Category Archives: Motherhood and family

Raising Teens While Riding Hormonal Tides— or — What Was God Thinking?!

“What was God thinking when He decided I should be raising teenagers whilst going through perimenopause? It is the ultimate clash of hormones!”

A random internet post, or divine comedy? Either way, it hit home.

I read something funny the other day. It was a woman asking, “What was God thinking when He decided I should be raising teenagers whilst going through perimenopause? It is the ultimate clash of hormones!”

I was pondering this, as it’s very much a reality in my life. I’m pushing fifty and have three teenagers in the house. One biological son of 15, a stepson aged 14 and stepdaughter of 13. I find that mostly I just don’t seem to have the patience I had when I was in my twenties and even thirties.

Did I Miss the Timing?

Then the thought came that perhaps if I had children earlier in life, I wouldn’t be in this situation. So I started looking at history.

In biblical times, childbearing began shortly after marriage. It wasn’t uncommon for girls to have their first child between ages 13 and 16. But many continued having children up to their 30s and 40s—assuming they survived childbirth and remained fertile.

In the 1800s to early 1900s, women typically had babies in their early twenties. But that began to shift. By the late 1900s and into the 2000s, childbearing age steadily rose. Today, many women only begin having children at 28 or older. This shift is due to education, careers, contraception, autonomy, delayed marriage, and fertility technology.

Maybe There Was a Plan

Looking at this, I began to wonder: perhaps our Creator never intended for us to go through major hormonal transitions while our children were in the thick of their own. As with everything in creation, maybe there was a plan for it all to flow in harmony.

I had my biological child at 33. And while I wouldn’t trade that for anything, the truth is: teenagers are navigating a wild space between childhood and adulthood, and they need us to be patient, steady, wise. But it’s hard to show up that way when your nurturing hormone—oestrogen—is waving goodbye at a rapid pace.

If we go back to basics—without moral overlays—humans become physically capable of reproduction around 13. Which means, in the past, people would’ve been raising teenagers when they were still in their physical prime. Absurd in a modern context, yes, but biologically and emotionally? It kind of makes sense.

Did We Get Too Clever for Our Own Good?

Did we become so clever, so advanced, that we messed up nature’s rhythm?

Life has an invisible beat. And humans, for some reason, keep missing it—then land up playing a completely different tune, and we wonder why we feel confused, out of sync, and frustrated.

Life has an invisible rhythm. And humans, for some reason, keep missing a beat.

But Here I Am

Look, what’s done is done—and I’m not getting out of this raising-teens-while-riding-hormones situation. Honestly, I’m also glad I didn’t have a child at thirteen. That would’ve been its own kind of chaos.

Yet, I’m sensing more and more that the only way forward is to remember. To tune back into the ancient rhythm, the one still humming beneath the noise. To let go of my mind for a moment. And allow my life to flow again.

This way, we may just all make it through this crazy ride, mostly intact.

PS. Condolences to hubby, standing on the side, watching the proverbial shit show, with no idea what’s going down!

The Forgotten Form

and the unexpected return of an old feeling

I’ve always thought of myself as calm in a crisis.
Collected. Quick to pivot. Someone who makes a plan.
But earlier this week, something small and strange undid me —
and it’s still lingering in my chest like a whisper that wants to be heard.

A slow unraveling

My son was heading off on a cricket tour, and we had a 50-minute drive to the next town from our farm to meet the bus. All the usual prep had been done — bags packed, snacks ready, indemnity form completed and emailed to the teacher a week prior. I even had the original form printed and placed carefully on my desk.

And still, that morning, I forgot it.

We were sitting at the fuel station, waiting in the car, when my son casually mentioned that the teacher had just reminded all the parents to bring the original form. My stomach dropped. I went cold. I looked at the time: five minutes until the bus arrived.

Panic rose like wildfire.

I ran into the little shop and asked for the manager. A young woman strolled out slowly. I explained the situation — could she possibly help me print something if I emailed it to her? Her disinterested expression only added to the rising dread. But eventually, she helped. The bus was late. I printed the form. Signed it. Delivered it just in time.

“Oh, I brought extra copies,” the teacher chuckled.
“I figured some parents might forget.”

What lies beneath

The next morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about my reaction.
Why had I spiraled so hard? It wasn’t public. No one but the petrol station manager knew how panicked I was. But still, it shook me.

So I sat with it.

And what came to me was this:
sometimes it isn’t the current moment that we’re reacting to.
It’s a memory — something lodged deep in the nervous system —
rising up through the cracks.

Somewhere in my past, I must have felt the same kind of fear.
The kind that says: You’ve failed. You’ve forgotten something important. You’re not enough.
Maybe it was from childhood. Maybe early adulthood.
I haven’t quite found it yet.

But I’m looking.

Unpacking the trigger

This is the work now — not just the external rebuilding of strength and purpose, but the inner sorting too. Learning what triggers me. Tracing it back. Giving it space. Then letting it go.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung

Because I don’t want to be governed by old ghosts.
I don’t want my nervous system to keep dragging me back into stories I’ve already outgrown.

Fear and anxiety are sneaky companions. We bury them.
And then one day, you forget a form…
and they rise like a flame to remind you: you still haven’t faced this.

But when we do —
when we name it, sit with it, and finally choose to release it —
we reclaim power.

Coming home

And slowly, breath by breath,
we come home to ourselves.