Life of the “Old” Mom

I have been lucky enough to experience motherhood at two completely different times in my life. I have a daughter who is in her first year of college and I have a son in kindergarten. Having kids later in life has good points and some not as pleasant.

In my younger years I worked and had so much more energy. Who needs sleep. I worked full time. I would look forward to weekends as much as the kids did so we could go hiking, fishing, to the park, swimming, whatever we could find to do that we could afford. Then start right back into the work week.

Now, I don’t have that same energy. I really need sleep. I still work and look forward to our weekends, but hope that it will include a little rest also. We still go camping, hiking, to play basketball or just work outside together but it takes a little more “mental” motivation to go do some of those things. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing these things with my family, but I could easily be convinced to just sit on the couch and stare at the TV or read a book all weekend.

Now I will say that I appreciate my time with my kids more now that I’m older. When you’re younger you think you have forever. Let me tell you that you don’t get a chance to redo things. You need to enjoy every moment you can with your family while you can. Time goes by fast so go build those legos and play go fish for the hundredth time, someday you’ll be glad you did.

When I look back at some of the things I did or let my kids do the first time round I wonder how we made it. I definitely put a little more thought into my parenting skills now, although still not perfect by any means. My youngest child is a little more spoiled than my older kids but he also gets a lot more one on one attention than my older kids probably did which is a plus for him. I would say though that if you’re going to have one kid you might as well go for two. I always think I wish he would have been twins, one pregnancy with two kids. We kept putting it off until it was a little late and I think that it would have been easier to have a playmate at times. Luckily he has friends and cousins that gets to come hang out sometimes. We live where we have no neighbors so we have to make  a point of staying involved at school and some outside activities with other kids.

I feel that you are capable of being a much better parent when you’re older though and wouldn’t change anything. So many women wait until they are a little older now to have kids, it’s become a little more “normal” now. Be warned though that you may get mistaken for a grandparent on occasion and you have to be able to laugh it off and move on. I have, on more than one occasion, been out with my teenage daughter and my son and had people assume that he belonged to her instead of me, haha. She finds it hilarious. I go to events at school and a lot of the parents are the same age as my oldest son. None of this matters though because we’re happy and so much more mature to handle all of the things that come up as parents.

Side Note: If you’re worried about a big age gap like I have with my kids…..don’t. They love each other just as much and they will fight with each other like all other siblings do. You’ll forget that one of them is an “adult”, I promise.