You’ve seen celebrity clinical psychologist Dr. Sherry Blake, author of The Single Married Woman: True Stories of Why Women Feel All Alone in Their Marriages, keep the Braxton sisters calm on the hit show Braxton Family Values. Now it’s your turn to sit in her chair…
Q: I’m 24 years old and I’m single, which is okay, but I have these big dreams of being a wife and a mother ASAP. I don’t understand why I’m not like a normal girl in her 20s who wants to go out, travel and do the “me” thing. Instead, I want to move to my hometown, possibly be a stay-at-home mom and do the whole PTA thing. I don’t understand why that life is so of interest to me. Getting all partied out at 18 just left me miserable and wishing I could erase a few things. Please explain to my why I’m 24 and want to be 44? —Anonymous
A: Being 24 and wanting a family and wanting to be married is a normal feeling. You’re not abnormal in wanting these things. What is abnormal, would be being 34 and not wanting those things. A lot of times people wait and put things off because they think they want that life too soon, and that’s not necessarily true. So what I say to you is, it sounds like you did have the party lifestyle and you’ve done a lot of the things you wanted to do, so it may not be too soon to think about settling down. In most marriages, even when you’re young, if you find the right person, they tend to last. So you don’t have to feel like you need to wait forever. That said, I would suggest that you make sure you don’t rush into things too quickly either. You may have this storybook image in your mind of what being married and being the “soccer mom” is going to be about. But know that it’s not like it is in the storybook. My suggestion is, when looking for the right person, take your time in choosing him. If you have a man you love, and you’re in a relationship and you really know the person well, then you should move forward. Don’t just rush into it because you want to be married and have children. You have time to make the best decision for you.
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