20SomethingMom chronicles of a young mom

Life, InterruptedPosted by admin on October 30th, 2009

When you get pregnant at a “young age,” the world stops turning. At least, that’s what everyone expects it to do. As I watch my baby approach his second birthday, I’ve been reflecting upon my pregnancy and how my life might have played out had I not been blessed with the very best of interruptions. Here’s what I imagine it would look like:

• I would still think parents are not human. I think we all hold our parents to impossible standards, and only when we are forced to make the day-to-day decisions that form a person do we understand what they went through for us.
• I would not have slowed down after graduating from college. I would likely have jumped into a 9-to-5, something I’m not cut out for. Now, I have the luxury of setting my own schedule and spending quality time with the most important person in my life. When I take the next step on a career path, I’ll be ready for it.
• I would never have found the gray area in everything. When you’re dealing with a developing person, you realize that growth, interaction, and love are not linear. There is always a different way to do things, and no one way is correct.
• I wouldn’t have as great an appreciation for my Spanish language skills. There’s a huge difference between speaking a second language in a professional or academic capacity and using it every day with a baby. I have learned so much about my abilities, and become fascinated by the process of language acquisition. 
• I would not smile as often as I do with a child around. Babies, and especially toddlers, have a knack for making frustrating moments funny. It is literally impossible to not smile when your little one says “mama” or puckers up for a wet kiss.
• I would still be wondering when I would have a baby, and feeling like I hadn’t fulfilled my purpose. For some people, having kids is something they imagine doing in another lifetime, once they grow out of the young adult phase. For me, it was a goal in itself from the time when I used to line my dolls up on the couch and read to them. Nothing feels more natural to me than being a mother.

Having a baby is just part of life — an event that holds down the fast-forward button rather than pressing pause. No matter if you are 20 or 40, a newborn’s arrival could be seen as a disturbance, but so could a job loss, a move, a death, or any number of significant moments. If we think about a baby as an interference in our well-laid plans, we won’t be open to the surprises it brings. 

And I don’t just mean surprises of the dirty-diaper variety. For me, the greatest surprise has been how watching my son grow has inspired me to go back to school and pursue things beyond motherhood, to question who I thought I was. He has pulled me out of my comfortable place in the mud, without saying a word. Everyone should be lucky enough to experience this: being blindsided by a change so human, we could never have created it with mere ambition.

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