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from Baxter Friday, October 01, 2004 - 05:41 (Agree/Disagree?) What's the definition of confusion? Father's Day in the Family. Yeah, I know it's an old one! Anyway, I remember when I was about 14 onwards, there was this very bizarre trend that encouraged every one to get married at circa 16, which then created this whole new 'in crowd' of married people, a new claim to being cool, I guess. Being that I was younger than most, not very cool, and definitely not in with in crowd, I remember thinking that I was gonna be stuck in this fucking situation for the rest of my life. I guess it was pretty typical teenage angst, but the situation did not help shit. Fucking funny now when I go home, and look at all those people who got married. Jeez! What a nightmare! Thank FUCK I didn't fall down that hole! (reply to this comment)

From Friday, October 01, 2004, 10:35 (Agree/Disagree?) Wasn't that the "make it work" push? At an earlier point, I remember seeing a video showing Mikol (Juan's daughter) and her husband. They were supposedly a "good example," although she was pregnant and married at 14! What a load of twisted crap to feed to a 12 year old. (reply to this comment)

From Siolo Friday, October 01, 2004, 23:13 (Agree/Disagree?) Hey! In Mark and Mikol's defense, yeah they were too young to get married but you know all these years later they are still together, being normal and raising thier kids. How many other people, system or family, can you say that about? So in a way they are actually a better example of a 'real' relationship than most of us have ever seen. Just saying...(reply to this comment)

From Baxter Tuesday, October 05, 2004, 03:56 (Agree/Disagree?) Perhaps it's not my place to say this, but I wonder what sort of unnecessary problems they will have as parents that stem from the fact that they became parents at such a young age. I imagine issues have to appear on the radar at some point. (reply to this comment)

From Haunted Tuesday, October 05, 2004, 06:05 (Agree/Disagree?) Absolutely Baxter - I'm not saying that this applies to everyone, and as I don't know them certainly not the couple mentioned above, although I'd like to congratulate them on staying together this long. I think that there is a definate overwhelming majority of young people in the family that this has affected (among those who had children at a young age). I myself and many friends that I have had children while we were merely children ourselves, and yes, there are all sorts of issues that come with that. Above all there is the fact that we have no system or ideal of parenting to follow or draw from. Our parents are certainly not those we would seek out for parenting advise added to the fact that we had to go into adulthood while raising children. Yes, there are certainly many problem that could have been avoided had the cult cared more for our upbringing and less about creating a dependant class of SGAs who they hoped would be too frightened to leave because they had no idea how they would support their children out in the big scarey world - well, screw them, I know many who were courageous enough to accomplish this task (some with already large broods) - cheers to them all!!(reply to this comment)

From Phoenixkidd Monday, October 04, 2004, 15:20 (Agree/Disagree?) This is actually very very rare, so many of those young couples who got married ended up divorcing or in The Family would phrase it, "seperating". This is a modern world and getting married at age 14 or even for that matter 20 is just asking for a mess up in their family history. (reply to this comment)

From Sunday, October 03, 2004, 08:07 (Agree/Disagree?) Sorry, my comment was not meant to be an accusation of Mikol and Mark. I meant that it was awful to show TF "teens" (i.e. 12 year olds) how "sweet" and "loving" it was to get pregnant and married at 14. (reply to this comment)