To ask what you'd think about someone who had a baby at 14

[Applestrawberryblackcurrant]

Would this make you want to give the person a wide birth? Or would you not be bothered. Asking for friend.

I was asking wot it was that people thought teen mums were missing out on.

I think it is very easy to think you aren't missing out on anything when you are still quite young. I wasn't the type of person as a teen to go clubbing or traveling, so I didn't think I missed out on anything.

I am 36 now and watching my teens live their life, I now can't deny that I missed out on a hell of a lot.

I made my choices and I don't regret them. However, I will never tell my children that it's ok to be a teen parent or that they won't miss out on anything. They bloody well will, and sometimes it takes many years to realise that.

It's also quite easy to make yourself believe that you didn't miss out on anything, but you do miss out, you miss out on being a teen with no big responsibilities and no one else to look out for, and that's a really big thing.

I am now focusing on my career and studying. It would have been so much easier if I had done that when I was younger.

2Rebecca - who knows where OP is? This is her only thread as well (at least under this name!)

Social services paid your day boarding fees?

And you were also working full time at 16?

Social services, living in a mother and baby foster home is not the life I would want for my child.

No offence mommy but that is not a life a 14 year old should be living.

Cos I was a day boarder I didn't really have much time for other activities as the travel was an hour each way, so by the time homework was done it was eat, shower and sleep.

Again, that is missing out on a lot. No time for activities, time for just homework, eating and washing is missing out on so much.

I never had high expectations of life as a teenager. I had no ambition, no goals in life and I was quite screwed up by my childhood. Now I am older, wiser and have ambition and goals I see just how clearly I missed out.

Ok realistically

SOme fourteen year olds do NOT have life ready for the taking. Some fourteen year olds are from impoverished backgrounds lacking in opportunity, and pretending that they have all the same life chances as your own middle class children is just not fair on them, because they simply don't.

So a fourteen year old having a baby may NOT be flushing university and travelling and clubbing down the drain. What she may be doing is simply starting early. It depends on the fourteen year old, it depends on her parents. Some fourteen year olds are simply waiting to start the next generation in the hope they do a better job of it than their own parents did.

@mommy2018 You clearly had a better group of friends than I did, mine pretty much dropped me once the novelty of a baby to fuss over wore off.

I don't think I really realised how much I had missed out on til the past year or so, since my DC have been old enough to leave at home on their own and I've started having some freedom, but yes, I missed out on a lot. I mean I got a degree but I never had the uni lifestyle my younger sister is having, I didn't get to do the going out clubbing once I was 18, or the festivals my friends were all off to, or even the casual dating stuff really, coz I did date but round DS and we couldn't have the spontaneous nights out coz of babysitters or nights in because I didn't want DS meeting a man til i knew he was going to stick around. Between 14 and about 17/18 no i didn't miss much, because we went straight from having my mum's rules and needing permission to go out to having a baby and having to consider them first, so I hadn't really had the freedom so couldn't miss it, but my friends have all been off on friends holidays and stuff that I've never had the chance to do and although we are at an age now that I could leave my DC at home with DH my friends are all settling down and having babies, getting married etc so I'd have no one to go with.

My best friend at school had a baby at 16. I grew up in a very poor area, and although she was bright, she was never going to be going to university.
But having a baby young did make her life much harder when she was young. She was working in a shop, and while other girls her age were spending their wages going out, she was straight back home to care for her baby.

She had very little support and had adult responsibilities at an age when life should have been easier. Her life has turned out fine in the end, but surely every decent parent wants their child to have an easy life if possible.

u2 you don't get a foster mother, mother and baby unit and ss intervention purely because you have a baby at 14. So I think we can safely say that whatever mommy might have done if she hadn't been a young mum it wouldn't be a stress free normal home life.

@U2HasTheEdge On another note, I reckon you are fab. I've known you on MN for a while now.

Thank you @VladmirsPoutine. That is really lovely of you.

I think we can safely say that whatever mommy might have done if she hadn't been a young mum it wouldn't be a stress free normal home life.

