I became a mother for the first time one month before my 41st birthday. I don’t know if my experience as an ‘older’ mother is much different from someone who becomes a mother at 21 or 31, but I suspect that it is. Partly because I had 41 years to practice selfishly focusing on myself and my own desires. I don’t use the word ‘selfish’ negatively, but just that I had the freedom to only take care of myself for all those years. Obviously, I was married and I had a career and other obligations, but Elie doesn’t need me to take care of him 24/7 and I could make decisions about how much to work or what other commitments I wanted to take on. But a baby changes all of that. A baby needs you all the time.
