Did your parents "have to" get married?

Yes, he didn't want to marry her so it was a "shotgun wedding."

No, they were married 10 years before they had me.

Yes but not because of me.

No, but I was a 'mistake' - they only wanted 2, not 3. Does that count?

Did you have a bad daddy?

One day, I was looking through some of my parents' papers and found their marriage certificate. I had always believed that they were married a year before I was born, but it turns out they got married two months before I was born.

Yes, but not because of what you think. My mom got kicked out of her apartment by her roommates. She didn't want to move back in with her aunt's family, whom she'd first lived with after moving from her home state to the DC area. So she moved into an apartment with her new boyfriend. It was 100 percent chaste.

My grandmother called the DC area relatives and asked about my mom. A cousin let it slip that my mom had moved in with her boyfriend. My grandmother was shocked. For some reason, the cousin blurted out, "It's ok....they're getting married!" My grandparents booked a flight to DC right away.

When my mom found out her parents were flying in for her wedding, she asked her boyfriend of three weeks, "would it be alright if we got married?" He agreed, and they threw together a wedding with a few days notice.

They didn't become pregnant for another year though.

No, my mom wasn't a whore.

My parents are immigrants. My dad got a grad school scholarship and my mom demanded they get married if she had to go too

Yes because of my older brother. They’re divorced now and much happier

No, mine never married but can you imagine the shitshow?

My pregnant sociopathic mother being escorted down the aisle by my end stage syphilitic alcoholic grandfather. My budding hystrionic personality disorder aunt delicately doing lines as a bridesmaid. My Nana holding the actual shotgun that she had previously literally shot my father with. My 6 foot 6 inch uncle, recovering from his lobotomy.

The guests would include former patients from the mental hospital my mother had been committed to (and would be again) and my gay father's o so fabulous friends.

All presided over by my father in his best bridezilla meets mommy dearest cosplay.

Well damn your family is even more “colorful” than my crazy side. I feel normal now

You'd think we're southern r12!

Not my parents, but both sets of grandparents did. This was in the early 1900s.

Yes, due to my older sister. In seven years they had three kids then got divorced. My poor mom.

The opposite, I was the one child that wasnt planned. My mom called me the surprise baby. Unlike my older siblings, I am merely a result of my parent's lust. Gross.

My mother's mother was visiting for Thanksgiving Day when I was about 19 or 20, and the subject of my parent's anniversary came up. I had never given it much thought before, but it was something they never celebrated. My grandmother, ever so helpful said "Well Count!" I thought my mother was going to stab her with the carving knife! The big secret was OUT!

No. However they did “have to” get divorced.

My Mom kept a photo of my Dad back when she was only 14. She waited until he got out of the Army to follow through, and they remained married for over 50 years. When my Dad's Alzheimer's disease kicked in, he kept telling me he wanted to marry "that girl".

Yes, my oldest brother was conceived months before the wedding.. I was actually surprised that they indulged before marriage. She didn't seem "the type" and he was nothing special, so I never understood the attraction.

R20 "Nice" girls got horny back then too. My father knocked up my mother and 2 other women at the same time. I have 3 half siblings Ive never met . All 3 were "nice" girls. Dad was very handsome though.

Yes.

... parents?

No, and they didn't.

Make sure you do the math, kids

No my parents were surviving year eight of their 12-year unhappiness together when I came along. My elder brother had a different father and he was too when my father came along and adopted him. I don't think they actually tried having kids until they had me and then my mom had three more kids each coming along about 2 years apart the only the next one was the same father as me.

Though my mom was married four times me and my younger brother were the only ones whose father she ever married. Although she was married to a guy when my youngest brother was born he's not my brother's biological father but was listed as such on the birth certificate.

My mother wasn't pregnant when she got married, but she was pregnant with me the next month. I was definitely not planned. They had intended to start a family after 2 years. I'm sure people were whispering and counting days.

Yes. my parents "had to get married," and my mother hated me for it every year since then until 2 1/2 years ago, when she finally went "in the Home."

