little bit.
Parenting brought new challenges, pleasures and surprises all the time. Bentley was just a summer and change away from turning two, which opened up our life to a little more variety. He was getting to the point where I could take him to the playground and push him on a swing and run around. There was no shortage of fun or cuteness. But again, your child can’t be your best friend. At least, especially not at that age. It’s not as if there’s room for real conversation with a kid so small. It was always fun and rewarding to run around the park and play, and it was a happy distraction from the things that were troubling me. But at the same time, I couldn’t shake the melancholy feeling that it shouldn’t have been just me and him. My relationship with Kyle was not in any way a magical solution. We were off to a great start, but for the time being, there was still a void and an ache I felt when I had to remember I was still on my own in the parenting game.
It’s almost impossible to be a teen mom without feeling lonely. Forget about Ryan. What about friends? None of mine had kids, so I couldn’t bond with them as far as that was concerned. Our interests had split off in different directions so severely it was like a continent breaking in half. They couldn’t relate to what I was going through, and I had a hard time relating to their priorities. What typical teen girl wants to talk about babies and responsibilities all the time? And what’s important to them that’s also important to a teen girl with a child? Growing up too fast is always lonely.
When I did meet women who had toddlers of their own, they were around my mom’s age. That came with its own kind of awkwardness. I liked hanging out with people who were older than me, but I didn’t want to feel like the baby of the group. Especially not in a group of moms. Women my mom’s age saw me more as a daughter than a peer, and I was wary of being patronized or reminded of my age all the time. There’s a reason you don’t see many unmarried nineteen-year-old girls hanging out with a bunch of married couples with kids. The fact that I had one of my own didn’t make the generation gap disappear. This is just one more way in which being a teen mom can be an incredibly isolating experience.
Sometimes I felt like I was missing out by not having any “mommy friends.” But at the same time, moms in groups can be so judgmental. Anyone who has read the comments on any parenting article or heard about the “mommy wars” that rage online has seen as much. No matter how well you raise your kid, there will always be another parent chiming in to tell you you’re on the wrong side of one issue or another. There’s a fierce debate attached to just about every parenting decision, from breastfeeding to discipline to bedtimes to school lunches. It is literally impossible to avoid it. Get any group of moms together and there will almost always be some degree of side-eye in the room.
Plus, hanging out with other moms means dealing with their kids. And yes, I had my own opinions, too. Just because I keep them to myself doesn’t mean I’ve never judged anyone else’s parenting style. I’ve always been a no-bullshit kind of mom. I tried really hard to never let Bentley act like a moron or act up in public. I’ve also never been super overprotective. The way I was raised, and the way I raised him, kids were disciplined but still given the freedom to run around and learn things independently. If Bentley wanted to climb up on top of something and wouldn’t listen to me when I told him it was a bad idea, I’d let him figure that out for himself. As long as I didn’t see any real danger or risk of injury, it seemed more sensible to let him fall and learn from the mistake. That’s just my approach. It’s pointless to try and raise a kid in a bubble, and I feel it would just make it more difficult to learn his way around the world by using his own head. On the
Parenting brought new challenges, pleasures and surprises all the time. Bentley was just a summer and change away from turning two, which opened up our life to a little more variety. He was getting to the point where I could take him to the playground and push him on a swing and run around. There was no shortage of fun or cuteness. But again, your child can’t be your best friend. At least, especially not at that age. It’s not as if there’s room for real conversation with a kid so small. It was always fun and rewarding to run around the park and play, and it was a happy distraction from the things that were troubling me. But at the same time, I couldn’t shake the melancholy feeling that it shouldn’t have been just me and him. My relationship with Kyle was not in any way a magical solution. We were off to a great start, but for the time being, there was still a void and an ache I felt when I had to remember I was still on my own in the parenting game.
It’s almost impossible to be a teen mom without feeling lonely. Forget about Ryan. What about friends? None of mine had kids, so I couldn’t bond with them as far as that was concerned. Our interests had split off in different directions so severely it was like a continent breaking in half. They couldn’t relate to what I was going through, and I had a hard time relating to their priorities. What typical teen girl wants to talk about babies and responsibilities all the time? And what’s important to them that’s also important to a teen girl with a child? Growing up too fast is always lonely.
When I did meet women who had toddlers of their own, they were around my mom’s age. That came with its own kind of awkwardness. I liked hanging out with people who were older than me, but I didn’t want to feel like the baby of the group. Especially not in a group of moms. Women my mom’s age saw me more as a daughter than a peer, and I was wary of being patronized or reminded of my age all the time. There’s a reason you don’t see many unmarried nineteen-year-old girls hanging out with a bunch of married couples with kids. The fact that I had one of my own didn’t make the generation gap disappear. This is just one more way in which being a teen mom can be an incredibly isolating experience.
Sometimes I felt like I was missing out by not having any “mommy friends.” But at the same time, moms in groups can be so judgmental. Anyone who has read the comments on any parenting article or heard about the “mommy wars” that rage online has seen as much. No matter how well you raise your kid, there will always be another parent chiming in to tell you you’re on the wrong side of one issue or another. There’s a fierce debate attached to just about every parenting decision, from breastfeeding to discipline to bedtimes to school lunches. It is literally impossible to avoid it. Get any group of moms together and there will almost always be some degree of side-eye in the room.
Plus, hanging out with other moms means dealing with their kids. And yes, I had my own opinions, too. Just because I keep them to myself doesn’t mean I’ve never judged anyone else’s parenting style. I’ve always been a no-bullshit kind of mom. I tried really hard to never let Bentley act like a moron or act up in public. I’ve also never been super overprotective. The way I was raised, and the way I raised him, kids were disciplined but still given the freedom to run around and learn things independently. If Bentley wanted to climb up on top of something and wouldn’t listen to me when I told him it was a bad idea, I’d let him figure that out for himself. As long as I didn’t see any real danger or risk of injury, it seemed more sensible to let him fall and learn from the mistake. That’s just my approach. It’s pointless to try and raise a kid in a bubble, and I feel it would just make it more difficult to learn his way around the world by using his own head. On the
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