If you had kids young and were judged for it how do you feel seeing the current trendy opinion has switched to praising young motherhood?

No one is doing this!
Gen Z accounts for people currently aged between 14 and 29, literally no one with any sense is moaning that they aren’t having children. Some random man on Facebook who refers to 40 year old women as “empty egg cartons” should hardly be held up as a spokesperson for wider society.

Who are these people moaning ? They should mind their own business . I certainly woudnt have wanted to spend my youth raising children before I had a chance to experience the world myself . I don’t care what’s “trendy”

Ok, since you don’t seem to be getting it:

You don’t know if a 15/16 year old got pregnant consensually. You have no idea if that girl has been allowed to access a termination, given they are dependent on their parents at that age. You have no idea what traumas and vulnerabilities they may have.

I think it’s nasty for a woman old enough to be their mother to be calling them stupid. Very few girls that age want to get pregnant, so it achieves absolutely nothing other than ostracising and disempowering. It reaps the negative outcomes you claim not to want.

The attitude we had historically to young, unmarried mothers achieved nothing other than ruining lives. It’s amazing how despite living in more accepting times teenage pregnancies are lowering year-on-year. It’s almost like we don’t need to humiliate and shame girls who are already pregnant to prevent teenage pregnancy.

In the same way we don’t blame Epstein’s victims for being stupid, we don’t blame young girls who find themselves pregnant either. Or at least I don’t, but apparently not all of us.

The fact that you’re arguing with me is a bit bizarre. I don’t think it’s right for women to call vulnerable girl stupid, it’s amazing that that is a controversial opinion.

And let us not forget that the outcomes for the children of girls who get pregnant at 15 are also usually very poor.
There are a few outliers - usually where the grandparents step in and raise the child on behalf of the mother. Often this is something they feel forced into doing. But an uneducated, unemployed, teenage mother living in precarious accommodation on state benefits usually spells disaster for all concerned.

No one is suggesting children having babies is a good thing. Theres is talk about leaving too late ie 40. But there are many years between 16 and 40 OP.

When I was about 16/17 I was walking with my child and this grown man was yelling at me that I was a slag, a waste of space on benefits and my child would grow up to be a criminal. I stumbled upon his facebook page a couple of years ago (live in the same town which has a Facebook group he posted on) scrolled through his profile and it’s full of stuff about woman leaving motherhood too late being an empty egg cartoon and how we should all have children when we are young.
How strange is that when less than 10 years ago he was yelling abuse at young mums

Very strange. Unbelievable, really.

And yet you quoted me… odd.

The general view is that teenage pregnancy is stupid, it completely stunts a young girls option, educational attainment and financial power over her lifetime. I’m not sure why you would argue any of those things are incorrect. Some girls with fortunate family circumstances will not have their lives ruined by having a baby while still at school, many will not have a family able to provide financially for a grandchild child or support with childcare.
No one with any sense thinks a 15 year getting pregnant is advisable.

I don't know where you're hearing these opinions, but I've certainly never heard anyone advocating that women should have children very young, and I don't think the conversation around either teenage or geriatric motherhood has changed much since I had my children over 20 years ago.

I’m sorry you felt judged, but I don’t think anyone in their right mind is or should be normalising teenagers having babies.

You said society’s attitude to a pregnant teenager that she’s is stupid. I’m saying that attitude is wrong for the reasons in my comment. I thought that was fairly obvious from the post.

The first sentence specified I wasn’t directing this to you personally, so it didn’t really require a response anyway.

I’m really not sure what point you are making, I haven’t once said a teenage mother is stupid.
Why would I be calling a trafficked girl in the Epstein files stupid either? What’s the relevance?

OP is suggesting the tone has changed and the general attitude is that very young motherhood is desirable and pushed as an agenda nowadays, hence her feeling vindicated as a girl who got pregnant at 15. This is simply not true and pretty much no one is suggesting it is ever advisable to aim for teenage pregnancy. Why would you have an issue with that pov? Are you suggesting it is actually something teenage girls should aim for?

A few people mentioned I was too young when I had DD1 at 23, a couple of those also raised eyebrows when I had DD2 at 40. Some people will always have an (unwanted) opinion!

This isn’t directed to you specifically:

But I find this kind of mindset pretty distasteful. You have no idea how that 15/16 year old is pregnant or what their life circumstances and vulnerabilities are.

Are we not all following the Epstein files? Does anyone call those girls and young women stupid? In any other situation, you’d refer to teenage girls under 18 as children/minors.

I just abhor this mentality, it holds girls back and tells that them that their life is over; don’t bother aspiring to anything other than a life on benefits and everyone will judge you.

You don’t hear much about it because teenage pregnancies have fallen off a cliff. Between the late 90s and 2022 rates of teen pregnancy fell by 70%.
Hardly any teenagers are having babies these days, it’s not that anyone thinks it’s become any more advisable.

No one is really moaning that 20 year olds aren’t having kids either.
Some right wing ultra conservative men resent the fact that women control their own lives and choose not to have many or any children. Even then it’s hardly an opinion most people put any value on.

There are no policies or strategies to do anything regarding the birth rate in the UK, it’s not an issue in the real world.

If you get your information from FB rants and trash media you will have a skewed view.

I think where this isn't uncommon the girls were very unlikely to pursue further or higher education in the first place. Deprived areas, low educational attainment, much higher levels of unemployment.

I had my first in my mid twenties and definitely had more energy and enthusiasm than I did a decade later when I was demented with tiredness. I have a pal who is due in her late 40’s and I cannot even begin to imagine how exhausting that will be.

Read literally any thread on the pregnancy and conception boards where someone in their 40s (or even late 30s) has found out they’re pregnant or are thinking about TTC and someone will come along and say, “oh, but what about DS risk” or “could you look after a child with disabilities” 🙄.

The chance of someone having a child with Down’s syndrome and it being detected during pregnancy increases with age*, and that’s what everyone leaps on. Obviously, the parents to be making choices based on that information (and the doom and gloom scare-mongering) means that around 90% of those pregnancies where DS is detected are terminated. I think the Down’s Syndrome Association states that about 750 babies with Down’s syndrome are born every year. I don’t know whether that number has decreased again since the NIPT became more widespread. I suspect that more babies with DS are actually born to younger mothers as they are more likely to be diagnosed postnatally.

(*Statistically speaking, anyway. My eldest DD who has Down’s syndrome was born when I had just turned 33 - the combined test gave me a 1 in 1,900 chance, but we were the one! Then, a decade later, when pregnant with my now 4 week old I was convinced that the CT would put me at very high chance, between my age and history, but I got 1 in 2,400 - also confirmed by NIPT, and she was born without that extra chromosome…).

I’m sorry you got abused OP, but I don’t understand why you feel vindicated?

That’s because less people are getting pregnant as teens OP. Teenage pregnancy rates in the UK have fallen by over 70% since 1998, with the under-18 conception rate in England and Wales at 13.9 per 1,000 women in 2022 an under-16 just 2.2.

Nothing’s remotely changed. Women are always in the wrong no matter when (or if) we have children.

I don’t think anyone is saying you should have a child before you’re even an adult… They’re just saying to have them before 30z

And there is no issue with fertility rates. Motherhood rates or pregnancy rates are what they mean and those are a choice. Fertility rates implies fertility issues which isn’t true for most women.

It’s just men getting mad at women for having choices, getting educated, making money etc and not needing them - so they’re trying to guilt us all into giving that up to have kids earlier again. Tale as old as time.