Stigma against "young moms"?

[Anonymous]

The backlash against Bruenig wasn't that she was too young, it was that she was obviously speaking from a very specific bubble and failed to consider that her own experience might not be universal.

Like most NYT op-ed pieces, she wrote as though her very specific UMC white urban experience could be extrapolated to mean anything more than her own experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's unquestionably a thing in the highly educated, UMC, elite professional circles that people like Liz Bruenig run in

This.

And if you were in a different socio-economic bracket in a different part of the country, having your kids in your mid to late 30s would be a thing.

It's not personal. You're just going against the herd a bit in terms of timing and people will endlessly comment on people who are outside the norm because it makes insecure people feel forced to question their own decision making. If everyone does the same thing, it feels safer.

OP here. I get this but it's weird that people still feel the need to comment on it to me at 39 because I have a thirteen year old and they maybe have a toddler or baby. I sometimes feel like saying, look I'm sorry you're stuck in the parenting trenches right now but you'll come out on the other side too, lol. It doesn't stay that hard forever.

That's kind of rude.

Unless the people who have the toddler or baby are rude to you, like saying "oh, well, you must not have gone to college" or something similar, there's no reason to be flippant to them. Being surprised that you have a 13-year old when you're 39 isn't rude in and of itself.

You don't think it's rude and invasive to aggressively question people about their age and reproductive choices in a professional setting?? I'm honestly amazed at how many people have thought it was appropriate to say something to me about my age and my children's ages at work. Including asking me if my pregnancies were intended and if I was religious! (and also joking if I know how babies are made )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is stigma against young mothers. There is stigma against older mothers. There is stigma against working moms. There is stigma against SAHMs. There is stigma against women who chose not to become a mother. There is stigma against women who struggle to become moms (though weirdly it’s started to feel like this is the one woman we’re ok with because she wants to be a mom but hasn’t achieved it — we feel sorry for her but don’t hate her, lucky her).

So often these conversations wind up falling apart as women argue over their choices and options and how they are treated by other women... there is no way to resolve it among ourselves. Women are set up to compete with each other and them criticized when we do.

It’s misogyny. All of it. And the best thing we as women could do is simply support and defend each other against it, rather than seizing an opportunity to position ourselves as “one of the good women who made the right choices.” You see, there are no right choices. Half the time, what is treated as choice is not.

I love young moms and old moms and women who are not moms and working women and trans women and tired women and happy women and all the women. You are all doing great. Let’s make sure we all have access to healthcare (including abortions and birth control), access to economic independence, and freedom from harassment and assault. Everything else is immaterial.

/endthread

Seriously, this is it. We’re all set up to believe we’re one of the good ones and to criticize those who make different choices.

Do you see men arguing about this BS? Nope. Men are praised no matter what they do. I was just talking with my BFF yesterday about how anytime my H was seen holding our baby, people would literally pull over their cars to praise him for being a good dad. Whereas I got mostly criticism for not doing it “right”.

I also know MANY fathers who have little to no involvement in their child’s life, and no one bats an eye.

I love the above post and agree with it, but I don't think the point about men is entirely true. When we were all in law school or business school or working as junior associates or IB associates or whatever, our male friends would have found it weird for one of our male peers to have a baby too. It's just really unusual in urban professional circles because the logistics are almost impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's unquestionably a thing in the highly educated, UMC, elite professional circles that people like Liz Bruenig run in

This.

And if you were in a different socio-economic bracket in a different part of the country, having your kids in your mid to late 30s would be a thing.

It's not personal. You're just going against the herd a bit in terms of timing and people will endlessly comment on people who are outside the norm because it makes insecure people feel forced to question their own decision making. If everyone does the same thing, it feels safer.

When I see a 39-year old with a 13-year old I am not remotely insecure about my own decision to wait until 32 to have my kids (who ended up being twins so I didn't have any after that). I'm very happy with the age at which I got to have my kids. I had so much fun through my 20's and early 30's and once I had my kids I was settled enough in my career to be able to have a flexible but still high-paying job. Win win win as far as I'm concerned. Not that everyone has to want what I have, but I say that to contradict your statement that I am remotely insecure about anyone's choice to have a child year before I did.

lol no one envies people who have twins at 32 anyway so who cares

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in DC and other areas filled with highly educated people, it's not as common to run into mothers who had their first kid at 25, because that means they didn't go to grad school or, if they did, they didn't have much of a career before they had their kids.

One of my best friends from college lives in a small town in NC. She has a PhD and is a professor but the moms on her son's baseball team treat her like she's a grandma because she didn't have him before she was 24.

So I guess I'd say, in my mind, and my world (which is admittedly a very limited universe, having grown up on the west coast in a highly educated area as well), the people I know who had kids younger are either SAHMs now because they didn't have careers before having kids, or they don't have multiple degrees. Most of my friends have not only college degrees, obviously, but one or two degrees after that, so many of us weren't fully done with school or settled beyond our first year in our jobs before we were 30.