That is a good point. However, I am not going to say that teens do not miss out when they become parents. That only became really obvious to me when my children became teenagers themselves and I could see the stark comparisons between their lives and mine.

I used to say I missed out on nothing. I was convinced of it. Age and having my own teens made me change my tune.

@holdmecloser they offered but in the end they didn't need 2 as my dad paid all my school fees.
I did my GCSEs then went straight out to work yes my first shift was on my 16th birthday. Wasn't full time it was 25 hours a week with the option to do overtime whenever I needed it.

@U2 as long as u don't tel ur 14yo dd 2 get rid or get out then she won't have social services, mum & baby unit etc

The day boarding and only having time for homework food and sleep was pre baby when I was under my parents roof. Once I chose the 'get out' option I went straight to my best friends 'house mother' who phoned social services. I stayed with my best friends parents until a mother & baby place was found as I wanted to keep the baby. Social services did lots of assessments and deemed me capable of being a 'good enough' parent with the right support so I was placed with a woman who would not only look after me as a 'mother' but would support me through pregnancy and then teach me about being a mum. I actually ended up 20 mins from school and after id recovered from childbirth had a lot more time on my hands even with the baby.

@rainbow I'm really sorry ur 'friends' did that to u but even though it probably didn't feel like it at the time u were probably better off without friends like that x

Ive never been clubbing but Ive seen people out and about and it didn't look like my thing.
I didn't want a man in my life but wen I ran off at 18 it was because my ex prayed on my grief etc.

It wasn't until I met my now husband that I trusted men (not saying much given my current predicament)

Anyway, I'm off the thread now I think, as I've shared way more with u lot on here than I intended 2 and comments like 'slags of Christmas past' r a bit below the belt for me (even if it was a joke as im hoping) but I wanted certain people to realise a few things they seem to take as fact about younger teen mothers are not true and that even if u dont say anything, we can see it written all over your faces and it hurts, at a time we really dont need any more hurt.
Xx

I would have a kind of admiration for her. Not for falling pregnant at that age, but carrying on with the pregnancy, not choosing abortion; all the while, knowing that she and her family would be judged over the pregnancy. It takes strength.

I don't see it quite like that and I'm not sure you would either, if that same 'strength' in the face of judgement and social condemnation were exerted when making other potentially damaging choices.

How about being 'strong' enough to overrule her parents by refusing to go to school?

Or refusing to put her phone down at 2am on a school night, or refusing to stop seeing a 35 year old man? Or for getting a tattoo, or taking drugs, or running away and refusing to come home?

Why is it that parents have the right to exert their control over their child in any of those situations (involving SS and the police when she won't comply if necessary) but not in deciding that a termination is best for her? She's a child. She shouldn't get to dictate what's best or right. She has no idea.

Young teenagers are often wilful, petulant creatures full of confused, misdirected anger, illogical arguments and raging hormones. Sometimes they are like over-tired irrational four year olds crashing around in adult sized bodies.

For a handful of years it can seem as if their whole raison d'être is to push boundaries and pull away from parental and other types of authority. To see what the adults want, what they say is best - and do the opposite.

As frustrating as it I can be trying to reason with a 14/15 year old, it's (thankfully) usually in quite unimportant or subtle ways that they dig their heels in. A battle of wills can be fought over many things that seem important at the time, but no-one's life, no-one's future is fundamentally changed forever, in a way that cannot be reversed.

I think its quite tragic that that same battle of wills, that same defiant stamping of feet, that same insistence that 'nobody understands me' might result in a child having a child.

Cos I was a day boarder I didn't really have much time for other activities as the travel was an hour each way

What is a day boarder? Surely you are either a full boarder, a weekly boarder or a day pupil? There is no such thing as a day boarder.

BeverleyHillsBillie, I stand by what I said, if that's okay with you? And, seeing as this is a public forum with differing opinions, I'll take it you're fine with my opinion

Someone at school at her first at about 15. She has probably about 7 now im not sure its lots though. She is poorly educated im not sure how her children are getting on but her house is a tip.

