WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Flyover Features: Why are 25 Year Olds Treated as Teen-moms?

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Emma and Sophia discuss an Evie article which questions why having a child at a young age is now considered so culturally shocking, in a world that claims woman are now independent and liberated. 

Welcome back to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.7 FM, a witty radio show where we discuss current events and culture through the lens of an article. I'm Emma Verini, and I'm here with Sophia Mant. Today we will be discussing an article in EV Magazine, surviving a teenage pregnancy at 25. I'm the victim of a teenage pregnancy. And by teenage, I mean 25. The author is, actually not listed or is she? It's not listed on what I have printed out. No. So they're anon, I guess. Yeah, it just says Evie magazine. A part of me wonders if that's because either it just doesn't show up on substack or Evie is a slightly controversial enough publication that perhaps the author doesn't want her name attached. That wouldn't shock me. Yeah, it's either that or she's revealing intimate details of her life and the people she's talked to and she doesn't really want to have that revealed to the entire public so anyway uh yeah i checked substack i got this actually in email i guess at some point i subscribed to this uh magazine and i looked everywhere i couldn't really

find the name of the author so we're just going to roll with it and um you know if the time comes where we have to correct ourselves about that we can do that i mean the stuff the thing i have printed out doesn't list the author so i'm not going to feel too bad if it's not credited because I'll just be like, well, if you wanted it to know that this wonderful article of all time was like, you know, written by this woman, you could have put her name on their Evie magazine. That is true. And this is probably, I feel like this is the first article we've done from Evie magazine. There are a lot more controversial than the other places we go with.

I mean, we've gone with like New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian. And then now we have Evie. Although I feel like Evie and Guardian are probably like around the same level of controversial. Yeah, but Evie's probably more so... Well, actually, you're right, but I don't know. Like, I feel like both Evie and Guardian are kind of controversial. They both probably done or said stuff a lot of people would find sketchy, but they're also... It's not like reciting, like, Infoars or like something that, like, would actually get is cancelled.

It's more so just like edginess. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, the joke of this article is obviously. that, or the point of this article is obviously that the threshold at which you are societably supposed to get pregnant has risen a great deal. Whereas in the 1950s, I think it was like 21, 22, the average age of your first pregnancy. Now it's risen to like 29, I think. Yeah. Oh, it was 28. Well, it's 28 marriage. And then, um, It's no, the average age of first time mothers in the U.S. was about 21, as you said. Today it's 27.5 and still climbing. And apparently in parts of Europe, the average is now over 30. For Italy and Spain, it's around 31 to 32 years. So versus 28.6 marriage for women, 30 for men used to be 20 and 22 in the 1950s, a different time. So, you know, that used to be the average. What can I say?

say um yeah and uh i was very confused when i read the title of this article surviving a teenage pregnancy at 25 because see i at first thought oh this is going to be a crazy article where she talks about how like my frontal lobes not fully developed i'm still a teenager i shouldn't have to have a child at this this this young age and i was like well i'm not i'm not going to like this article and then i mean oh she just means that more so when she mentioned she's pregnant people are like was it a surprise they'll say that to her in public because they're just shocked that she would willingly have a child and in a lot of ways I found this piece subtly rather depressing because the anon author we got an anoid based female author I guess what can I say

said that it's really sad how you know we talk all about oh girl bossing career you know sleeping with all these different people somehow that's this great empowerment and yet the things that make us most female, most women that are most unique to womanhood, are almost being diminished or seen as crazy in this day and age, this chaos. You know, having a baby, creating another human being, and loving and caring for this little one and bringing into the world, this seems like one of the things that makes one most female or is one of the biggest distinguishing factors. And yet people think that's insane as opposed to other stuff that's supposed to bring us

liberation and yet seems less natural or innate to a to a female and I'm not even being like oh anti-feminism it's bad it's just there's less things that are unique uh when it comes to just deciding to work it's like yeah men can do that too yeah men can do that too only women can you know hold a bear a child and bring a life into the world so there's there's something very dark about that and a lot of people I know would say I'm a bit crazy for this but there's there's something very dark I think about that and the rate of just also simultaneously using these technologies or techniques to delay pregnancy and then also to try and have children and the like I don't know it just seems like we're divorcing ourselves further and further from the natural world in a way that

bothers me and I'm I don't want to be like oh it's bad to like you know take any form of or stuff to make the birthing process less painful because I know it's painful and horrible but I worry we've gone too far the other way and I think especially it's just it's just sad too thinking about this divorce of woman man and women and how little we seem to think about these things now I think even the right has twisted and subverted these ideas when I remember how like God speaks to Eve and says in pain shall you bear forth children your desire will be for your husband and he shall rule over you. It's just these are very complicated, deep questions and it is sad to think about how even the