Personally, I'd rather my kids have their kids between 30 and 34. I think there's a lot to do before you turn 30 and having kids then changes that. Not to say there's anything wrong with having children earlier, but you asked for my opinion, so there you have it.

Your believe system is that if you have children in your 20's you can't get an education/Masters/Ph.D.?

Well, you might not be able to because you seem to have reading comprehension issues, but no, I never said that.

[Anonymous]

Lots of women can handle having a baby in grad school. It's actually encouraged in your last year or two of med school because you definitely don't ant to have one in residency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The backlash against Bruenig wasn't that she was too young, it was that she was obviously speaking from a very specific bubble and failed to consider that her own experience might not be universal.

Like most NYT op-ed pieces, she wrote as though her very specific UMC white urban experience could be extrapolated to mean anything more than her own experience.

it’s called an OPINION piece. Her opinion, from her perspective. People on Twitter viciously hate her because she is young, pretty, openly Catholic, pro-life, and supported Bernie over Hillary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is stigma against young mothers. There is stigma against older mothers. There is stigma against working moms. There is stigma against SAHMs. There is stigma against women who chose not to become a mother. There is stigma against women who struggle to become moms (though weirdly it’s started to feel like this is the one woman we’re ok with because she wants to be a mom but hasn’t achieved it — we feel sorry for her but don’t hate her, lucky her).

So often these conversations wind up falling apart as women argue over their choices and options and how they are treated by other women... there is no way to resolve it among ourselves. Women are set up to compete with each other and them criticized when we do.

It’s misogyny. All of it. And the best thing we as women could do is simply support and defend each other against it, rather than seizing an opportunity to position ourselves as “one of the good women who made the right choices.” You see, there are no right choices. Half the time, what is treated as choice is not.

I love young moms and old moms and women who are not moms and working women and trans women and tired women and happy women and all the women. You are all doing great. Let’s make sure we all have access to healthcare (including abortions and birth control), access to economic independence, and freedom from harassment and assault. Everything else is immaterial.

/endthread

Seriously, this is it. We’re all set up to believe we’re one of the good ones and to criticize those who make different choices.

Do you see men arguing about this BS? Nope. Men are praised no matter what they do. I was just talking with my BFF yesterday about how anytime my H was seen holding our baby, people would literally pull over their cars to praise him for being a good dad. Whereas I got mostly criticism for not doing it “right”.

I also know MANY fathers who have little to no involvement in their child’s life, and no one bats an eye.

I love the above post and agree with it, but I don't think the point about men is entirely true. When we were all in law school or business school or working as junior associates or IB associates or whatever, our male friends would have found it weird for one of our male peers to have a baby too. It's just really unusual in urban professional circles because the logistics are almost impossible.

it's is all the group you run in. My law school friends at GW were mostly in long term relationships or married. Most of us had kids within a few years of graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's unquestionably a thing in the highly educated, UMC, elite professional circles that people like Liz Bruenig run in

This.

And if you were in a different socio-economic bracket in a different part of the country, having your kids in your mid to late 30s would be a thing.

It's not personal. You're just going against the herd a bit in terms of timing and people will endlessly comment on people who are outside the norm because it makes insecure people feel forced to question their own decision making. If everyone does the same thing, it feels safer.

OP here. I get this but it's weird that people still feel the need to comment on it to me at 39 because I have a thirteen year old and they maybe have a toddler or baby. I sometimes feel like saying, look I'm sorry you're stuck in the parenting trenches right now but you'll come out on the other side too, lol. It doesn't stay that hard forever.

That's kind of rude.

Unless the people who have the toddler or baby are rude to you, like saying "oh, well, you must not have gone to college" or something similar, there's no reason to be flippant to them. Being surprised that you have a 13-year old when you're 39 isn't rude in and of itself.

You don't think it's rude and invasive to aggressively question people about their age and reproductive choices in a professional setting?? I'm honestly amazed at how many people have thought it was appropriate to say something to me about my age and my children's ages at work. Including asking me if my pregnancies were intended and if I was religious! (and also joking if I know how babies are made )

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

Go back and read the post before the one I commented on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes her essay is very navel gazey and all over the place but par for the course for that type of thing. Normal people don't go around saying stuff like that, lol.

Yup I agree, it is par for the course, and I agree. I know a lot of younger moms who started families in their early 20's, and they are mostly totally chill normal people. They are not sitting around drowning in their babies' eyeballs or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's unquestionably a thing in the highly educated, UMC, elite professional circles that people like Liz Bruenig run in

This.

And if you were in a different socio-economic bracket in a different part of the country, having your kids in your mid to late 30s would be a thing.

It's not personal. You're just going against the herd a bit in terms of timing and people will endlessly comment on people who are outside the norm because it makes insecure people feel forced to question their own decision making. If everyone does the same thing, it feels safer.

