9 Best Things About Being a Young Mom

I was 20 and had big plans. I had skipped a couple grades and had just graduated college a month before, and it was the second day of orientation at my first "big girl" job. My clothing was carefully selected and my hair was done up for staff pictures, and yet I spent the entire morning nauseous and hanging my head over the toilet in the women's bathroom. I wasn't hungover. I was pregnant. 

I just didn't know it yet, but at 5 p.m. that day, I would run by the drugstore and pick up a pregnancy test, and at 5:30 p.m., I would stare, silently, a little bit excitedly and a little bit fearfully as two pink lines appeared on the test on my bathroom counter.

I had my first child at two months after my 21st birthday. I had my second child a year later at 22. Was I foolish? Maybe a little.  Do I regret my choices that led to either of my children's lives? Not one bit. Being a young mother has entirely transformed my life in the sweetest way. It has its challenges, but believe me, it also has its perks.

1. At a young age, we grow up quickly. We don't have children to fix something in ourselves, but sometimes, the love we share with them stretches us, refines us, and smooths out all our rough edges. As a young mom, I knew the time to be responsible and get my life together was now — not one year down the road or five years down the road or even 10 years. It was now, and it was for my son, and let me tell you, he is more than worth it.

2. We adjust fairly easily. We may be young, but thankfully we haven't had enough time to become particularly set in any ways, so motherhood can be an easier adjustment.

3. We're used to late nights. While our peers may pull all-nighters partying or studying, we do the same, except ours are spent holed up in rocking chairs, humming and rocking in the quiet, to the late and very early hours of the night.

4. We have more energy. Theoretically, we're younger and our bodies can bounce back a little more easily than others. (And on the days when we are dragging, we run off a high tolerance for caffeine.)

5. We have more time with them. God willing, we get more time to love on our children, more time to grow old with them, more time to see them hopefully have kids, and then possibly more time to see our grandkids have kids.

6. We realize what truly matters from a young age. Suddenly the things that may have seemed so "big" before shrink down, and we're left staring into the late hours into a set of loving eyes, a tiny person breathing in heavy, contented sighs, and we realize that to them, we hung the moon, and to them, we are the entire world. Moments like those teach us what truly matters in this life — we just experience them a little earlier.

7. Our children can more clearly define our path. We're not knee-deep in careers. We're still just getting started in adulthood, and as our children teach us, grow us, and stretch us, they end up heavily influencing and directing our life's calling.

8. Even further, our children motivate us in our work and life. They become our inspiration to work harder, be better, grow stronger. Spending the early days of my career working with my children as my inspiration has, by far, been the most effective motivator of my life.

9. Ultimately, at our young age, they entirely change the course of our lives. Nothing has changed me more than learning to truly love another human, my child, completely and unconditionally. In the giving of that love, I have changed irrevocably. My soul is richer, my heart fuller, and my love freer. My children have made me this way, and no matter what challenges I may face as a young mother, I would never change a single thing.

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