In January 2008, I was 35 years old, or 245 in dog years. I was a lawyer, a wife, a stepmother, a homeowner, an agnostic and aGrey’s Anatomy fan. I was also about to become a mother. Sixteen months after I married my husband, I was eager to meet my son. So was everyone in my family. I had sorely tested their patience by waiting so long to have a baby — you could almost hear the collective sight of relief when my husband and I announced I was pregnant. Everyone was far too polite to say anything directly, but I got the sense that some of my nearest and dearest thought I was pushing my luck. I was on the verge of becoming the career woman who waited too long to have a child only to find that she couldn’t. As if I hadn’t considered that already.
In addition to the general societal disdain, mistrust and pity for childless women, every so often, panic seems to hit the Internet, warning women of the dangers of waiting too long to have children. Have babies in your 20s or risk never having them at all! Don’t look back on your life with regret, have kids now! If you wait too long to have kids, you’re putting them at risk for all sorts of health issues with your degenerating eggs! It’s horrifying. It’s not that there isn’t a bit of truth in these stories. There is a reason my OB, who is remarkably chill, classified me as a “high risk” pregnancy because of my age and why my friends and I talked about the rates of autism and Down syndrome for the children of older mothers at the same time I was shopping for baby clothes. It just seems to me that the panic misses the bigger picture — that there are good reasons to delay having children.
As someone who conceived later than I apparently should have, I’m relieved I didn’t let those messages scare me into doing something I wasn’t ready to do. Not that this was completely up to me. To be honest, I didn’t have a ton of baby daddies waiting in the wings. But if I had succumbed to the pressure, I might have married a guy I shouldn’t have or gone the single-parent route before I was ready so I could ensure I made the most of my fertility before the clock struck 30. One night in law school, I informed my father that if I hadn’t met someone by the time I was 35, I would have a baby on my own. I met my husband at the ripe old age of 34 — just in time to save myself from sticking to my declaration. I may have staunched the panic, but I would have missed my life, and, it turns out, it’s a good life. Lucky for me, I didn’t have any trouble getting pregnant either, although this isn’t the case for everyone, regardless of age. I had friends who struggled with infertility in their 20s and others who faced it in their 30s — there are no guarantees.
It’s not that I didn’t feel the pressure or understand the potential risks of waiting to have kids. There were times I felt left out. I worried I would never meet someone I wanted to have children with or if I did that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant. (The owner of a local rug shop who tried to set me up with his grandson seemed to think I'd be just fine, telling me I had "good birthing hips.") I questioned if I could or should adopt. I wondered if I would ever have the one thing I thought would complete my life and yet was in large part out of my control. I had my career, my friends, my family and a life I was proud of, but something felt like it was missing. I cried some.
I understand the fears, the anxieties and the mounting uncertainty of being childless and pushing 30 or, gasp, 40. Despite all that, I’m glad I had my son in my mid-30s. As worried as I was, I wasn’t ready to become a mother one moment sooner than I did.
Having children is so much harder than I expected. I love my son beyond imagining, but there are days I wonder what I have gotten myself into. I have stumbled through the day in a fog of sleep deprivation, forgotten what time to myself feels like, sacrificed independence and financial freedom, and listened to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" often enough to make me question my sanity. I have never once doubted my decision, but having a child changed how I think about my work, my goals and even my sense of self. Even with the benefit of a loving partner, financial stability, a supportive family and 35 years of life experience, this parenting thing is tough, and I’m glad it’s not something I’m doing simply because I was trying to beat a clock.
None of this is to say that young women can’t be wonderful mothers. I know people who had kids in their 20s and they are thriving and so are their kids. They’ll also be empty nesters when my kid is still in elementary school, so it’s possible they’re smarter than I am. Still, if I could go back and tell my twentysomething (and even thirtysomething) angsty self one thing, it would be this: It’s OK if you wait to have children.
Wait until you’ve lived, achieved, traveled, met the right person or decided you never will and are ready to go it alone, but do not be bullied into having babies. It’s OK if you don’t have kids yet because you want to be young and unconstrained or if things just haven’t worked out for you yet. (It's also OK if you decide not to have kids at all.) Stop freaking out. Don’t feel the need to explain. If there are things you want to do, do them. Work crazy hours, get the dream job, quit the job and travel, go back to school, party like the world is ending, fall in love more than once, break up, get married or don’t, sleep late and live. Don’t have kids because your parents suggest it, your doctor scares you or the Internet decides that 30 is the new 50. Don’t rush into a lifelong commitment because you are worried or afraid or want to fit in. Ignore the voices in your head that say you will be alone or lonely or incomplete. Ignore the voices in the media that tell you to hurry up. Doing anything out of fear is a bad idea; having children before you’re ready because you’re afraid that it’s now or never is a recipe for disaster of Titanic proportions.
Parenting, in part, is a process of traversing the unknown. It is equal parts sacrifice, fear, uncertainty, exhaustion, and yes, unfathomable joy. You have to want to be a parent in your bones— out of desire, curiosity, love and excitement — and you can only do it when you’re good and ready. You can’t insist on it now because you’re scared of the alternative. Once you’re a parent, there’s no going back. Your life will never be the same. So take your time, invest in yourself. You have plenty of time to invest in diapers and a college fund later.
Credit: Cosmopolitan.
great read
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