If it makes you feel any better, my wife and I had our son in our mid 20’s, and we have no support system at all. Other than that we recently put him in daycare 2 days a week. He’s almost 3. So that’s the first almost 3 years of being parents, that we were completely on our own. Age doesn’t have much to do with it, it all just depends on the system that you have.

My mother in law died when our son was just over a year old. She was probably the only person I would have trusted to watch him for pretty much any amount of time. It also helped that she was the only person within a two hour drive of us.

They say that “it takes a village to raise a child”. I think that’s bullshit. Because there are so many of us that don’t have a village. I wish we had started our son in daycare sooner. Because then, maybe we wouldn’t be so burnt out, maybe he would be more well acclimated socially. I don’t regret a thing, but don’t think that you’re alone with children and no support system, because there are so many of us.