What's a 'Hip Mama' To Do?

When I got pregnant at 18, so many of my feminist mothers were aghast. We did all this work, and this is what you choose? Single teenage motherhood?

After my daughter was born, folks assumed I was the nanny. I was good enough to care for her, but only as a member of the paid labor force. When I got pregnant again at 36, so many of my feminist mothers were shocked - but only because it had been so long. No one questioned my ability, my life-choice, my "future."

Now I have a career, after all. Now I have a partner, a house, a car. I just turned 37. My son is due this month. Folks congratulate me on the "better circumstances" of this pregnancy, and I'm silently insulted. Friends who know perfectly well that I have a nearly-grown daughter introduce me as a "future mother." As if my entire adult life up until now was irrelevant. My daughter's life sidelined - the stuff of secrets.

I have become the woman I always wondered about: The older mother, the partnered mother, the mother who has long-since finished college and grad school. Was she really more equipped? I had wondered.

Now I know. She is not any more equipped. The body is not made for pregnancy this late in life. Sure - it's doable. I encourage anyone who wants to breed to go for it. But if your body is anything like mine, the longer you wait, the more uncomfortable a pregnancy will be. Early parenthood? We'll see... At 19 I didn't need sleep. Now I need sleep. It's nice to have a little more money, a house and a credit card, but somehow I doubt that the baby will notice the difference. It's excellent to have a partner too, but the future - all of our futures - are unknowns. Life feels just as raw and complex as it did the first time around.

When I got pregnant at 18, so many of my peers looked at me with an air of superiority. They planned to wait. They planned to marry. They planned to make a big splash with their careers. My life was over, they seemed to think. At the time, I read that teenage mothers, when matched for economic class, actually did better over time than their "waiting" sisters. The statistic ran so contrary to popular belief that I hardly believed it. But - career-wise - I found it to be true.

When I got pregnant again at 36, a few of my peers admitted they were jealous. They had waited. They had not married. They had not made such big splashes with their careers. They still had time, certainly, but they feared single motherhood like some bitter plague or felt even less financially stable and "ready" than they had when we were young. A few years ago, my grandmother told me a secret: "I look old," she said. She was 85. "My body feels old. But a person's core never changes. At my core I'm the same as I was at 18."

I'm only 37, but I feel the same way.

Sometimes I think we're all just so afraid of life - of both youth and age. We're all so afraid of change, afraid to make choices, afraid to say this is the year. Sometimes I think we're all still afraid of how our feminist mothers will react. We're waiting for a core-change that doesn't come. We thought the years would bring a sense of security, a sense of clarity. But there is no year when a risk doesn't take courage.

Ariel Gore (www.arielgore.com) is the creator of Hip Mama: The Parenting Zine and the author of six books including The Mother Trip, Atlas of the Human Heart, and How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead.

~Ariel Gore