Since middle school, I’ve known I wanted to start young. At 12, I met my husband, and at 14, I decided he was the one. We officially starting dating when we were 16 and at a mere 18 years of age, we stood at the altar and said I do.
That was April. In August, during a vacation to Florida, I spent a week wanting to (in the nicest way possible) kill my husband for no apparent reason, and it was then I knew something major was up with my hormones. Immediately, the pregnancy test came up as positive and our journey into parenthood began.
Six days after I turned 20, my sweet little boy was born. Twenty two months later, we welcomed a baby girl into our family, and today I am sitting at my desk with a 6 month old ball of chub at my feet chewing on a truck while her 2.5 year old big brother snoozes away–praise Jesus!
It’s been a wild ride full of tears and poop and sleeplessness, but I am utterly thankful for my little family. Many say 20 is too young but I can testify otherwise…
Here are 20 reasons (both serious and completely trivial) why having babies at 20 is the best:
- You have energy to chase them.
Chasing kids is exhausting. Right out of high school I was working two almost full time jobs where I was on my feet moving, and I totally thrived–endless energy was my thing. And yet chasing my toddler exhausts me. Just as I don’t have the same energy as my 2yo, 30 year olds don’t have the same energy as a college-aged student. - All your siblings are young and have energy to chase them.
You’re going to want to take advantage of the time your siblings have with your kids. When my son and his uncles are together, they don’t stop. They wrestle and chase each other and sword fight and I am left wiped out just watching; trust me, having young siblings with the energy to keep up with your young kids is a major advantage. - Your parents are young (right??) and have energy to chase them.
Grandparents are the greatest thing but let’s be honest–kids can be really tiring. Seeing a theme here? I chase my son incessantly and I am tired. This “energy to chase them” thing is very real for me, okay? I can’t imagine doing this full time ten years down the road! - You don’t run in circles where you feel the need to “have it all together.”
When you’re twenty, you probably have friends who have $2 left in their bank account after a car repair rather than friends who wear designer suits as they fly to Manhattan for business meetings. When you’re part of the $2 bank balance camp, the people around you are also still growing and building their adult lives–you don’t have the same pressure to be established and perfect like you might if you were ten years older, which is a huge advantage to you because the challenges of being a new mom does not discriminate based on age. - There’s a lot of people out there who want to help.
This could be because they feel bad for you or expect you to fail–at some point we should acknowledge that much of modern-day society views having kids before 28 as an “oops” moment–but most people really genuinely just want to bless you. They know you’re still establishing your home/career/marriage/finances.
- Your friends don’t have kids but (probably) love them and (probably) love to watch them.
Do I like to watch other people’s kids? After spending all day as a human jungle gym (who, I might mention, is probably covered in spit up and pee) uhh, I actually don’t really. I adore my friend’s kids but I am kid-ed out. My childless friends, however, would do anything for baby snuggles and I am oh so happy to share my baby. As you get older, more people around you are married with kids, and these friends start to slowly evaporate. - There is less financial pressure.
Because everybody knows when you’re twenty you’re hardly rolling in the dough. Expectations are silly but they’re real and when you’re still “trying to figure life out” it’s a huge blessing to take a little pressure off. - Your body handles pregnancy better.
According to a sociologist at the University of Texas in Austin, late teens and early twenties are “best biologically” to have a baby because your reproductive system is at its peak and oocytes are fresh. Fun stuff. - Your body recovers from pregnancy better.
There were definitely extraneous variables here, such as my insane toddler, but recovering from my second pregnancy felt far more difficult than my first and I am sure part of it simply came from being two years older. At twenty, I was back in my pre-pregnancy jeans on the way home from the hospital. At twenty two I was not, although yes, extraneous variables. We all have different body compositions, of course, but I think we can all agree that you’re going to have an easier recovery at 20 than at 35. - Everyone thinks you’re 10 years older.
In the military world, married with kids at 20 is normal life, but in the civilian world, we’re super weird and people who are not familiar with military childbearing ages (hah) definitely guess, at the very youngest, late twenties. Obviously because we’ve mastered the art of appearing mature. Obviously. - You prioritize earlier.
