Planned to fall pregnant age 15

Obviously, but they can only relate to their own experience if you want to look at it like that. There's not really been anyone saying what a terrible experience they had here has there? Yet we know that it happens.

I think we've all known/observed teen mums and are intelligent enough to have formed opinions!!

My friend in school got pregnant at 14 and while I wouldn’t say it was planned, she wanted a baby and it wasn’t unplanned. Baby was born at 15 and she was living on her own at 15/16 (private rental, paid for by her parents, her dad was a hospital consultant so money was not an issue). I used to go visit her at her house and be so astonished that she did everything on her own, no support, no help from parents during the nights. Her boyfriend had long since buggered off literally never to be heard from again.

She went on to get married and have 2 more children in her early 20s, but her husband died when their youngest was a toddler. She had a 4th baby in her early 30s. They aren’t together, though I think he has some contact.

She’s literally raised 4 babies completely on her own. Her parents have helped financially, but not in any practical ways. She went to uni and then got a master’s degree. She has a good job. She owns her own home, possibly mortgage free now as her dad has died, so I imagine his estate would have been enough to pay for everything. She has raised the loveliest children. They are an absolute credit to her. Her eldest is 25 now and recently got married to a really lovely guy. She is the antithesis of the stereotype of a “teen mum.”

She certainly did have financial resources from her parents, but they were otherwise a bit shit and disengaged. Really on a very practical level, she did everything herself, without even having a partner around and she did a fab job.

I got pregnant "by accident" at 16, had the baby 17yrs and 3months. I say accident but remember vividly putting my legs up against the wall so the sperm didn't come out 🫣 , so maybe not quite the accident everyone thinks. I went on to have another baby 5yrs later, have a professional career and now own my own business. I thought I was super super mature for my age but cannot tell you what I was thinking 🤔

This! I think OP had this feeling but actually went for it with her partner

OP it’s more common than you think, I remember thinking I was an adult at 15. I said yes to my boyfriend who proposed to me at 17 and was with him from 14 to 20 years old.

i’m 30 now and think… wow, I wasn’t an adult at all!

What do you mean by got 'your own place'? You mean you got a private rental? That's not your own and it's especially not your own if it's paid for entirely by the housing element of universal credit.

Of the teens that I knew who got pregnant (& kept the baby) all have stayed in the place they grew up in and have gone on to have other kids and some became grandparents in their 40s.

i genuinely don’t know whether it was their desire to “settle down” to family life at an early age that drove that, or the resulting stalled education and time spent child raising which led to lower wages and not being able to financially leave their hometown or travel.

Even the ones that decided to go back to education at a later stage have stayed put, with parents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc all living nearby.

Out of curiosity OP, do you still live in the general area of where you were a teen? Or have you travelled more and lived in many areas?

This is exactly it. Teenagers' brains are not finished maturing. They tend to be more impulsive than fully grown adults, more happy to take risks, without thinking of the consequences.

OP, we all do silly and immature things as teenagers. Perhaps some don't have the best role models or happiest home life or glittering future career mapped out and literally don't beyond their natural maternal urges.

This thread has some great examples of how the real world is a lot messier than the adverts. I can't help wondering what some of the people who have an attack of the vapours when a Mum comes in here to say "Just found out my 15 3/4 yo daughter is having sex, and I'm not planning to have her 16 1/4 year old boyfriend put on the sex offenders register, AIBU" would make of it.

Well I say - well done you. Sounds like you’ve provided a stable home for your child (now children), you’ve been with your boyfriend (now husband) for a long time in today’s terms, you’re very committed to each other, and he’s been financially supportive. It’s worked out for you, and that is not just due to luck.

I hear you. You are a warrior. So much weight on such young shoulders. Hers and yours, but you clearly bore it whereas she couldn't.

You must really lack imagination.

But the teen mums know far more about it than someone who hasn't been one

I don't see "priggishness" - most people understand the reality of teen motherhood, the challenges young mums face. Some have a lack of support and in a lot of cases the relationships don't last.

It doesn't work out as well for a lot of people as it did for the OP and some other posters, but the reality is, it's tough!

Being a teenage mother hasn’t got you a council house for the best part of 30
years, but i guess a 15 year old wouldn’t know that

That's irrelevant though. Today's equivalent of a council house is a private rental paid for entirely by housing benefit. Although housing in general is in extremely short supply and it seems the only cast iron way to make sure you can access any housing at all and have the taxpayer pay your rent for you is to make sure you knock out a couple of children at least, as a 'single' mother. Certainly the more kids you have, the greater chance of getting a house you have. That's just a plain and simple fact. And we wonder why people who cannot afford the children they already have keep having more.

I’m a child of a fifteen year old mother. I don’t know the circumstances. It was the 70s. My parents married when my mum was 16. None of it was good. My mum’s a child (she’s in her 60s but I grew older than her by the time I was 18). Please grow. Do what you can to grow as a person. ❤️

I planned to have my daughter, got pregnant at 17 had her at 18, we didn’t get a council house, got our own place when she was 14 months old and lived with parents until then. I tell everybody that comments how young I was when I had her, that I had planned it. I am 24 now and don’t regret a thing x

I can’t think of many of us who I know from baby group who where teens had much more support than say the 20/30 year old there.

The one who did lost her child to the grandparent as she was the one who wasn’t ready to be a mum and from what I see on social media still isn’t now she’s in her 30’s. So the help was more granny protecting the grand baby really.

We had the normal of one side wanted to buy the pram and one side the cot. We got our own house and kitted it out slowly and cheaply. Our oldest didn’t sleep over at either grannies until a few years old and that was for a works party in fact in his whole life I think his slept at a grandparent under 10 times. He went to Nursery while I attended college and dh worked full time. Then I became a sahm for a few years while we finished expanding the family to save on childcare costs then I went to work around school hours.

What are you talking about?

@TwoSwannitsno I liked school and did A levels and uni. It was just very very intense at that time 14-16. The desire then died back a little to a sensible level. Like someone earlier said, in my case I think it felt like everyone was maturing quicker than me and it felt like a fast track to being an adult and taken more seriously. Probably would have done the opposite tbh but that’s the teen brain for you!

I think it's far more common than any of us care to admit. We are programmed to think it's the choice of girls with low standards, low attainment levels, low self esteem, and no ambition or capabilitity to do or be anything 'better'. Of course this means that the girls who choose teen motherhood and secretly wish for it, feel compelled to pretend it was an accident and swear they didn't intend it to happen. To admit they hoped for it and planned it seems such a taboo thing to do, when we all know it gives your child the least favourable outcomes.

Well it sounds like she does to me. I don't know what you think you are reading! And what makes you think her husband doesn't know, or even if he doesn't that it's any of his business?

I also planned my baby at 15… I turned 16 just before she was born and now she’s 18 in a couple of weeks! I was always very maternal from a very young age and so desperately wanted a baby, unlike my eldest daughter who is quite the opposite and I’m happy with that!!
I married 13 years ago, work and had another 3 children, youngest is 3.
Worked out ok for me as I had very supportive family but when I look back now I can see how crazy it was!

I went to school with quite a few teenage girls who planned their pregnancies. They chose to study GCSE child development as they knew that was their future. This was in the 2000s.

It makes it a lot more challenging.

P.S I am in my 60s now and don't regret a thing. DS is my life.