When I see a 39-year old with a 13-year old I am not remotely insecure about my own decision to wait until 32 to have my kids (who ended up being twins so I didn't have any after that). I'm very happy with the age at which I got to have my kids. I had so much fun through my 20's and early 30's and once I had my kids I was settled enough in my career to be able to have a flexible but still high-paying job. Win win win as far as I'm concerned. Not that everyone has to want what I have, but I say that to contradict your statement that I am remotely insecure about anyone's choice to have a child year before I did.

lol no one envies people who have twins at 32 anyway so who cares

No one envies people who say lol and don't know how to use capitalization or punctuation either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's unquestionably a thing in the highly educated, UMC, elite professional circles that people like Liz Bruenig run in

This.

And if you were in a different socio-economic bracket in a different part of the country, having your kids in your mid to late 30s would be a thing.

It's not personal. You're just going against the herd a bit in terms of timing and people will endlessly comment on people who are outside the norm because it makes insecure people feel forced to question their own decision making. If everyone does the same thing, it feels safer.

When I see a 39-year old with a 13-year old I am not remotely insecure about my own decision to wait until 32 to have my kids (who ended up being twins so I didn't have any after that). I'm very happy with the age at which I got to have my kids. I had so much fun through my 20's and early 30's and once I had my kids I was settled enough in my career to be able to have a flexible but still high-paying job. Win win win as far as I'm concerned. Not that everyone has to want what I have, but I say that to contradict your statement that I am remotely insecure about anyone's choice to have a child year before I did.

lol no one envies people who have twins at 32 anyway so who cares

DP. Are you kidding? This would have been ideal for many of my friends. One pregnancy at an age when lots of people are having their first kid, two kids, done. I'm sure infant twins are a handful, but so is basically any combination of young kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The backlash against Bruenig wasn't that she was too young, it was that she was obviously speaking from a very specific bubble and failed to consider that her own experience might not be universal.

Like most NYT op-ed pieces, she wrote as though her very specific UMC white urban experience could be extrapolated to mean anything more than her own experience.

it’s called an OPINION piece. Her opinion, from her perspective. People on Twitter viciously hate her because she is young, pretty, openly Catholic, pro-life, and supported Bernie over Hillary.

I mean, normally even and opinion piece brings some sort of greater truth or observation. This was just another tradwife pretending to be somehow victimized by people making different choices than her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is stigma against young mothers. There is stigma against older mothers. There is stigma against working moms. There is stigma against SAHMs. There is stigma against women who chose not to become a mother. There is stigma against women who struggle to become moms (though weirdly it’s started to feel like this is the one woman we’re ok with because she wants to be a mom but hasn’t achieved it — we feel sorry for her but don’t hate her, lucky her).

So often these conversations wind up falling apart as women argue over their choices and options and how they are treated by other women... there is no way to resolve it among ourselves. Women are set up to compete with each other and them criticized when we do.

It’s misogyny. All of it. And the best thing we as women could do is simply support and defend each other against it, rather than seizing an opportunity to position ourselves as “one of the good women who made the right choices.” You see, there are no right choices. Half the time, what is treated as choice is not.

I love young moms and old moms and women who are not moms and working women and trans women and tired women and happy women and all the women. You are all doing great. Let’s make sure we all have access to healthcare (including abortions and birth control), access to economic independence, and freedom from harassment and assault. Everything else is immaterial.

/endthread

Seriously, this is it. We’re all set up to believe we’re one of the good ones and to criticize those who make different choices.

Do you see men arguing about this BS? Nope. Men are praised no matter what they do. I was just talking with my BFF yesterday about how anytime my H was seen holding our baby, people would literally pull over their cars to praise him for being a good dad. Whereas I got mostly criticism for not doing it “right”.

I also know MANY fathers who have little to no involvement in their child’s life, and no one bats an eye.

I love the above post and agree with it, but I don't think the point about men is entirely true. When we were all in law school or business school or working as junior associates or IB associates or whatever, our male friends would have found it weird for one of our male peers to have a baby too. It's just really unusual in urban professional circles because the logistics are almost impossible.

it's is all the group you run in. My law school friends at GW were mostly in long term relationships or married. Most of us had kids within a few years of graduation.

So were mine but this still wasn't the case. You have a lot of friends who went into biglaw and had kids as junior associates? My now-DH and I have been together since freshman year of college and married at 28, so it had nothing to do with finding the right person. It had everything to do with getting a foothold professionally and having a few years to have minimal personal responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes her essay is very navel gazey and all over the place but par for the course for that type of thing. Normal people don't go around saying stuff like that, lol.

Yup I agree, it is par for the course, and I agree. I know a lot of younger moms who started families in their early 20's, and they are mostly totally chill normal people. They are not sitting around drowning in their babies' eyeballs or whatever.

She wrote that because she was describing how motherhood was personally fulfilling to her instead of being “the end of your life!!” the way people tend to say. My main objection to the piece is that she makes motherhood seem too easy, but maybe it is for her - people are different, and yeah possibly having a baby younger makes it easier in some ways. Anyway there are certainly plenty of opinion pieces out there about how motherhood is horrible, so I’m not too bothered by the other viewpoint.