Young Mother

I am excited to write my second article, why, because among other things, I had fears and self-doubt about my writing skills; story for another day – I promise.

Background; I had my baby when I was 22 years young, fast forward 7 years later and below are my highlights, twende zetu!

Learning; mhhhh this all began with understanding her emotions through her crying when she was too young to speak and understanding her personality and strength; this for me has been a great learning curve that I am still on even now that she can use her words. Pearl (that’s her name) is the complete opposite of me, which is surprising and a little annoying since she came from my womb. The only thing we may have remotely in common is our caring side. The difficult part of being a young mother is understanding another little person, being comfortable letting her go to fly, to grow, to fall, to sometimes burn, get frustrated and stopping myself form giving her an opportunity to learn and sometimes make her own mistakes. It is simple to impose our learning on our children as we have gone through their path and would like to think that we made the mistakes so that they don’t have to, but have we ever thought that maybe we would not have the wisdom or know better now if we had not made the mistakes we had. Therefore, I learnt to find a balance between letting her go and imposing my learnings on her.

Honesty vs Tough Talks; It gets uncomfortable at times, but kids do know when parents lie, well at least mine does. I’ve been living with my daughter since day one, she has been noticing my growth, my ups and downs, my sickness and happy moments, the friends who come and go; children are more observant than we give them credit for. With all that exposure comes her Q & A sessions that I become the guest of honour every time and you would think that the questions would decrease with each answer I give, on the contrary, with time her questions are building up from Mummy what are you having in that glass? To Mummy when are you going to get married? To What is procurement? Our children teach us to grow, mine more than. Others.

Space; As a young mother I was determined to maintain my life even though in the eyes of society my experience and lifestyle was considered a taboo. I would still travel, go out, have my me-time even if it was within the same premise with her. Luckily enough she is used to it although occasionally things get heated. I did not want to be one of those mothers whose life stops because they had a baby young, who said you cannot have both? I have brought my baby on my growth journey and because of this she is not only my daughter but my best friend.

Until next time!