being a (relatively) young mother

Scrolling my Facebook feed nowadays feels like reading a parenting book.

The perk now is, most of my friends are at the same stage as I am - we got married sometime in these past 2 years, got pregnant, and delivered babies. I have friends being pregnant for the second one now; and even some already have 2 kids, and counting!

Really sucks when reality hits - I'm not that young anymore. But relatively, in parenting world, me (and my friends) are categorized as the "young mothers" - as people would call it.



So while we're dealing with our own insecurities (I know I am, every day when I wake up I wonder if I'm doing this right), we also have other people to point at what we do and tell us that "this isn't right, your child is doom".

At first, I just couldn't care less. I have my own insecurities, yes, and I've successfully occupied my time with it to actually bother about anything else. I think it's certified that parents have zero time for nonsense things - free time, for me, equals reading magazines I bought 2 months back or doing my Happy Planner or blogging or transferring the 2000+ pictures I have in my phone to my Macbook.

Even at the office, they were saying :

"How do you cope with parenting? You're so young!"

"28? But you look so young to have a baby!"

"You're so small, how do you carry your kid?"

"Sometimes I still forget you're a mother"

They say it's a compliment, but somehow it sounds like "you're too young to take care of a baby, how could you possible have a clue" or something along that line. I used to be bothered, but now not anymore - I guess having a super jovial baby has its perks; my time is spent just to look after him.

And recently, we have an intern which technically makes her around 20s. When we introduced ourselves (most of my female colleagues are in the same league as me - we have a baby under 1 year old), she was astonished. Never in a million years, she said, to have guessed we're all bearing children hahaha.

I believe that every person has his/her own parenting style, and that being young doesn't necessarily mean you're clueless and need others' guidance. I also believe in making mistakes and learning from them - that's how life works, anyway. People will point and say something which might be hurtful 70% of the time, but learn to work your way out from that unpleasant place and be positive instead.

A reminder for me, too.