How well were you prepared or are you prepared to become a mother?

What does it mean to be prepared to be a mother? For some it means that a young woman has completed high school or university - her education. It may mean that a young woman spent 2000 hours either baby sitting or otherwise caring for other peoples' babies and children and therefore has learned something about the right ways to handle children. It may mean that a woman has taken courses to become certified as an instructor for mothering or parenting classes. A woman may have received psychotherapy for the purpose of becoming a better mother and/or a better wife.

Personally, without dragging psychotherapy into it I viewed preparation for motherhood in the following real but fairly simple terms.

1. be physically mature enough - this should go without saying but I am saying it anyway.
2. be emotionally and mentally mature enough for it. While simple enough in my own case I waited until I was over 25. I do not mean that as any joke nor as an insult.
3. Have enough money - a lot of people enter into parenting when the parents are young; they may be poor but okay or be better off. It is necessary and easier for anyone to become a parent when there will be sufficient material resources to support the mother the father, and the baby or twins (quintuplets highly unlikely). This can be done using the traditional method of waiting until at least one partner - probably the man in a marriage has raised his income high enough for the family to live comfortably even when the mother goes without work or without full time work as long as there is a baby or young child and maybe longer depending on the needs of the husband. I was willing to do it that way myself despite many liberal and progressive tendencies but that is not how it happened. However, with a flexible approach to problem solving, there are numerous arrangements that can accommodate a new baby. I do always hope that both the mother and father can help but on some level that is intended to be a choice and it either can't handle it - adoption should be considered for everyone's sanity and best interests. I am pro-choice and believe in safe, legal abortions but also believe that abortions should be very rare and nothing but a last resort for women. Prevention and adoption should be much more commonplace and the % of people happy to become parents would ideally be 100% - with people only becoming parents when ready and by choice. Relatives, friends, cheap living, and mothers and fathers both working part time or full time to support a child or children are all acceptable alternatives - albeit they may not be ideal solutions. I also think of wealthy single women movie stars and how true it is, that if they save up their own nest eggs, they can live on money they saved up while working while they stay home to care for their baby or babies with or without the benefit of a husband or husbandlike entity.

If you have all this covered, along with good health then you are in a good position to become a parent.