"I want to be married"

[Booghierbaby]

My dd started this year too..she is 4.. Wanting to be married..AND to be the mom.
She mostly is "married" to the dog!
It's quite normal..and hilarious. She gets very upset when I tell her she has to be married first and then be a mom.

I cutout a few old spare wedding pics..one of myself a the bride and my husband as the groom..she loves to play with those..like paper dolls

[umphreysmommy]

My DD will be 3 next month and she has been obsessed with weddings for almost a year. We had to take down our wedding picture for a whole because whenever she saw it she would become hysterical that she wasn't in attendance!

She marries her dolls, talks about me and DH being married, plays wedding dress up and likes to talk about our friends who just got married in September.

She is SUCH a girly girl! Not sure where she gets it because I am not like that at all and we don't buy her overly girly toys or anything.

[NYCVeg]

Dd is 6 and a half and has never said she wants to get married. She has said that she DOESN'T ever want to get married, although that was in the context of "I want to live with you forever."

We work very hard not to glamorize weddings or to promote heterosexual marriage as the default. We never say things like, "When you get married..." or "When you are interested in boys..." We emphasize that dd can love whomever she chooses, male or female, that marriage is only one lifestyle choice out of many, and that she might choose not to be partnered at all. She sees many different kinds of families in her life--childless couples, gay couples, interracial couples, single-parent households--and we make sure that a diversity of families are also represented in the books she reads. I of course want her to grow up into happy and healthy relationships, however those relationships look, but I don't want to give her the impression that one kind of relationship is more desirable or expected.

[jennym91005]

Lol, my son wants to get married too. First it was to me, but now he wants to marry his sister, and live in our basement........ Forever........

[songbird516]

Sounds like you're doing a good job giving her some perspective

Originally Posted by Kiliki My DD loves the thought of getting married, too. I think it's normal. I'd say for us it started somewhere in her 4th year. Somehow we managed to avoid it till then. She loves the idea of dressing up. And I think she is starting to get a grasp on romance (she will be 6 next month) and of course, that is glamorous and exciting! We try to encourage her to think in broader terms. First, we tell her she has a lot more growing up to do, and a lot to learn about the world before she can think about getting married. Then, we tell her that when she turns 25, we will help her find a good man to marry if she still feels like she wants to get married. (Obviously, there's nothing we can do once she hits 18 yrs old, but hey, we can hope!) And we also try to show her the down side of being married and having kids. Yes, its fun and babies are cute, but there are a lot of responsibilities that come along with it. There are a lot of things you can do that are exciting and fun when you are NOT married, that are much harder to do when you are married. I think she has a pretty good grasp on it. She's pretty mature for her age, but she sometimes will say, "I am not sure if I want to get married or not. I have a lot to learn first!" LOL This is an ongoing dialogue in our house. She recently grasped the idea that she can't marry someone she's related to. ... and in the car, she asked, "Mom, am I related to ______ ?" I said, "No, honey." ... I totally saw where this was going.... Then she said, "Hmmm.... Maybe I might want to marry him when I grow up." And I thought DH would crash into a tree. LOL It was hilarious.

[steely_cass]

DD is obsessed with marriage as well. She's 5 and has been interested in it for the last year or so. She first wanted to marry my DH (then DB) but I told her that I claimed him and she needed to pick someone her age. The boy she picked has agreed.

We've told both of them they might change their minds before they are old enough to get married, but they insist, lol. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

[rverrone11]

My 2.5 year old DD has been talking about marrying people for the past few weeks. We went to a birthday party this past weekend, and DD has been saying "I'm going to marry [birthday girl]. She is my best friend."

My 5 year old DD started talking about marriage when she was 4.

[songbird516]

Originally Posted by NYCVeg Dd is 6 and a half and has never said she wants to get married. She has said that she DOESN'T ever want to get married, although that was in the context of "I want to live with you forever." We work very hard not to glamorize weddings or to promote heterosexual marriage as the default. We never say things like, "When you get married..." or "When you are interested in boys..." We emphasize that dd can love whomever she chooses, male or female, that marriage is only one lifestyle choice out of many, and that she might choose not to be partnered at all. She sees many different kinds of families in her life--childless couples, gay couples, interracial couples, single-parent households--and we make sure that a diversity of families are also represented in the books she reads. I of course want her to grow up into happy and healthy relationships, however those relationships look, but I don't want to give her the impression that one kind of relationship is more desirable or expected.

While I agree that glamorizing weddings isn't the best way to go, because it's just the beginning of a relationship that takes hard work, but since we are Bible students and believe that God has the right to tell us how to live and be happy, we will make it clear that His arrangement was that men and women marry and have children. Others can make their own decisions, but we support the moral code that is in the Bible.

I do think that the wedding hype is getting out of control. I can't imagine spending over 1000$ on a wedding dress, and I LOVE to dress up. Now, on TV, if you go into a shop with a budget less than 2000$ they act as if there is NOTHING that is going to work for that amount of money. It's a little ridiculous.