beauty of childhood bringing life into the world is to come with great pain and that woman's desire will be now for her overruling husband. And just from there the beginning, these images, these connections are marred. Yeah, I think that going back to your discussion of the technology that would been used to try to delay childbirth. I would argue less so that it's bad to do that. And I do think it is bad to do that. But more so that the problem with doing that is that it often has complications on its own. So you are sort of putting your faith into this technology and you're saying, okay, well, I can delay it because, well, I have freezing my eggs or sperm donor or

something like that. And there's no guarantee that that works. So you have a lot of people who are sort of banking on that sort of thing working, and it a lot of times doesn't pan out the way they thought it would. And I mean, the other thing is, the older you get, the more likely you are to struggle with infertility. And that's not true of just women. That is true of men as well. Their fertility starts to drop off in their 30s, just like women. And if you're, a 30-year-old woman looking for a man, you're likely not going to be looking for a 22-year-old who's most fertile. You're going to be looking for someone who's your own age. So you both are going to have those issues that you're going to have to deal with, the more you put that

sort of thing off. And that's not saying rush, but like it should be somewhere on the top priority list. It's scary, this kind of commodification of human life and human beings, I think, too. It's just it feels really sick and it really bothers me how simultaneously, like, there's all these unnatural means of trying to have children and this idea of oh certain way certain right and then also the rise of just you know abortion and women killing their babies it very much disturbs me um i'm kind of spitballing here a little bit but it's these ideas i've been thinking about for a long time because i feel like i just sense almost everyone has gotten these things these ideas these connections between man and women and the beauty of having a child and bringing life into the world

wrong or even Christians without realizing it have kind of reduced or oversimplified just how deep and incredible this understanding is and I just think this subtle way of how people are shocked and you want to have a child but less so when you know you have choices for other things your life ahead of you permissiveness never wanting to grow up I don't know it's it's it's sad and scary and it's strange because it's almost like it just feels like most people people, women too, have been divorced from an understanding of what beautiful things there are that make them unique and wonderful. And it does make me sad and feel disconnected even from other women who seem to not think of things in such that way. Yeah, it's just, it's very sad.

Yeah, I think you've touched on another big point of the article, which is that we as a society treat women like kids, but at the same time, women also want to be able to have all of the privileges of an adult. So they want all the licenses of childhood with all of the privileges of an adult. They don't really want to pick one side or the other. They want the best of both worlds. And so that goes along with the discussion of abortion. Women just, you know, treat abortion. like it's this light and airy thing like oh I get to go get an abortion and I mean that's not all cases there are cases where it's actually like a very serious consideration I will I will grant that for sure um but I mean just looking at the statistics it's like 95 to 99 percent of cases it's just for the sake of convenience it's it's sick to me it's that terrifies me that like I'm going to be honest because I know I have a different opinion obviously clearly than many women in women of the West or whatever I'm kidding or women of the U.S. Like the fact that so many women are that okay or that tolerant of abortion and aren't constantly disturbed by it, you know, maybe I'm crazy. But that single-handedly makes me feel more disconnected and less connected from just women, generally speaking. Well, it's because it just disturbs me so much.

Like, I just, if I were to bear a child, it's like, I must do everything I can to care for and protect this baby even before it's born. I want to eat as healthy as I can. I want to give this baby the best life. like even if it would change everything it's it's a human being it has this unique this baby has this unique genetic code i i can't it just it just scares me to think of that cruelty and heartlessness i mean i can't see it any other way i know lots of people don't see it that way but i i i don't care i do it's yeah it's they refuse to treat it like it's a grave issue and so it's childish like we talked about but it's also incredibly cruel and i think one of the the major impacts of the women's live

movement has been that we as a society have sort of torn the veil off and come to realize the cruelty that women are also capable of not just men yeah they scare me like people who just I mean I do think it's a men and women issue because like obviously a lot of men are permissive with abortion too but it just makes me feel like thinking about a child being aborted it's like your mother killed you it's just horrifying it's like the womb is where you know life is born where you know the savior of the world to me was you know created and and so many just just did not see it in that way and I remember the author also says how she embodied everything feminism said it wanted going to college earning postgraduate degree

big girl boss job parties traveled she even calls those things good and well but the one thing that makes me more of a woman than any of the others is now taboo, which is fascinating to me. You've been listening to Fly Over Features on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. So, yeah, it's very dark. Another thing that's fascinating to me is that she's 25. It's not like she's 20. You know, I can understand the reaction if she was 19 or 20, even then. personally I do not believe that that's that old to get pregnant if you're not pursuing a degree like a higher education um that's not that old but 25 is like three years out of college it's like

