Now that my son is attending a real-life preschool (you know, the kind where you can drop your kid off, there are no tears, and you pick your kid up all clean and happy) I’m mixing with different kinds of moms other than my first-time mom/ SAHM crew that’s kept me afloat since I quit work in January. There are still plenty of SAHM moms, but now I’m privvy to second-time moms, working moms, nannies, daddies, partners and older moms.
I typically get along with everyone I come across. And I think I’m pretty good at coming up with small talk with anyone from my friend’s non-English speaking nanny to my cohort and carpool-mate. Except for the aforementioned “older moms.” The moms who for whatever reason married later and had kids later. I can’t seem to crack their code.
To me, they appear to have more life experience, solid careers and knowledge of time before computers and compact discs. To them, I’m just a sprite. So young. My skin is so good. My metabolism hasn’t crapped out yet. So young.
So yes, some of this may be true. I married at 26 had my first kid at 28 and will have my next at 31. I married before all my friends except one. I had a kid first. I’m practically Jamie Lynn Spears. But some of it’s not. My skin may be smooth-ish, but I have zits. Lots of them.
With age may come wisdom, but not with regards to motherhood. I always felt that motherhood was the great equalizer. Lately, though, I feel that the scales are tipped and I’d better jack on some years so I can fit in better. But wrinkles be damned.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I never really considered myself as an older mom at 40. But funny thing is that when I take my son to his kindergarten class, the younger moms doesn’t seem to care about mingling with me so I find myself always with the 40 and up group.
See — we are reflecting the same feelings from both opposite sides. Maybe there isn’t really anything to all this.
1–Don’t worry about mingling with with everyone. As long as not clique-y and mean, it’s not that big a deal.
2–Speaking as a 37-year-old who’s planning on having kid #1 when I’m 38, I can tell you that the older moms had to listen to people warning them about their biological clock and the statistics on increased risk on autism, etc the longer they wait. (I get this from my friends and relatives MY AGE, not the old biddies who’d you’d expect to tut tut over women these days waiting so long, blah, blah.) The thing is, I didn’t meet my husband until my early-mid 30s and I was 36 when we got married. I didn’t WAIT to be a mom, it just happened that I didn’t meet the right guy in my 20s. So not only did was I made to feel like a loser for being unattached then, but now I have one of my oldest friends telling me that wanting to be married for a little while before having a kid means that I’m recklessly increasing the chances of inflicting a severe disability on the kid. So yeah, the older moms may resent you for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you. Don’t sweat it.
My whole mom life has been the same way — I married at 18, had my first at 19 and understood when those fellow moms were, in some cases, 20 years older than I was. I thought things would be different when I had my daughter at 26 but I’m still the youngest mom in my “peer” group. You get used to it and ultimately make friends with the kind of people who don’t get hung up on such a silly thing as age and life choices. We’re all different and life is too short to be clique-y.
I agree- I think it IS the great equalizer but unfortunately some (both young and old) are too self conscious to consider that…
Steph
I totally agree with you on this one. I have experienced the same thing dropping my son off at daycare and at his classmates’ birthday parties. I am always the odd one out for being so young. This doesn’t just happen at his school though, it happens on our street. We live in an upper-middle-class neighborhood where the majority of the people are on their 2nd or 3rd homes. This is our 1st and our 1st child. We are young at barelyly 27 and almost 36. Our problem is not just our age but our income. That sounds very trite to say but it is the truth. Both of us are chemical engineers with my husband having his PhD as well. We weren’t lucky, we worked our a**es off to get where we are. I have to accept that we are the exception and not the rule when it comes to our situation and that maybe location has something to do with why I deal with the same problem as you since I live in the suburbs and not the “hip” areas of town.
I haven’t run into this myself. Like you, I mine early – first at 26, second at 29. I feel it’s a blessing to be a younger mother but would never, not talk with someone because of age. That is a shame. Those older moms are missing out.
Ignoring your main points for a moment, I have to comment on the fact that you think you are so young to have been married at 26 and first kid at 28. Come on over one state to Indiana for a little while and discover that you are not only “normal” but maybe even “old” (gasp) for getting married. Crazy, huh? It is so weird to me how much longer people wait to get married in metropolitan areas. I assume that overall it has to do with the fact that people in metropolitan areas are more career-focused. This is not to say that people in non-metropolitan areas are not – just in a different way since major corporate America isn’t the heart of our area. Am I completely off here? Despite where you live, your age, your financial status, whatever…we are all mothers and you are right, that should bond us in ways that nothing else can.
Don’t worry, a few months with that second child will age you years
I just want to know how your kid comes home clean from preschool?
And KT apparently wasn’t counted as a friend in your list of friends……..
what gives, SMM? : (
Trust me when I tell you that those of us “older” moms wished we had our children when we were your age. No matter what anyone says!
I had mine at 36 & 37. The older moms are just too tired to talk. No code. I’ve seen pictures from when my kids were in pre-school so I know I was there, but it’s all a blur. Much more awake and alive now.