Surely you are either a full boarder, a weekly boarder or a day pupil? There is no such thing as a day boarder.
I'm with you. Unless this is some sort of flexi boardinf arrangement of staying some days and not others. Thry exist but aren't that common (she says 2nd hand info from friends who've worked boarding)

Day boarding is when you arrive c.8am and stay until c.9pm. All hobbies, activities, homework etc is done at school but you go home to sleep. A few schools near me offer it.

But it doesn’t end at 4pm.

A day boarder is someone who attends boarding school during the day but goes home (just like state schools).
I used to have to be there from 8am til 4pm (sometimes longer for things like drama rehearsal nearer show time).

@holdon Just because 1 school finishes at say 9pm doesn't mean they all are, the local senior school to me starts at 8.35 & ends at 2.35 but again doesnt mean every senior school does.
in fact that's quite unusual (9pm) for day boarders and I have never heard of that EVER as for some pupils that would be 9.30/10pm before they r getting home.
X

How is that different from a day pupil at boarding school?

Often a day pupil will leave at the end of lessons - 4pm or whenever.

Other pupils stay for evening activities and dinner but don't sleep over

Or refusing to put her phone down at 2am on a school night, or refusing to stop seeing a 35 year old man? Or for getting a tattoo, or taking drugs, or running away and refusing to come home?

It is illegal to tattoo an under-18. Taking drugs is illegal. Having a sexual relationship with a 35-year-old is illegal on the 35-year-old's part. Refusing to put her phone down at 2am on a school night is a bit daft but nothing hugely damaging. While it's illegal to have sex under the age of 14, unless you've put a chastity belt on them it's a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

There is technically no law preventing a 14 year old girl from continuing with her pregnancy, so it's very different to stopping them from getting a tattoo/doing drugs/being groomed by a 35-year-old. I think abortion is something that can't be conflated with simple common sense mistakes every teenager makes like staying up on their phone until stupid o'clock because it involves a procedure on their body.

For me, I'm pro choice of the "as early as possible, as late as necessary" variety, and I think pressuring a 14-year-old to have an abortion is unacceptable. Saying "If my daughter got pregnant young, she WOULD have an abortion" piles an unfair amount of pressure onto young shoulders; perhaps they have different views on abortion? If it happened, they may feel very differently.

I insisted that if I got pregnant under 25, I'd have an abortion. Once I was actually pregnant it was a very different story. My parents tried to persuade me to have an abortion and it nearly destroyed our relationship. At a time when I needed support and reassurance, all I had was pressure. I was 5 years older than these hypothetical pregnant 14-year-olds and it made an already-terrifying time so much more stressful, so I worry about how they'd feel, once the abortion is done and dusted and they need support, if they feel that the pressure has damaged their relationship with their parents.

For some girls, it will be the obvious choice, and once it's over and done with they can move on and they'll be grateful for the encouragement, but for some it might not be and it isn't possible to know who will react in what way until it actually happens.

If my DD was pregnant at 14, I'd hope she was already aware of the options - in a recent young mums chat we discussed the changes to SRE in schools and we all felt that pregnancy choices should be discussed in PSHE/SRE lessons as standard - but I'd present all the options to her, equip her with the information and support her in the choice she made. Others would do differently, that's fine, but for those who seemed incredulous that people wouldn't tell their daughter to have an abortion, this is my reasoning.

I grew up in an area where teen pregnancy was rife - MANY of my school friends had babies between the ages of 13 - 16.

We are 34/35 years old now and to see them with grown adult children blows my mind! A couple of them are actually grandparents now too.

To be honest, my only opinion on teen pregnancy is that I'm happy it didn't happen to me.

Why is it that parents have the right to exert their control over their child in any of those situations (involving SS and the police when she won't comply if necessary) but not in deciding that a termination is best for her? She's a child. She shouldn't get to dictate what's best or right. She has no idea.

So, if social services and the police could get involved, what do you suggest? That they dictate she get an abortion? How would that work exactly?