Elizabeth Bruenig: I became a mother at 25, and I’m not sorry I didn’t wait

If someone had asked on the day of my college graduation whether I imagined I would still be, in five years’ time, a reliable wallflower at any given party, I would have guessed so. Some things just don’t change. What I would not have predicted at the time is that five years hence I would be lurking along the fringes of a 3-year-old’s birthday party, a bewildered and bleary-eyed 27-year-old mom among a cordial flock of Tory Burch bedecked mothers in their late 30s and early 40s who had a much better idea of what they were doing than I ever have. Nobody was remotely rude to my husband and me, though our differences were fairly obvious; at most, they seemed a little surprised to find a pair of 20-somethings in a situation like ours. That much — and the dreamy gaze of one driven to distraction by love of their child — we had in common.

As a rule, having and raising children is never easy; this is especially true in the United States, where, compared with similarly developed countries, parents enjoy relatively little support. And while recent conservative caterwauling over the push for subsidized child care suggests America won’t be joining the ranks of the Nordic countries in terms of parental benefits any time soon, the loss may be as much theirs as anyone’s — it is, after all, the right that frets most vocally about the nation’s declining birthrates. (The 2020 census data, released last month, showed that over the last decade, the population grew at its slowest rate since the 1930s, in case you’ve so far been spared the ensuing panic.) Insofar as the current baby bust is related to lengthening delays in childbearing among younger generations, one might suspect birthrate hand-wringers would have a special interest in relieving the financial hardships associated with having kids, but one would be somewhat mistaken. While a slim vanguard of right-leaning statesmen have backed policies that would shore up struggling families, they have met resistance from their own side.