Unsure about motherhood? Women should have kids early — and a lot of them. Here’s why | Opinion

Mother’s Day can be as complicated as motherhood itself — from navigating complex emotions to deciding whether or not to have kids, to adjusting to each season of child rearing.

For most women, it’s a mistake to think a career will be more satisfying. If she’s in a happy marriage, she should have as many kids as possible starting in her twenties and never regret it, embracing all the mixed emotions as it goes.

Women have more choice than ever before about whether (and when) to have kids, thanks to contraception and the feminist movement that opened up the workforce to women. As a result, young women have overwhelmingly chosen to not have kids or delay having kids.

Birth rates have plummeted in recent years. “Between 1976 and 2018, the mean number of children ever born per woman declined, from three children to two,” according to a new report. More American women in their 20s are delaying motherhood, especially if they live in an area where the economy is doing great. The New York Times called this “a profound change in motherhood.”

Forgoing babies to focus on career is not a new concept, but one that originated from the second wave of feminism, which began in the 1960s and encouraged women to get out of the house and work. So they did. Now, women outnumber men in the college-educated workforce.

There are two important caveats: If a woman truly wants to have a career over children, she certainly can and should. If a woman truly doesn’t want to have kids, she shouldn’t. A bitter mother is not a good one.

But a plethora of women in between aren’t sure they want to have kids, or they do but aren’t sure about timing. These are the women who must know the value of having children, a lot of children, in their 20s if possible. Many women regret not having kids, but few women regret having them. To these, I say, have babies and embrace the mixed emotions.

Data shows more women are delaying having babies because they think their careers will be more financially and personally more satisfying. While it’s true that not having a career makes the early years seem painfully hard because they’re so repetitive, physically demanding and exhausting, but does the joy of a successful career outweigh the joy of having your son text you YouTube shorts from high school?

A woman’s career and children are two different experiences, to be sure, but having children is a singular experience that brings out the best and worst in women. It makes women happy, sad, primal and furious. It triggers joy, depression, anger, and fury. A woman who has raised several children has earned her gray hairs and fine lines: She has likely become less selfish and wise, two admirable qualities in today’s world.

There is no joy quite like children because they elicit from mothers the purest form of love. Watching a first step, swim or bike ride exacts a bliss that a promotion or raise can’t match. The early years are full of snuggles, baths, parks and giggles. Babies are so small and precious and you want to hold them as often as you can.

But you’re also exhausted because they require full-time surveillance. When children get hurt, get lost or — God forbid — die, it can send a parent into despair, so deep is the love for a child.

The teen years are an entirely unique experience: You marvel that you can finally have lengthy conversations about important issues like economics, politics and religion, though the same child will, at a moment’s notice, tell you you’re a bad parent because you won’t allow them to spend 100 million hours on their phone per day.

You’re watching them navigate adulthood like a floundering fish trying to head upstream: You want to let them do it on their own, but it’s painful. They’re making mistakes and blaming you. But you’ve never loved a person so deeply. Especially because when you look at a 16-year-old face, you still see the same 2-year old toddler tearing around the house.

This is what I think most women should choose to do, and choose to work also if they can. It’s like choosing to cook a five course meal every night knowing you’re going to end up full, burned, tired and hungry tomorrow, but it’s still oddly fulfilling.