I was graduating high school when my parents were my age. But then I was unexpected and hastened marriage plans. My Dad said it was awkward going to the minister to tell him about his daughter being with child.

By the time my mom was my age (43), she was married twice, divorced twice, had kids age 21, 18, and 16, had nearly died three years earlier, and had a better dating life than either of her two teenaged daughters.

how do you date with 3 kids?!?!?

Sometimes I really feel it's rediculous that I have as hard of a time dealing with my life as I do. Things could be so much more challenging and people manage all the time. I am beginning to think of it as the equivilent of having a bunch of work to do, but it is all non-urgent and so people like me piddle along getting not much done and complaining a lot.

By the time my mother was my age (48 in June), both of her children were out of the house, and she'd been a grandmother for 8 years. She'd become a nurse's aid, joined the Air Force, was the only one of her family to leave Georgia, lived in California, Canada and Florida and worked as bookkeeper, beautician, cashier and sales clerk. She had survived two bouts with cancer, but wouldn't survive the third and died when she was 50.

So when my Mom was my age she was at the end of her life.

My mom had 3 kids at my age and was a couple months away from being pregnant with #4.

And now it's time for a funny Dylan story. We've been trying to teach him courtesy - Please, Thank you, You're welcome, etc. So this morning:

DH: <sneeze!>
Me: Bless you! Dylan, what do you say when someone sneezes?
DYLAN: Damnit!
Parents: <fall over laughing>

My mom was a late starter for her generation--at my age (31) she had been married for years (and had lived in another country!) but had only just had me a few months earlier.

I babysat my siblings sometimes while my mother was on dates. (Would I hire a 13 year old to sit my kids now? Haven't yet, but when I was 13 I babysat all the time, including infants!) Also, joint custody, you get free weekends & we spent summers with my father.

I want to know the stories of Gud's conception and Kathy's mother's near-death!

When my mom was my age she was dealing with a 2 year old (me), a 10 year old (my sister), and a new, not entirely constructed house. Before that she'd dealt with a bedridden and alcoholic father, mission school teaching in Central America, graduate school, and working her way through her undergrad as the person who refills those sanitary supply dispensers in her college's women's bathrooms. She may have found just dealing with two kids and the end stages of house construction rather restful at that point.

6mg of dilaudid and 50 of benadryl and I slept maybe a couple hours last night. What a useless constitution.

I don't like to think on what my parents may have done by the time they were my age. Because I've done damn shit, and am jobless to boot.

My story is unremarkable. Inadequate precautions were made and then a marriage that was likely to happen anyway was fast tracked to beat my appearance. Worked out for my parents and it's easy to remember which anniversary it is every year.