T-Ball

Yesterday. 

Concession Stand Committee Meeting.  Yuck.  People who have their children late in life by choice or by chance just seem so odd sometimes to me.  There are so many differences.  That’s not bad, but sometimes, it makes it hard to relate to them.  I am, predictably, the youngest.  I know of only one mom in the district with a second grade child who is younger than I am.  Even the kindergartener moms are usually older than me. 

They’ve had life experiences.  They lived in dorms, maybe did a lot of traveling and spring break stunts, are working at higher levels in their chosen career or can afford to have one parent staying at home.  When they were my age, they may have been partying all night or working 60 hour weeks.  They look at me and they see themselves at my age so of course, I must be that carefree irresponsible person that they were.  I have friends now who are my age and barely more responsible than some teens.  They see their experiences and it blinds them to my reality. 

Yes, I’m twenty five.  No, I’m not the person they were.  I never had a chance.  I’ve been mom.  And while I’ve had my share of partying and wild behavior, I always knew that there had to be money and time for the munchkin.  My moments were stolen, carefully planned in advance so I could have a sitter, paid for in guilt because I wasn’t with the munchkin. 

And even those who realize that truth about me and understand how the life of a teen parent shapes us, they pity us because they only see what we missed.  They only see the hurts and the hard times.  They see toys that they provide that I couldn’t.  They see that I couldn’t stay home, don’t have time to volunteer in the classroom, don’t go to PTA meetings and they can’t imagine their life without those things.  They’ve grown into them and they enjoy them. 

But they don’t understand that at 25, my family is finished.  I had a slower start than they did to college and career but I’ll never have to derail my career to take care of an infant.  As my work becomes more demanding, my child will be becoming more self-sufficient.  My daughter will be going to college when I’m 36.  And I’ll have the rest of my life left ahead of me to enjoy. 

But some of them are as old as my parents, or older and they can be so d*mn condescending that it drives me nuts.  It’s just like the brownie troop parents and I hate it already but I can’t keep munchkin from participating just because I don’t want to deal with the parents.  Sigh…