d say on the topic - but because I have had the experience of marrying at an age that this culture considers very young, I’d like to share my story, just to add my own personal perspective to the heap.

When Bryan and I, ages 21 and 19 at the time, let my parents know that we had discerned a vocation to be married to each other, they said, “Great!  If God’s calling you to get married, do it sooner rather than later!”

I thought, It is encouraging that my parents are so enthusiastic and supportive.

In the coming months I would learn just how rare and counter-cultural their reaction was.

I had always known that people in our society are against marrying young, but until I experienced it personally, I never understood just how widespread and deep-seated that prejudice is.

I don’t think I’m speaking too strongly when I call it a prejudice.  I cannot tell you how many people - near strangers who knew next to nothing about Bryan’s and my courtship, our discernment process, or the nature of our relationship - expressed the very strong opinion that we were making a mistake, simply because of our ages.  One man at the place where I was working that summer, after having grilled me and determined that he couldn’t convince me to change my mind, said resignedly, “Oh, well, I guess it’ll make a good first marriage for you.”

A good first marriage!  If I’d thought he was right, that certainly would have convinced me not to go through with it.

There can be real objections to a couple marrying, of course, true objections that have to do with the emotional and spiritual lives of the couple and their suitability for one another.  Ideally, spiritual directors, loving family, and close friends should be able to raise these objections in a charitable way if a couple is making a bad decision.

When Bryan and I were preparing for marriage, we were open to hearing real objections from those who knew us, if they had them.  But ultimately the only objection anyone offered - and it was not the people close to us who did this - was the information on our birth certificates.  Arbitrary as that is, it was not a true objection.

Fortunately, Bryan and I had discerned carefully, received God’s message clearly, and were strong in our conviction that we were following his will in our lives.  We had the support of my parents.  Once they determined that we really couldn’t be convinced to wait a year or two, we had the strong support of Bryan’s parents as well.  We had plenty of loving family and friends who were happy to celebrate the joining of our lives with us.  We were blessed.

Sometimes - usually at 1:00am when I’m battling insomnia - I get the horrible shivery “what ifs.”  As in: what if things had been different, and Bryan and I hadn’t had the strength and support to get married when we did?  We wouldn’t have made it if we’d tried to wait another couple years to get married, and if we had, we would have begun our marriage with another two years of baggage and minus two years of matrimonial grace.  Who knows what our relationship would look like now?

Because of our decision to marry when we did, Bryan and I have received an incredible amount of grace and blessing in our lives.  We’ve come from college into adulthood into parenthood together.  We’re best friends.  We’ve developed conflict resolution strategies and crisis-management strategies, and we’re a great team.  At the ages of just 26 and 27, we’ve got more than half a decade of marriage under our belts.  If we hadn’t dared to be counter-cultural and marry “very young,” we wouldn’t have enjoyed all these years of weathering life together, and we wouldn’t have the lovely anticipation of many more decades… at least not with each other.

This is why I’m all in favor of encouraging other people to marry young if that is where God is calling them.  Who knows what God’s will might be?  For us, following his will meant getting married at 19 and 21.  I’m so glad we did!


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