The realtor echoed my unspoken sentiments. "Wouldn’t this be a great little place for kids?" She was cheery and down-to-earth, so I decided to share my secret.

"Actually, I’m going to have a baby. I’m three months along." I always make that statement proudly.

She turned with a smile, "That’s wonderful!" I nodded at her, then turned my gaze back to the woodwork around the door.

We moved on to the living room. "How long have you been married?" she asked. I bent over to tie my shoe, hoping she didn’t see my blush.

"About three months and a week." I laughed self-consciously as I straightened. "We wanted to have one right away." For some reason, I always feel the need to add that clause — even with people I’ve just met. It’s nobody’s business, but it inevitably spills out of me all the same — probably because if I don’t say it, I get comments like, "Bad timing on the wedding date, eh?" (as a nurse recently assumed).

The realtor showed me the fireplace. "You know, your taste in homes is very old, in the classic sense. That’s highly unusual for someone who looks as young as you."

I tensed. Please don’t ask how old I am. Please … I had already shared two things about myself that were fairly unusual — one, I was married before graduating from college, and two, I got pregnant on my honeymoon. To announce that I was still nineteen would seal any stigma that might have formed in her mind. Given all the news stories about "teenage moms" and the "teen pregnancy rate" (always with negative connotations), I never know how people will react when they find out I’m a teenage mom.

* * *

I grew up in rural Wisconsin, where it is not necessarily uncommon to meet a girl who is in her late teens, married, and pregnant. But in the eyes of the upstanding citizens of my small town, there is a distinct difference of class between "those kinds" and myself. They are farm girls, or grew up in the trailer court, and they marry hometown boys that drive big trucks. Many of them got married because they were pregnant (my compassion is with them). But as a high-school friend of mine now attending a prestigious college in New York City wrote upon hearing my news, "I thought you were different." He said he was happy for me, but admitted, "I just don’t understand you."

In the Christian realm, it’s not as uncommon to be married young as it is in the culture at large. Three of my good friends at church were married before or at age 20. But my first child will probably be three years old before they start having kids. Christian teaching, in general, has followed the culture when it comes to practical advice on when to start a family. "Finish school and establish a house and a career," most of our elders advise — hold off on having kids for a few years until you "know each other" and are financially secure.

When a couple decides to get married and start having kids — and how many they have — is nobody’s business but theirs and God’s, which is a reminder I need as often as anyone else. But I do feel a need to challenge the dominant trend of our age toward putting off responsibilities and prolonging adolescence.

It was only recently that being a teenager became synonymous with being too young to make big decisions about marriage and children. Some of my favorite books are the Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery. In these beloved books, Anne attains what is the modern day equivalent of a college education, becomes a full-time schoolteacher, and starts to teach herself Latin and Greek — by age 16. Her friends, also teenagers, start marrying and having babies right out of school. Yet none of this is depicted as unusual — Anne is only a slightly-above-average teenage woman 100 years ago. Today, Anne would be hailed as a genius and her friends would be considered mature far beyond their years (or else stupid for "giving up their independence" so early).

* * *

I know that many parents of college-aged adults are worried that their daughters and sons (especially the ones at small Christian Bridal — I mean, Bible — schools) are going to marry "too soon," based on unrealistic ideals about marriage or the rampant hormones of youth. Unfortunately, there are some legitimate reasons for their fears. We live in a culture of immaturity, where grown men drive around in convertibles with stereos blasting Brittney Spears, and where adult women’s fashions are modeled after fourteen-year-olds’. Christians are bound to soak up the values of the culture that surrounds them (hence the forty-something Christian male vocalists who style their hair a la Ricky Martin).

But maybe young Christians wouldn’t be so starry-eyed about marriage if they were told that babies are a good and immediate part of the deal. That would sober them, because it would elucidate the reality that marriage is more about sacrifice than sex. And in a culture where sex is all about pleasure it is crucial that we stress its procreative purposes. If you aren’t ready to have a baby, you aren’t ready to get married. Yes, children are a nuisance and an inconvenience — to our selfish natures. If you wait until you are completely financially stable, or emotionally ready, you will never have children. You are never fully prepared for anything life brings, but God promised that his grace will be sufficient for today.

Before we got married, Sam and I were contemplating waiting a year to have a baby. We figured it might be nice to have some alone time before the "kid years" kicked in. Then, the closer we came to the wedding, the more we found ourselves looking forward to starting our family. As we learned more about the nature of love, we realized that it is too great to be contained solely in two persons — it should overflow into new life.

Our experience is not uncommon, nor is it new. I recently heard a missionary speak of her early years of marriage. "My husband and I decided that it would be kind of nice if I didn’t get pregnant for a year." She went on to give the classic "get to know each other" line (I was surprised that it has been around that long — she was married almost 50 years ago). Yet, within a few weeks, she said, she found herself "longing for a child." It wasn’t long afterwards that their child was born. Less than a year after that, her husband was martyred, and she was left with a tiny piece of him — her eight-month-old baby.

It’s tempting to act as though tomorrow is in our hands, not God’s. One woman told me a few weeks ago, "My husband and I plan to start on our next baby in April, 2002." In this age of technology, it’s hard not to think that we’re in control, and that babies are things we create — not miracles from the hand of God. Like good Americans, we think we have a "right" to pursue happiness, to have children "of our own," and to turn our fertility off and on whenever we please. Yet God said, "You are not your own," and it is He who controls whether the womb is even open in the first place. "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away — blessed be the name of the Lord."

* * *

Sam and I were browsing recently at Barnes and Noble when we came across a book that struck us as being misguided. Designed to highlight America’s "teen pregnancy crisis," it was titled The Youngest Parents and was full of black-and-white photos of teenagers with exhausted looks on their faces, taking care of screaming children in settings of poverty. I shook my head at its implied assumptions. Never mind that a collection entitled The Oldest Parents would reveal 45-year-old moms with the exact same looks on their faces and the same disobedient kids. Never mind that nearly every person alive today had great-grandparents who were teenage parents when their first children were born, and handled it (I daresay) as well as most "adults" today.

Despite what you may read in the papers or hear on the nightly news, America does not have a "teen pregnancy crisis." In reality, we have a crisis of children born outside of marriage — to parents of all ages and classes, from impoverished teenagers to fifty-year-old movie stars, who want the fun of sex without the responsibilities of marriage. We have a crisis of maturity and morality.

Yes, I am among those contributing to the teen pregnancy rate. I would encourage other responsible young Christians in their late teens and early twenties to do the same. Women, these are the best years of your life to have a baby (ages 18-to-27 are when your body is at its peak for childbearing, and having your first child during these years significantly reduces your risk of breast cancer). Men, why not channel your youth and energy into something with profound eternal value?

Is it "fun" becoming a mom? So far, I wouldn’t describe it that way. Pregnancy is a challenge, and frankly, not very enjoyable (at least in the early weeks). It’s also terribly frightening, much more so than I imagined it would be. I am opening myself up to inevitable hurt — whether it comes at the miscarriage of this child in a week’s time, or whether it is stretched out into 60 years of having pieces of my soul pulling at me from the separate beings of my children.

In the next few months, it’s not going to be easy walking around looking obviously young and conspicuously watermelon-like. Yet I will remind myself to pat my tummy with pride. I am the recipient of a wholly undeserved blessing — and blessings are never something to be ashamed of.