Planned to fall pregnant age 15

Neither are the people who claim it, but they still do.

Probably not in those exact words, no. Did it need to be, to count? It's the values and the overall message that matters.

I really wanted a baby when I was 15 too. If I’d been sexually active I might have had one. You’re a child, you don’t think things through properly.

Statistically it's very likely though, especially if your child is a girl.

None, of course. But the average 30 year old is far more likely to be in a financial position to support a child, more likely to be in a stable and lasting relationship, more likely to have some work experience, some qualifications, a half decent job, more likely to have already paid substantially into the welfare pot, even if they haven't been an especially high earner. If they've earnt anything in the years since they left education they've contributed a fair bit.

What has the average 15-17 year old paid in so far? What are they likely to be earning in the first 5-7 years of their child's life, if anything at all? How capable of paying all of their own rent and bills are they from the minute their child is born? How likely is it that they will be able to command anything more than minimum wage based on the skills, experience and qualifications they have as a teen mum? How likely is it that once they have a job, it will pay well enough for them to fund their own childcare instead of relying on free childcare as a way of the government coaxing them into work, because otherwise the sums don't add up? How likely is it that if they go to uni, they'll be paying exactly the same loans as every other student without a child, renting a room in a shared house, probably paid for by their parents, instead of having a private place of their own for them and their child and well as various other elements of financial help including free childcare while they study?

A young student with a child is not expected to live on their maintenance loan alone or to fund their rent and bills the same way as a regular student without a child. Who do you think pays for that? Father Christmas?

OP out of curiosity, would you be happy to be a grandma in 5 years?

At school those who got pregnant had parents (or mothers at least) who didn’t work so they got immense help.

it was really just the done thing for many and had been for generations.

and it still goes on as most of those girls are grandmothers now having never really
worked and neither have their children

just a bit of a waste really

A waste of what?

just a bit of a waste really.
sure, you’ve probably had an okay life. That’s probably not what you’d want for your child.
Are we not all striving to do better with every generation? Or is that just me?

.but what's the difference if an unemployed 30 year old has a baby? Not all 30 year olds are high earners etc. Could say the same for anyone who has a baby if the parent is unable to work due to disability. Or shouldn't they have kids either?

Can you honestly say that when you were 15 you thought about "how best not to be an unnecessary and deliberate drain on the system"

Yes, absolutely. I come from the sort of background where that was drummed into me. And I have drummed it into my children.

Sorry, I forgot you were 15, I am mixing you up with someone else on the thread who said they planned it when they were 17 and had the child when they were 18.

Well it depends on that specific 30 year old and her situation, but unless the OP or her BF were independently wealthy with parents who financially supported them and their child entirely and paid their rent and bills for them while they worked to get to the point they are at now, then there will have been significant cost the taxpayer as a result of their choice to have a child that young. It's not that hard to work out.

If she and her BF are absolute anomalies to that common assumption and I am wrong, then she's very welcome to come and explain how/why. But even if they are, it doesn't change the fact that most 17 yo parents are not.

Yes?

Really ?

Why are the financial implications more at 17 than if she had been 30?

I was planned. No, really. My mother was 17 and my dad was 20. They wanted to get married and be together and they knew they wouldn't get permission without a 'reason'. They're still together. I'm 47. I was initially just a means to an end, but I was loved and very well cared for and had a wonderful childhood. They only had me.
There are many reasons and I don't fully know yours. However, it seems it's all worked out, so well done, especially on continuing with your education under those circumstances.

Well I've never claimed a single benefit apart from child benefit until the rules changed and we were ineligible even for that, in my life. But that's not the point. Even if I had, why should that mean I don't think you might be thankful for a system that allowed you the luxury of an irresponsible and selfish choice without being made to bring your child up in abject poverty because of it?

It's not like I am asking you to thank me personally, is it? You don't need to see proof of my credentials to acknowledge any of the above and be thankful for it.

Millions of people 'pay their taxes.' It doesn't mean they don't cost the state far more every month than they contribute to the collective money pot. That's fine, we can't all be net contributors. Doing your best to not be an unnecessary and deliberate drain on the system is the most we can ask of anyone.

But even if the OP and her partner are higher rate tax payers now (unlikely at their age but not unheard of) it will be quite some time before the considerable cost to the taxpayer of her choosing to have a child at 17/18 and all the associated financial implications of that, over several years is repaid, all things considered.

You're not actually that stupid.

Yes contraception does occasionally fail even when used correctly, but it's relatively rare. What is far more common is people getting accidentally PG when they were not actually using it correctly or 100% of the time. That's not actually a failure of the contraception itself though, is it? It's a failure to use it correctly or consistently. But statistically and somewhat weirdly if you ask me, that's still included when we talk about the various methods of BC and their efficacies in percentage terms.

There is undoubtedly a significant proportion of 'unplanned pregnancies' which it turns out are not the genuine accidents they are claimed to be and this thread alone is testimony to that. I think most of us can recognise when an 'accidental' PG resulting in the birth of a baby is truly likely to be accidental and when our intuition tells us it almost certainly isn't.

One way to tell the difference is to look at the outcome. Most genuine accidents, especially when BC was being used precisely because they didn't intend to become PG, end in terminations. If you are genuinely shocked and panicked at finding out your are PG then you almost always terminate unless there are genuine reasons why you cannot.

Depending on how soon you find out you are PG and what that does in terms of narrowing your options or making it harder for you to proceed with a termination, some women may find they completely change their minds about how to proceed and decide to have the baby even though there was absolutely no intention or secret hope of getting PG in the first place. This might happen after a lot of soul searching and weighing up of pros and cons. I know people this has happened to, one friend in particular who got PG in her second year of uni and didn't find out until she was five months. I'd have done the same in her shoes and I am very much pro-choice, but five months would be two months too late for me.

The women and girls for whom it's not even a question and they know from day dot that they will have that baby regardless of their personal circumstances or the state of their relationship with the father, they are the ones for whom these 'accidents' and 'birth control failures' are in all likelihood, not quite what they seem. That overwhelming desire to be pregnant often overrides all good sense. These girls and women know they aren't in the best position or the best relationship to have a baby at this point in their life, but they are determined to do it anyway, so they only way to bypass criticism or the concern of others is to pretend they didn't mean it to happen and to pretend they had to think long and hard about how to proceed and 'just couldn't go through with it.'

I'm sure with some very young women it's not even an overwhelming desire to be PG. It's just done as a lifestyle choice and an easy solution to being able to move out of the family home or the care system, or to be able to stop going to school or college without everyone getting on your case. Not having to face up to the very tough and competitive world of work, education, self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. It's easy to say 'I couldn't do A levels/go to uni/have a career because I became a mum unexpectedly when I was young.' It's a bit of a get out of jail free card.