20-somethings and 30-somethings are growing up, getting married and starting families in a crazy, crazy world lately.
I included “growing up” on that list because I believe that many parenting and educational techniques of the 90s and 2000s led to arrested development in many areas of life for millennials. I would be lying if I didn’t say that when I had my first baby, I essentially felt like I was starting motherhood from scratch.
As I talk with my friends and family, scroll social media, and read the news, I can feel the tension and uncertainty in everyone’s voices (including my own) about the next five years. Career or family, or try to do both? If career—what career? Everyone has abruptly changed paths at least once.
Getting married and having children is a tempting but loaded proposition. To marry too young or to start a family too young puts you at odds with societal values at the moment, particularly as a woman. It feels like taking the low-hanging fruit, or at least it did to me.
(Tragic how it feels that way when it’s the most natural and beautiful thing a woman can do.)
Our biology says babies, but our educations say f—k the patriarchy and climb that ladder. Our innate desires for security in relationships say marriage, but we’re also staring down lower-than-ever marriage rates and high divorce rates.
There are so many different values we’re trying to juggle, many which completely contradict one another. If we do what grandma wants, we’re not doing what mom wants. If we do what our college friends do, we’re not doing what our church asks of us. If we do what WE want to do as individuals, we’re not doing what greater society tells us to do.
Such is life in a world where God is whoever we want Him to be, polarization is at an all-time high, and science and policy are often at odds with one another. There is no “real” or “right” in the world anymore, it feels like. We hold all the power for ourselves—we make all the decisions alone. A responsibility no one ever wanted.
And the lack of traditional community and values to counsel us, that we evolved to need over millennia, is felt stronger than ever in these times.
A couple of months ago I wrote an article for Her View From Home where I reference the “refining fire of motherhood.” Recently I feel like I’ve just exited an intensely refining period of fear and inner conflict. I don’t want to have different values from the rest of society; swimming against the current is exhausting.
But it’s who I am. I’m a questioner. A cynic on bad days. I came out of my personal darkness when I realized that the choices I make and how I choose to contribute to this world are between me and God and no one else. I need to say my piece and live what I believe to be true.
If you, too, are walking that lonely road, you’re welcome here.
xx Claire