It is amazing to me, after all the bitter, evil, hurtful things she's said/done to me my entire life, how vapid she is now. Today, she won't remember what I said to her yesterday. In the evening, she won't remember if she had lunch. And emotionally, she's like a small child.

My youngest sister was spoiled rotten and was always her favorite. She refuses to say anything bad about my mother. I tell her, "We had different mothers," referring to the fact that not only was I the mistake the ruined my mother's life (according to her), but she was the baby of the family who got everything she wanted. My sister will never understand what it's like to have a mother who hates you and wishes you were never born.

My parents divorced, but they waited until the kids were grown and gone.

Thankfully, my mother is "up North," and I think I've visited her two or three times total in the last three years. I'm glad I live so far away.

Oh -- and R-C @ R13? I am so sorry for what you went through, but you do make my childhood seem positively normal. I guess there's always someone who's worse off than you if you look hard enough.

No, but my maternal grandparents did. She was 16, he was 15.

My husband's parents married just before his dad was deployed to Germany for a year in the National Guard (pre-Vietnam era.). Three months later, my husband's mom was able to join him in Germany to live with him for the rest of his deployment. My husband was born almost exactly 9 months after she arrived in Germany, so she must have gotten pregnant almost immediately after getting there. When I did the math, I said to them, "Well, you were apparently happy to see each other!" They laughed, but my husband was mortified that I said that out loud.

Not my parents but my aunt and her husband.

As a kid I never understood why my aunt hated my cousin just like R29. Individually, they were my favorite aunt, my favorite uncle and my favorite cousin and I was well into adulthood before I finally realized why they never seemed to like each other.

They are approaching their 60th anniversary but my aunt has been close to vegetative for the past 8 or 9 years. Uncle-with-a-heart-of-gold tries to take care of her in spite of his own multiple health issues so said cousin is primary caregiver (and exhausted). The youngest/golden child does very little in terms of elder care in spite of the fact that she's an actual nurse practitioner.

It's all kind of heartbreaking, actually.

R20 I think most couples, even back in the 50s, had sex upon engagement. The ones that made it to the wedding virgins were probably the minority.

Yes, because of my eldest brother. They had two more shortly after. Ten years after the last, they had me and promptly got divorced. Mother was naturally distant from me.

Yes. My mother was about two months pregnant with me when my parents got married. But they’d been dating for a couple of years.

R33? Show me the data.

R36 ever heard of the Kinsey reports? About half of the women reported to haveing premarital sex.

In the 50's?

[quote]About half of the women reported to haveing

Oh, dear!

R38 yes, when the Kinsey reports were published. Early 50s.

I think people have this naive idea that no one had sex prior to 1965 or so.

You were brainwashed by old tv shows and movies that portrayed a rather clean cut, chaste, and not very accurate lifestyle full of nice white people with neat hair going to church a lot and being polite and patriotic all the time.

There's a reason why there's so many birthday the last of September and first of October.

New Year's babies. Either planned or "oops!"

I was an "oops".

Parents married at the end of April so they were cutting it a bit close but they were both well into their 20s and by the early/mid 60s less need to rush.

My mother's mom tried valiantly to hide the fact. She usually recorded their wedding with the right date but the year prior to "legitimize" things.

my parents married vivian vance, seriously

No, my mom was chaste.

My mom said that many girls waited until marriage simply because the risk of pregnancy was great. "The Pill" wasn't approved in the US as a contraceptive until 1960. It had limited availability for menstrual irregularities in the late 1950s. Prior to that, there wasn't anything effective enough to stake your reputation on and women had to rely on men for birth control. Once oral contraceptives became widely available, the sexual revolution was on.

I think *maybe*, but not because of me.

Of course they did. There was a war on and my mother couldn't keep her legs together for five minutes.

I came 4 years after the wedding. My mom had get through most of her 20s and my parents had to get on their feet a bit, but I think they planned for me more than most things in their life.