Unfortunately, it is not unusual for twenty year olds to spend their time accruing massive amounts of debt, partying their brains out, and generally participating in activities that have no benefit to their future whatsoever. Not so when you are a parent! We were given no opportunity to partake in futile pursuits and we had no choice but to prioritize our lives early, which will never leave us regretful. - You have an automatic and deep connection with a massive group of people (other moms.)
Adulthood can be lonely but when you’re a mom, there’s always something to talk about–your sweet, drooling ball of chubbiness. Everyone likes to talk about little babies, right? And that opens doors to conversation about all walks of life. Being a mom can be the loneliest of seasons but it can also bring you the most friends of any season. - It’s easier to stay up all night.
I am pretty sure God wired college-aged students to be able to pull an all nighter with no trouble. Personally, He must have skipped over me because I stink at this, but I’m sure better at it than people ten years older. And when you’re a brand new mom, staying up all night can become a delightful new norm for you. - Children bring so much joy.
They do! They bring the same joy at any stage of life, but we get to experience that joy so much sooner. Sure, going to Walmart just got 8234x more challenging, but do your childless friends get to enjoy blubbering, toothless smiles the whole time they shop? They certainly do not.
- You always have a little buddy.
My husband was gone the majority of last year but I always had a tiny friend who would go with me to get coffee or buy bananas. It’s pretty great. - You haven’t settled into habits yet.
When you’ve been living the same, adult, do-what-I-want, kid-free way for twelve years, you build habits. When you’ve had those habits for over a decade, they’re hard to break–and when you have kids, you will have to form new habits. It was my husband who pointed out this benefit. It’s been infinitely easier to change the way we lived early on in our lives. - Parenting teaches you a heckuva lot more than…basically anything except marriage.
Your husband might be your full length mirror, but your kids are your mini keep-in-your-purse mirrors. They will grow you in ways you didn’t realize you could grow, and you will be a gentler, more patient person for it. Hopefully. You might also be more frazzled and exhausted than you ever thought possible. On the edge of insanity and the strongest you’ve been are not mutually exclusive! - There’s nothing sexier than a man calming down a screaming baby.
If my husband wants to seduce me, gone are the days of candles and sexy music (mostly.) He knows the true way to my heart is getting to kids to calm down–or bring my son to fits of breathless giggles, or snuggle my little baby girl on his chest. There’s nothing like watching your handsome man with a tiny human. While his peers are out running and dancing next to moving cars and posting it on Facebook, your man is cuddling a tiny human on his broad chest. It might even lead to more tiny humans, if ya know what I’m saying. - It’s the best adventure of all.
Seriously, trying to get out of the house to go anywhere with kids is an adventure. Learning to discipline is an adventure. Scrubbing poop out of the carpet is an adventure (and if you think of it that way it will be a lot better!) My husband and I had no idea what we were doing and half the days we still don’t–parenting young (and at any age, really) is a wonderful adventure that your family will figure out together.
- You’ll be 38 and freeeeee!
Your child will be off to adulthood and you’ll still be young and spry and ready to do “all the things you couldn’t do” in your 20s…only now you’ll actually have the money and the resources to do it. All your friends will still be in PTA meetings and bringing orange slices to soccer games and you will be on the beach in the Bahamas enjoying that cruise you never got to take because you were buying diapers and popcorn at school fundraisers instead. Congratulations, my friend. Your work is done.
Don’t worry, a part 2 is coming to show the flip side, because there is a flip side.
Becoming a parent at twenty is not for everyone. It’s not for most people. It takes a support system and encouragement and darn determined parents. It’s messy and exhausting.
But if you’re like me–married young, starting a family–I hope you are encouraged because it’s going to be great. If you’re twenty and maybe less intentionally starting a family, kids are always a blessing and you’ve got this.
Snuggle those babies, relish those adventures (an epic toddler meltdown in Target can be an adventure, right?) and enjoy every moment of having the energy to chase those kiddos.
Bonus: you’ll probably get to be a young, spunky grandparent too.
(Too soon?)