okay imagine you get married after you graduate and then you're married for two years after that that's like a completely reasonable timeline so like if 20 is too young, then when do we get to a point where it's not too young? Because, I mean, five to ten years later, we're getting into literal geriatric pregnancy timeline, you know? Yeah. Well, what's bizarre to me is I actually see where they're coming from when it's like, I'm actually not going to deny and say there's probably not truth to like, you know, if you have a child at 2021, your brain is not as developed as 25 or 26 and you might be able to be a better mom. at that age but it's hypocritical when thinking of how there's so many other things the same

people who would say that are permissive of like getting casual sex or reducing it to this thing between just flesh and fun when you know i don't think that's a i think that's a reductionist view of it it's something that i think has spiritualness in it okay that sounds a little loopy i know but like i do think there's something sacred or it's best enjoyed or best done in a certain context. And if you aren't seeing it in that way, that's kind of, you know, separating you from other things. And it's also bizarre, too, because it's like, you know, I really believe everyone views certain things as sacred and other things that others and everyone has almost this religion or defined as way of life or belief and practices of their own. And so I remember she said how

there's this young mom who had a social media account was talking about having kids and a comment said, this just gave me the ick, abolished religion. I'm so serious, he doesn't even have a frontal lobe that's developed yet, which got a ton of likes. But it's so bizarre because it's like, I get you're coming from. You don't agree with the beliefs she has that maybe is letter to have children. But it's such an ignorant statement to just claim to abolish religion because you have your own religion, your own beliefs instead of practices of what is right and wrong.

You just don't like the way that she's chosen to live her life. I like how it also mentions exactly what you said, which is that there are so many other things that we let people do when they're 25, like vote. Okay, if 25 is too old for a woman to, or too young for a woman to have a kid, then how is she going to be able to vote on issues that pertain to be,

a mother, which is, you know, probably one of the ultimate fulfillments, not the only ultimate fulfillment, but one of the, of being a woman, okay, how are you going to vote on issues that relate to that if, you know, 25 is too young? Okay, then maybe women who are younger than 25 shouldn't vote? No, exactly. It isn't consistent to specifically be against that. I actually think it's not totally off the wall to be like there actually could be some problems with being a mom very young relative to older when it comes to the mom's ability to mentally care for the child because there's wisdom and stuff you gain as you grow older but it's hypocritical and you're fine with all of these other things it is also strange too because i didn't realize i would think mention

abortion so much but i actually think it's relevant with this also and thinking about how you know like people say i've heard pro choice people claim that you know with abortion you're just advocating for something that's convenient um like a convenient group of people because, you know, they don't need all these things that people were already born in. I'm like, yeah, that's precisely why they're an inconvenient group of people to advocate for because they can't speak up for themselves. They haven't been born yet. And I also wonder if this altar of the mass acceptance of abortion has to do in part with how much it is inconvenient and contradicts kind of this libertine individualist way of wanting to do

everything on your own and only acknowledging someone is really human when they represent a certain sort of individualism that can express their thoughts and as an adult and the like yeah there's this italian song um about abortion that kind of speaks on this i think about how you claim to fight for all these injustices and things like that but you're also attacking you know ones that can't even speak and by the millions and it says you know you don't look good lying there in that trash bag what can you do there's a housing crisis out there my little doll you're already broken broken those who played around with your seed got tired of you this is not the right time they said to bring you into the world the party said no i'm so sorry little blue eyes cold little

hands you spent just two months in this world it was warm back in mom's warm womb there's an oil shortage going on you don't know but you're very important already in order to murder you they have gathered all the parties unions and that woman it's all right you won't have to call her mom you won't experience joys or sorrows you won't see those flags painted with your blood you won't have to say yes to those who lie to you. You won't have to gather signatures for abortion. You won't have to bring flowers to those who are already dead. Just a few cells, but eyes that are too blue. Yeah, I don't know. I just find that very sad because it's like, I'm not going to say a life in poverty or the like isn't hard and horrible and there's a lot of bad things

in this world, but there's something wrong when you just think that it's so not worth living, that it's somehow more merciful to kill a human being without acknowledging that they might be able to do something with their life or that there's value just purely by the fact that they're human and how there's clearly something unique about us when we look and we see what we are capable of and how we seem to relate to the world. That's all we have time for today. Thank you for listening to Flyover Features on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1 FM. I don't know. I don't know.

Thank you.