Surviving A Teenage Pregnancy At 25

At least that’s what it feels like. It’s at that awkward age where people don’t know whether to say “Congratulations!” or “Oh sh*t!” when they hear you’re having a baby. There’s a pause, the kind that hangs in the air before they scramble to hide the disbelief on their face.

I didn’t expect pregnancy to feel like an act of defiance or embarrassment. I didn’t expect to be treated like a naïve girl who stumbled into motherhood by accident. Since when did this become the latest taboo for women in their 20s?

“Was It a Surprise?”

I booked myself a pedicure after a long week. Part reward, part necessity, because at 30 weeks pregnant, I can’t reach my own toes. I thought it would be relaxing. Instead, it left me slightly offended. A few minutes after I sat down in the massage chair, the pedicurist tilted her head and looked at me, confused. “Are you pregnant?” “Yes,” I replied, and smiled.

I expected a few follow-up questions or comments, but instead, after a pause, she just frowned and said, “Oh.” Somewhere between the foot scrub and the pink polish, she loudly and abruptly asked, “Was it a surprise?”

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who heard the question. By now, it felt like half the salon had turned their heads to tune in to the saga. I laughed awkwardly and tried to change the subject by complimenting the shades of polish, because what else do you do when someone assumes you’ve accidentally created a human being?

The strange thing is, this was not an isolated occurrence. A colleague at work, who had recently returned from her own maternity leave, asked me the same thing (for context, she’s older than I am). I’m by no means on a close-friends basis with her, which is why this threw me off. We were on the elevator, surrounded by all our male colleagues, discussing mom things. Like every new mom, she seemed determined to tell me everything I should and shouldn’t do with my child. I hardly got a word in. She only stopped when she asked me the same question: “So, was it a surprise?”

I laughed to break the silence, which had now filled the elevator. My saving grace was the bell dinging and the door opening.

People found it so hard to believe a woman in her twenties willingly got pregnant.

Encounters like these left me mostly amused. It’s just such an odd thing to ask someone you hardly know. It’s the kind of question I’d expect from a tipsy best friend, not a colleague in the elevator or the lady waxing my Brazilian (I’ll spare you the details on that one). Should I feel flattered that I look that young? I wasn’t struck by the question because it offended me; it was more—pun intended—a surprise that people found it so hard to believe a woman in her twenties willingly got pregnant.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as a pregnant woman in the world today. Unless you live in the suburbs, pregnant women seem to be an endangered species. You don’t see them very often. Do people still let you skip the queue? Offer to take your bags? Move aside in the grocery store aisle? Do old ladies still tell you you’re glowing?

I assumed the worst would be the unsolicited advice, the horror stories about someone’s sister’s labor, and the warnings about caffeine. What I didn’t expect were all the variations of the same question—“Was it a surprise?”

The Girlhood That Never Ends

Funny, isn’t it? At eighteen, we’re told we’re old enough to vote, drink, move out, get a job, start an OnlyFans, or even change our gender. But have a baby in your early 20s and suddenly you’ve made a terrible mistake. It’s an odd contradiction.

Sure, women once faced immense pressure to marry young and have children. Our grandmothers didn’t always have the luxury of waiting. They grew up because they had to—when their husbands went to war, they ran households, raised families, and kept entire lives afloat. It wasn’t optional.

Today, that pressure has been replaced with permissiveness. No one tells you to grow up; if anything, you’re rewarded for staying young, unattached, and self-focused. “Take your time,” they say. “You have your whole life ahead of you.” And while this newfound freedom is a privilege, it’s also a trap, because without the expectation to mature, many girls never feel the urgency to do so.

In trying to free women from obligation, we inadvertently began treating them as fragile. Too naïve for responsibility, too delicate for commitment, too young for motherhood. Feminism promised choice, but that choice quietly began to include the option not to grow up.

While this newfound freedom is a privilege, it’s also a trap, because without the expectation to mature, many girls never feel the urgency to.

This irony was highlighted in a recent tweet by @filtercoffeee that went viral. It featured screenshots from a TikTok made by Nara Smith, the "trad" influencer known for her ethereal homemaking vibes. The clip showed Nara holding her newborn, with the caption: "All the ages/years I've been pregnant." The post revealed that she began her family at nineteen and has since become a mother of four. Now, the part that went viral was that these screenshots were accompanied by the caption “This just gave me the ick. Abolish religion I'm so serious she doesn't even have a fully developed frontal lobe yet,” racking up over 129,000 likes and millions of views.

The comments exploded, mostly echoing the shock, questioning whether twenty-three (let alone nineteen) is too soon for something such as motherhood. But let’s pause and reflect. Why does this evoke such visceral reactions? Feminism promised to liberate us, to let us choose freely without judgment. Yet here we are, infantilising women in the name of empowerment. We celebrate independence, careers, and self-discovery in our twenties, painting motherhood as something to “get to” later.

Is it really empowering to extend “girlhood” indefinitely? What if embracing motherhood young is the ultimate act of agency, where we align with our bodies’ natural rhythms while still chasing our dreams? People love to throw the “frontal lobe” argument around, suggesting brains aren’t fully mature until 25. Fair enough, but doesn’t that apply to every big life decision then? Starting a business, signing a lease, or even voting, all before that magic age. Why single out motherhood? Contrary to the post, this isn't about religion, but rather a deeper cultural shift. At 18, you’re too young to settle down. At 25, you’re too young for kids. At 35, you’re “brave” for trying. And at 40, you’re “lucky” if it happens at all.

Where Did All the (Young) Mothers Go?

My grandmother had her first child at twenty-three. That was ordinary, even expected. Two generations later, it’s considered “a waste of your youth.” When I tell people I’m expecting, it’s like I’ve confessed to something scandalous. They can't hide their confusion when they say, “But you’re still so young.”

I’m still trying to decipher what’s so wrong about the situation a girl like myself is in. I embody everything feminism said it wanted. I went to college, earned my postgraduate degree, got my big girlboss job, partied, and traveled (heck, I even got married!). All of those things are good and well, but the one thing that makes me more of a woman than any of the others is now taboo?

The world has changed, and with it the map of when women become mothers has shifted dramatically. In the 1970s, the average age of first-time mothers in the U.S. was about 21; today, it’s around 27.5 and still climbing. Across many parts of Europe, the average is now over 30. For instance, Italy and Spain both report first-time mother ages around 31–32 years. And marriage is following the same pattern: in the U.S., women now marry at a median age of about 28.6 and men at 30.4, compared to roughly 20 and 22, respectively, in the 1950s.

Don’t skim over the idea of motherhood in your 20s, only to spend your 30s wondering “If only I’d started sooner.”

Women are delaying motherhood without realizing it might mean missing the window altogether. You can’t deny biology, and the truth is that female fertility peaks in your early 20s and begins to significantly decline in your early 30s. That doesn’t mean women in their thirties can’t conceive, but it does make things more unpredictable. You can’t truly know how your body will respond until you try. And one of the hardest parts is the regret that can follow. Don’t skim over the idea of motherhood in your 20s, only to spend your 30s wondering, “If only I’d started sooner.”

Girls are delaying their adulthood, but for what? It’s heartbreaking that we’ve come to believe we have to pick. As if motherhood and ambition can’t exist in the same woman, as if nurturing others somehow cancels out nurturing yourself. Real empowerment is about being strong enough to outgrow girlhood gracefully and intentionally. Maybe the real surprise isn’t that I’m having a baby at twenty-five; it’s that the world forgot this used to be normal.