I had a baby two days after my 15th birthday AMA

[VauxhallVectra]

Happy to answer non-judgmental questions

How old was your partner?
Did you contemplate either abortion or adoption at any point?
How supportive were your/his family?

How far along did you find out, and were you surprised?
Where did you live after having the baby?
Did you continue to go to school and if so how did you find it having to leave your baby from a young age?
Have you had any more children since?

Would you do it again if you knew what you know now?

What does your child think of the age you were when they arrived?

My partner was 17

I found out when I was 20 weeks gone. I'd always had erratic periods so I'd bled a bit in the first few weeks then didn't have a period for a while but it wasn't surprising given how manic my periods had always been

Abortion wasn't an option. I found out on my own and buried by head about it for a while then I'd gone over the limit

I thought about adoption but my mum said she'd throw me out of the house if I put the baby up for adoption so I didn't

My mum wasn't supportive at all. She never stopped telling me how disappointed she was in me and how my daughter wouldn't amount to anything. She "let" me live in her house for a year-ish then told me I had to leave because the baby made too much noise and gave her a headache. I got a flat from the council fortunately. DP's family were slightly more supportive but kept a bit distant. They had a lot going on in their family so I don't think really had the headspace to worry about me and my baby too much.

I finished my GCSEs but at a special college for young parents where we could take our babies (there was a creche). I don't think they exist any more.

No more children sinlce. I think DP would like one but no way!

How old are you now? Are you still with the same dp?
Well done on getting your GCSEs. We’re you able to do more study:ing?

Hmm, I don't know if I'd do it again. Now I'm in my early 30s, I find it quite liberating that I've already done parenting. A lot of my friends and colleagues are starting to have children now and they're struggling so much with things I didn't find a struggle being so young (with interrupted careers, being knackered etc). However, being a young mother brings its own challenges (like no money, no stable home). I think I would probably still have a baby young but maybe not quite so young!

I've always been really honest with DD that I was too young to have a baby and that constrained a lot of things for me. I obviously don't tell her I regret her but I've been honest about what things were like for me. However, I've also been honest over recent years too about how liberating I've found it to be in my early 30s and feel like I've started a new chapter in my life, getting my life back at the point that lots of people are just starting to give their lives over to children.
So, we've always had really honest conversations about things. DD's 17 now and I think she realises just how young I was when I had her. She's adamant she never, ever, ever wants children

I'm 32 now.

Yes, I'm still with the same DP. We had a few years apart when DD was younger for a number of reasons but we got back together when DD was about 7 and we've been together ever since.

No, I didn't do anymore studying. I didn't want to at the time. I trained to become a hairdresser and that's what I do now. I feel like I've got time and freedom now if I wanted to go back to college or university but studying still doesn't appeal to me. I love my job!

It’s sounds like it worked out well for you OP.
What did you find hardest about being a young mum?
Was there a lot of support available for you & Dd?

Did any of your friends stick by you (I really hope so)

No judgement from me at all, there are some fantastic teen mums and there are some really awful mums in their 30s, I'm not bothered by age just by whether the child is taken care of or not (also no judgement when the child's grandparents bring the child up etc, as long as the child is taken care of)

Thing I found hardest was having absolutely no idea what I was doing, not having day-to-day support/reassurance and feeling like I didn't want to ask because I didn't want to conform to the stereotype of being a crap mother because I was young. So I felt trapped in a vicious cycle. I was also living in a really rough tower block of flats surrounded by some really awful people, which was a real struggle. I felt frightened a lot of the time. Don't get me wrong, I was really grateful that the council got me a flat at all but it was horrible.

There was a lot of support around (e.g. the college where I was able to finish my GCSEs and the young parents group organised by our local Sure Start. However, I didn't have the everyday type of support that you get from being in a couple or having other people around (e.g. someone to watch the baby while you shower, someone to reassure you that the baby's crying is normal and it's not going to die!)

At first, yes friends were around because it was a novelty to have a baby in the group. After a few months though it kind of tailed off apart from a couple of friends who really stuck around. When I was about 18/19/20, my friends all started to have their own children and I became a kind of wise old auntie so I felt reconnected to friends then

How old were you when you became sexually active? Why do you think you didn't choose to wait longer to have sex?
Was there anything else you were doing at an early age that you 'shouldn't have been'?

What is your relationship like with your mum now?
What about your daughter's relationship with her?

What was the birth like, being so young ? Would you say it's easier to give birth in your teens than later on in life ?

Did you get any judgement from medical staff ?

Was your mum young when she had you ?

I was sexually active at 13 (late 13, not like just turned 13!). That was pretty normal among my friendship group to be honest. It didn't really occur to me to wait to be sexually active just for the sake of it.

Was there anything else you were doing at an early age that you 'shouldn't have been'?
I smoked weed regularly. I tried other types of drugs but didn't use them regularly. I wasn't really into drinking so I'd drink a bit at someone's house but wouldn't really get drunk. I used to stay out until late at night, stay at random people's houses. People I was friends with (including DP) were into lots of stuff they shouldn't have been so stuff was going on around me but I wasn't involved, if that makes sense.

Me and my mum have a very strained relationship now and quite low contact. We've had a few massive blow-ups over the years which have taken us a few months to recover from. Nowadays, I just tell my mum exactly what I think and when she goes off to sulk as though she's the injured party, I just let her and I won't contact her. I don't need her so if she wants a relationship with me and DD then she has to get in touch with me, which she always does eventually. I found it very hard when DD was young because I resented my mum for her behaviour but I also wanted DD to have a relationship with her (and I wanted her to look after DD sometimes very very very occasionally to give me chance to do things!).

