I had my first baby at 14 years old AMA

[Mumat14ama]

As the thread title really, I know lots of people will ask why, so I’ll just say, I was in a relationship with someone a bit older than me, he would buy me fags and alcohol, I didn’t have anyone else and was bullied horrendously at school - grew up somewhere not very diverse so my mixed race heritage made me the perfect target for bullies.

Even though I didn’t want to, I did eventually agree just to shut him up. Silly and naive of me, but I did gain a lovely son out of it.

In RL a lot of people say, “you don’t look old enough to have a child that age” I usually just respond by saying “No, I’m probably not” and leave it at that

I’m 31 now and my ds is 17, and although people are kind enough to not say anything, I can’t help but wonder how I’m judged.

So ask away.

Your DS doesn’t know his dad is not his biological father? And he’s 17? Oh op. When on earth are you going to tell him?

Why should I?
Of course he deserves the truth, but it’s never been the right time.
I don’t know who my father is, I have a younger sister who knows and is in contact with her father, I won’t lie and say there was no resentment to her for that.

I have another two children, we didn’t want ds to resent his siblings or want him to have this hanging over his childhood when memories are so precious that it could very well define him as an adult.

Telling him the truth through his childhood years, IMO, could hurt those years, we will tell him when we know he’ll understand why we didn’t tell him.

He's nearly an adult!! He deserves to know where he comes from, everyone does. Sorry but you've lost the respect I initially had for you.

What happens if he needs his birth certificate st at some point? Surely he'll see a name he doesn't know?

I’m hoping to tell him before he needs his birth certificate, as he’s got a passport he’s never needed it yet.
He has ASD which makes it a bit more complicated.

I don't know anyone who would judge you for it now, maybe they would have when your son was younger.

You seem really sympathetic to this man. Please know, whatever relationship it may have been, you were groomed and what happened to you wasn't legal or acceptable. The adults around you failed you.
I'm really surprised you didn't have sex ed. I'm basically your age and we covered most things by Y8. Schools were much better funded and we had a special green room where you could go get contraceptives, lube, ask for advice about options, report anything etc. I'd say it's more than they get now. There was one girl in Y11 that was pregnant and lots were intimate by Y9 and having sex and taking the morning after pill by Y10.

Well THAT was a massive dripfeed

If your son is adopted, surely his adoption certificate trumps the birth one? Not sure how that works when one of the birth parents is still around though.

I too have concerns that your son does not know the truth. These sort of facts are best conveyed when they are small so that they simply become part of learn and are accepted along with multitude of other things that little ones learn. Dropping this information on him out of the blue now, or, worse still, him finding out by chance is not a good scenario. You cannot now turn the clock back, but there might be others in a similar situation who might need to give some further thought to this.

I’m not sympathetic, I reported him eventually and CPS weren’t interested. But I won’t let bad feelings about the past define who I am in the present.
I was shocked to see my period when it arrived at 11 years old. I wasn’t prepared for even that.

@Mumat14ama What kind of school did you go to?! You're really not that old, we covered periods in y5 and 6. Was this in England?

It does hurt that he doesn’t know, but either choice was going to be difficult, as I said upthread, I didn’t want him to question his childhood, it was to protect him, not me.
knowing you have a father that doesn’t care for your existence is not a nice world to grow up in.

Yeah, this is making me suspicious now. I'm only a few years older than OP and we covered puberty, sex Ed etc... and I definitely knew what a termination was at her age. Odd.

In England, yes, state school. I was moved around between parents and grandparents a lot because of the bullying.

I've been where you are now and I promise you longer you leave it the harder it will be for him ! Especially wish asd he is going to learn that his whole childhood and life up till now was a lie , that not only is his dad not his dad but also that his siblings aren't full. All that you said about ruining his childhood by telling him is an excuse when really you were young , met a new guy and got on with life and having him adopted by your husband and never telling him suited your new life, sounds shit but that's how it is , be prepared for alot to change when you finally tell him . Its not pretty I warn you

As I said, I was bullied a lot. I got moved around a lot. I spent 3 years living in a house where gangs of teenagers threw eggs at the window and taunted me from outside the house. I was taken by ambulance to A&E after someone threw a brick at my head.

This thread wasn’t really meant to be about going in to all of that.
My childhood years were pretty traumatic before my pregnancy, which I’m hindsight, was probably why the relationship was important, because I had someone who I thought cared about me.

Hm I guess people decide what is best but I disagree. My sister is 14 and doesn't know her dad. She knows he exists, doesn't know him though, never has. I can't fathom telling her now, it would absolutely crush her. A whole life living a lie. I think you have underestimated the consequences of withholding this and overestimated the negative effects of him knowing. Sure there's been times my sister has been upset over it but not having a dad I'm this day and age is not like it was in the 70s.

I don't for one second believe your school didn't have sex ed though. Maybe you missed that week idk but that's very weird and hard to believe.
Either way, you seem like you have a nice life and beat the odds. It must've been hard work.

To change the subject, how did the public treat you? I remember taking my sister out in public, I was exactly 14 when she was born and I had one or two cashier's commenting about my age, they'd then have a laugh when I said she's my sister.

I'm so sorry for the abuse you experienced. It sounds like you had an unusually sheltered upbringing. Did it feel like that at time? I'm more than 10 years older than you and we had sex ed classes at Catholic state primary school. And we had the internet in 2006, too. Did your friends not know about this stuff either? Seems unusual.

I was never taken seriously, my parenting was always questioned.
DS couldn’t talk until he was 5, and even then it was difficult to get professionals to take my concerns seriously. It certainly felt that way anyway even if not intentional.

@Mumat14ama I did think when you mentioned your son has ASD, that probably wasn't easy to get as a diagnosis.
At what point did you feel people started to treat you more seriously?

I didn’t have any friends during that time, I was the kid that nobody wanted to be friends with because I was the target for bullies.
I did make one friend when ds was born and I moved to a school 2 buses away.
And she is still my friend, so that one true friend trumped everything else.

Was the relationship you had after normal? How did you meet?

Oh OP