My mother always knew I’d bristle against society’s expectations in favour of charting my own course. She never dreamed my biggest act of rebellion would be to get married and have a baby at 22.
With the average first-time mother in Australia now aged 29.7 years old, I was and still am very much the exception to the rule. At 38, I look around and see my friends at the start of their parenting journeys, while I send my son off to his final years of high school.
Odette Barry with her son.
That the average age of motherhood now so neatly overlaps with core career-building years means we’re increasingly seeing parents attempt to cram two fundamentally incompatible life chapters into one. Where I have an increasing capacity for my career, I see a trail of exhausted parents trying to navigate a seemingly endless cycle of challenges, haphazardly juggling between family and work and often feeling like they’re failing at both. At a time when they could be coming up for air, they are drowning.
Having a baby in my early 20s was not without its challenges. People would routinely stop me in the street and tell me I didn’t look old enough to have a baby, and I could feel the sting of judgment when people learned my age, and the age of my son. I didn’t spend years backpacking around Europe with no responsibilities or dance at half moon parties for half of my 20s. But on the whole, my relative youth as a parent has paid dividends over the years.
Along with more energy, I didn’t have time to get used to a disposable income before I gave it all up. It also meant that when my career was kicking into gear at 30, my son was already settled into school, and I had the mental and logistical space to start my own business.
Now, there are no nappies, gastro or childcare hurdles as I navigate Zoom meetings and last-minute travel for work.
These days when we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up, being a parent – especially for women – isn’t at the top of the list. Girls are often told that they should aim higher. There are understandable and very valid reasons for this, but an unintended by-product of hard-won feminist gains is that parenting is now presented as an afterthought – something to delay until the rest of your life goals are accomplished.
Visible examples of motherhood in public spaces, such as seeing Jacinda Ardern skilfully guide New Zealand through COVID with baby vomit on her jumper or Larissa Waters breastfeeding in the Australian senate, are important. The problem is this type-A version of parenting is unreachable to most mothers but it’s being presented as the model to follow.
Having a child at 22 is the best career decision I ever made
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03.04.2024
My mother always knew I’d bristle against society’s expectations in favour of charting my own course. She never dreamed my biggest act of rebellion would be to get married and have a baby at 22.
With the average first-time mother in Australia now aged 29.7 years old, I was and still am very much the exception to the rule. At 38, I look around and see my friends at the start of their parenting journeys, while I send my son off to his final years of high school.
Odette Barry with her son.
That the average age of motherhood now so neatly overlaps with core career-building years means we’re increasingly seeing parents attempt to cram........
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