I've always been very honest with DD about how my mum treated me (while not trying to bad-mouth my mum- just telling her the facts) and I think over the last few years DD has started to see what a cruel person my mum is. DD's relationship with my mum is best described as "cool" I think. My mum is used to be the matriarch and every one listens and falls in line. My DD is a head-strong young woman and won't put up with that bullshit

Did your mum know that you were involved in crowds that were drinking/smoking/having sex? Do you wish someone had tried to stop you? Did you find it easy to leave that stuff behind when you found out you were pregnant?

Do you have any siblings? If so, do you think your pregnancy affected your relationship with them, or even the choices they've made surrounding having their own families?

My mum was in her mid-20s when she had me so not particularly young.

Giving birth was absolutely awful. I was terrified but I also lacked to confidence or know-how to express what I was concerned about and what I wanted. I just kind of lay there and let it happen to me.
I don't have any experience of giving birth later in life but I'd imagine I would have much more confidence now to speak up when I wasn't happy with things.

The medical staff were really mixed when I was giving birth. There was an anesthetist on hand because my DD was in all sorts of weird positions and he was really lovely to me, explaining what was happening and talking about his own children. He was really trying to calm me down but the midwives were very judgmental and treated me like scum. They were talking over my head about what was happening in medical language so I had no idea what was going on. The one kept referring to me as "this one" and I will always remember the look that passed between these two midwives when one told them other I was 15. I felt so small and like a huge inconvenience.

Afterwards I had a lovely health visitor who was really supportive and got me into the local young parents group and was really enthusiastic about me finishing my GCSEs. Unfortunately she left really soon after I gave birth and I was given to a horrible woman who made all sorts of snide comments.

As an adult looking back, does it concern you that your DP had sex with a child? This is not a judgement of you, but i'd find it impossible to accept.

No, my mum didn't know anything about the sorts of things I was doing. She knew those crowds existed but somehow thought that I wasn't part of them even though basically every young person on the estate was involved in some way. My mum's very involved in the church and thought that because of that I was somehow "above" these things.

No, I don't wish someone would have stopped me to be honest. It was an endemic culture on the estate I lived on and most people did this kind of stuff and came away unscathed. I felt like I was in control of it (e.g. I was smoking weed regularly but I wouldn't say I was addicted) and it wasn't affecting things like my school work so it was okay.

When I was pregnant, I cut down on smoking weed but I still did occasionally. As I said, I didn't really drink before anyway. I didn't take any more drugs (aside from occasional weed smoking).

I have one younger sister. We weren't particularly close growing up so I'm not sure it really affected our relationship. She's taken a very different path in life but she was always a bit of a free-spirit so I'm not sure me having a baby really impacted this - I think she'd have always done her own thing.

As an adult looking back, does it concern you that your DP had sex with a child? This is not a judgement of you, but i'd find it impossible to accept.
No. DP's two years older than me so when we started having sex he was 16 and I was 14. That sort of setup was pretty normal among my friendship group and I don't (didn't) see what age gap as particularly problematic. It'd be different if I was 14 and DP had been 25, let's say. Plus, I wasn't exactly a vulnerable little mouse who he exploited - I wanted to have sex with him.

**that age gap- sorry!

I know it's common but it doesn't sit well with me I'm afraid. There are plenty of teenage girls who see themselves as in control and making their own decisions, but they are as entitled to the protection of the law as anyone else. One of the problems that has been highlighted by recent child exploitation cases has been the difficulty getting the girls involved to understand that they have been abused, and to get authorities to accept that their compliance was not indicative that a crime had not taken place.

I do understand that and I completely agree. However, I also think there has to be room for sexual autonomy of teenage girls rather than them being always positioned as victims-in-waiting and in need of protection. To be honest, I was horny as fuck and had sex with lots of boys (older, younger, same age).

I'm also a bit unsure of how you reconcile the age of consent thing. What I mean is, a girl who has sex with a 17 year old boy the day before her 16th birthday is a "victim" but if she has sex the day after her 16th birthday, she's fine. If we accept that maybe the girl who was a couple of days shy of 16 was "ready", then why can't we accept that a girl a few months or even a year younger might also have been "ready"? I'm not asking you for an answer here- I'm just saying why I find the whole thing really difficult to make sense of!!

I agree that it's an extremely complex area and that the law can be, in many ways, a blunt instrument! I also agree wholeheartedly that women of any age should not be cornered into a position of victimhood but I do hold men to be accountable for their actions and I assume that your daughter's father was aware of the age of consent. I would argue that the law needs to be upheld more vigorously on this point to protect young women. You say yourself that you struggled with coming to terms with being pregnant, the birth and aspects of parenthood. It sounds like you've dealt with all this amazingly and with tremendous strength and resilience. However, if they age of consent was more rigorously enforced, and men held more accountable for their actions, then perhaps young men would be less likely to have sex with underage girls.
Really hope this isn't taken the wrong way -you've clearly created a good life for you and your daughter.

Would you lower the age of consent? Where do you think the line should be for having sex with a minor?

Did you make friends with any other parents when your daughter was at school, or did you feel for the most part judged for being young?

Do you think there's a part of you still determined to 'prove yourself' as a parent?