I have written about how I had a child at a young age and how the struggle became really real at the ripe age of 18. But the truth is the struggle hasn’t stopped.

Here’s the scenario 33 years old with a 15-year-old. You are in a room full of women who are your same age and they start talking about their kids (small kids typically), which of course I’m always into because it brings me down memory lane. Then- the bomb drops. They ask me how old my kid is, and BAM the shock is written all over their face. Most don’t even hold it back. The typical response is “holy shit, were you 13 when you had him!?”. My new response is “yes”. So, from that moment forward, to them, we no longer have anything in common. It is forgotten that I have no experience with a child because 15 years ago was a lifetime ago and I couldn’t have possibly been a good mother considering I was a “baby who had a baby”. So, let’s talk about make-up.

Here’s the scenario 33 years old with a 15-year-old. You are in a room full of women who have a kid the same age as yours. You are younger than them, therefore your “life experience” is not on their level. Again, I am a young Mom, so my parenting skills are not up to par because I didn’t wait to have children until I was married and had all my shit lined up. I didn’t have the college life, like them or the kidless life experiences, like them. I am different.

Here’s the scenario 33 years old with a 15-year-old, a husband who is 9 years older who has kids who are 17 and 20. People really lose their shit when I tell them those numbers. Kinda comical really. People’s automatic assumption is, “he must have money”.

Every day I live this scenario. Every. Day. I never even realized how “different” I was until my recent soul-searching I’m obsessing over. Do you know 90% of the people in my every day life don’t even know what I do for a living? Do you know that my husband had a recent divorce when I met him and had nothing to his name? Do you know that I spent my entire life having to prove my worth? That my age has NOTHING to do with my parenting skills, my husband choice or the way that I choose to live my life every day. Do you know that ACTUALLY being a teen Mom has given me more experience than more people in their 40’s and 50’s? Do you know how shitty it is to judge someone because of their age and choices that were made 15 years ago.

Well… The good news is I don’t care about any of those scenario’s or judgements. If you don’t think my experience in having a baby is worthy enough of asking for my advice, then I don’t want to provide you with any advice. If you think that the reason I married my husband was because he has money, then I don’t want to waste my breath in explaining the struggles we went through and the massive amounts of work it took to get where we are. If you think that because I am younger than you that my parenting skills suck, then I don’t want to waste my time in telling you the amount of sleep I have lost, the amount of time I worry about my kids, the amount of time I spend providing for them, giving them as much as I can and everything they deserve.

My parenting skills are not yours. I am not the perfect parent. I mess up, a lot. I have 1 kid that I spoil the shit out of. I have 2 step kids that I never want them to feel unloved or go without. I want my kids to succeed in this life. I never want them to be judged for any reason. To me, it is more important for them to carry themselves with confidence and learn how to be their true self then to always have to worry about what their friends think is “cool” or have straight A’s (don’t tell them that). Yes, they are not perfect and B can definitely make me want to strangle him from time to time, but he is who he is, and my job is to guide them to work hard to always want to reach higher levels and be the best they can be at whatever they set their mind to. It’s a really tough gig. But, I’m still here, fighting the fight and just because I’m a young Mom, does not mean I suck at life. In fact, I’m really good at life. So, maybe if we took more time trying to get to know people and not judging them we’d understand that 33, 42, 20, 17 and 15 are just numbers and they don’t define who we are.