The Best of Both Worlds: Being A Mom And A Millennial

In early February 2014, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter Madison. Nineteen. Clueless. You know the story. You’ve heard it before. Young girl gets pregnant, fill in the blanks. I think it would be redundant to say my life went through a drastic change. It’s a tale as old as time. A year prior I was a high school graduate and newly released from jail. Needless to say before giving birth to my baby, I had no direction, no drive, no reason to take life seriously. The product of an instant gratification generation who is 75% of the time high, I was the poster child for Generation Y. I grew up on MySpace, Adderall, Four Lokos, and bright screens. Finding out I was pregnant was a whirlpool of emotion. Overwhelming, but exciting. A new venture, a possible path with promising growth. As soon as the rainbow of optimism would blanket me, so would the doubts and confusion. Cue the identity crisis.

It was hard for me to fathom putting “class of 2013” and “mother” in the same sentence. I would look in the mirror and I wouldn’t see a mother. I was legally an adult but not a real adult. Not the bitter and exhausted kind. The kind of adult you read about in Cosmo. Juggling cocktails and old debts. It was too soon to be miserable. I was too youthful to be plagued with middle aged blues, right? Fortunately for me I was not alone. What it means to be a mother has been changing over the past few decades. With the rate of pregnancy increasing among young women, motherhood is changing right before our eyes. Take my older sister for example. She was a freshman in college when becoming pregnant with my niece and is now a wife and VCU graduate with a masters degree in public administration. I was lucky to have an example around me that being a young mother was 100% possible, but definitely not easy.

With the shift in family dynamics within culture comes change and equality. Perspective and opportunity. But so does a lot of confusion. I felt so distant from my peers and friends. The clash in lifestyles and priorities left me feeling as if I was third wheel to an entire generation. In Britney Spears logic, I was “Not quite a girl not yet a woman.” I looked just like people my age but was a world away from them. I couldn’t find my footing. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be a millennial because I was a mom. I had to ditch all my youthful tendencies and resources behind. Do motherhood the “right” way. The “hard” way. The way my mother and her mother and her mother did it. And then I had an epiphany; being young and parent was not only possible, it may even be better. I could be my own “genre” of mom. I didn’t have to change who I was, I simply had to change focus.

The older my daughter got, naturally the more mature I became. Being a mother and a twenty year old has it’s cons but damn does it have it’s perks. The best of both worlds, really. In a way I am bilingual. I can speak “mom” and “young adult” since I am few and far between. I use both perspectives to my advantage, thus assimilating the whole package: a modern mom. I am an entirely different demographic. The new face of family, a new generation of mother. I don’t resent this at all, I embrace it. I, we, us, millennials are the new face of the American family. Integrating our personal and professional lives to find balance with our circumstances. We are simply, “making it work”. And we have all the tools to do so! A modernized push for gender equality at home, and a developing work culture will gives us the liberty and opportunity to do so on our own terms. We can be career women, day drinkers, teachers, tech savvy online personas, radio hosts, Instagrammin’, trailblazin’ MOMS. You don’t have to be one or the other! With so many of us (mothers) being millennials, we are given the resources such as technology, to be an entirely different breed of parent. We swap parenting styles on blogs, set reminders on our smartphones, google weaning recipes for our toddlers, and even teach our children new things with apps. The youth of this generation are quickly becoming parents, and they’re bringing their creativity and fearless search of independence to the table. We are more informed and more connected, and aim to share our ideas with one another. We are forward-thinking, progressive and, most importantly, open.

With this generation being like an open community makes it easier to empathize with one another. I had no clue there would be moms out there like me until I became one myself. Moms who listen to Future. Moms who know it’s okay to feed your kid junk sometimes. Moms who sexually expressive. Women on women support is at an all time high, and in the melting pot of women comes mothers also. The Amber Rose’s, the Jessica Alba’s, and the Kim Kardashian’s. We are raising our children the way we, as mothers, deem fit. We form our own rules and boundaries.

I am a mom. I am a millennial. I’m not confused by that anymore. I’m pretty damn proud of it.

#nicolemilfie #millennial #mom #pervonthego #personal