Niece chucked her life away - anyone experienced this pain?

[Corianm]

So my half sister has the most wonderful daughter who just turned 19. She is one of the loveliest girls to have ever walked the planet - she’s so kind, sweet, caring and hilarious in the most charming/endearing way. She has a lot of very young half siblings on her dad’s side and gosh the way she interacts with them is just incredible. She is adored by them.

I was always excited to see where her life would take her. My niece always expressed a desire to experience the world e.g. she hoped to live in Italy for a year and learn the language. The world was truly to be her oyster. I’m know I’m very effusive just out of a desire to convey her loveliness. Trust me my family have not been blowing smoke up her behind for the past 19 years. She very much is has her feet on the ground. Never placed on a pedestal or anything like that.

Anyway, niece recently told me she is expecting. Of course I congratulated her and expressed enthusiasm when she told me. But truth be told I am gutted. The father is a nice enough guy but is quite happy living quite an ignorant life. We once had a conversation which involved the bf arguing how boring art galleries are. I’m just heartbroken for my niece, she’s actually interested in the world and wanted to experience it. But she has completely changed her life plans (no uni now) for this boy.

I’ll always be there for her but my heart aches. It’s obviously her life to live. I’m very aware of not being inappropriate re boundaries.

Has anyone else experienced a similar situation?

Absolutely. She’s making a very poor one, and if everyone in her family has low expectations of her, and thinks it’s fine to have an unplanned baby in her teens with a limited, unambitious, uneducated man, the OP has a responsibility to talk through the fact that she has options that don’t involve continuing the pregnancy. (If that’s still a possibility). Or at the very least, taking up her university place regardless.

I don’t think you’re being overly dramatic, OP. Not at all. If my DD or niece threw away their young years, and all that potential, to have a baby with someone like the man you’ve described, I would be heartbroken. Devastated.

She doesn’t even know the extent of what she’s given up to have a baby so young.

What a depressing post. An ambitious young woman being an economically inactive drudge shackled to a no-hoper is in no way ‘marvellous’.

Do you have children OP? Has your life turned out how you like?

I get the impression that you consider yourself a mentor to your niece. IE - 'Don't settle, remain free and single like me and live an independent life. Then we can meet up and (every so slightly) look down our noses on the rest of the family who settled down young and remained on a council estate.'

Now that plan has been derailed, it has pushed your nose out of joint.

Going against the grain it seems but I understand OP, I would be gutted if my DD ended up pregnant and not going to uni when she's 19. Supportive yes of course but extremely disappointed.
All hope is not lost though, I work with someone who got pregnant during a levels, didn't go to uni, had a second baby and was a SAHM for a few years then split up with loser boyfriend and went to uni when the kids were in school. Harder but definitely possible

And if that's the case, maybe she'll realise and go it alone

And she sounds like she's in a much better position than many single mothers find themselves in.

With nothing to stop her living her best life

I had my daughter at 16 and I still managed to get an education, travel, live in three different countries with my daughter, get a good job and have a good life. A teenage pregnancy is not a death sentence, she's just gone from playing life on easy mode to hard mode. It's not impossible for her to still fulfill everything she wants to, she's just going to have to work a hell of a lot harder for it.

Wow. I mean..... awful. Just awful.

It's not ops place to talk through the fact she has options unless the niece expresses any interest in doing so. She can choose to go to university or not herself. If she wants to talk to op about it, she will do.

It's not ops place to coerce this young woman into doing anything. It's her choice. If she wants advice on it, and they're as close as the op says, she'll ask her won't she.

How is he a looser?! She said he is doing an apprenticeship, so he is working and training to get a qualification. He's not just doing nothing or a drug dealer is he! How rude of you! He will be earning money to pay for the baby.

Reading some posters say it’s great she can be a SAHM at 19, I feel like I’ve stumbled into a different Mumsnet.

How often do we tell women on here that relying financially on a partner you’re not married to isn’t a great idea and lacks financial security and sense ?

How often do we see it backfire on even women in their 30s and 40s who do have qualifications and work experience ?

How do you know he will earn enough income for all this? Or spend it wisely on his family and give her equal access to it as opposed to pissing it down the pub or making silly purchases. It’s all massively dependent on how he chooses to he and that’s the problem. Much better if she’d lived a little, traveled abroad, went to uni or whatever because she’d have something more solid to fallback on.

Even the couples I know who married at 18 they didn’t have kids for several years. They got to work on their relationship for years and that’s the beauty of meeting your one young. No rush to immediately add nappies and car seats to the equation. Interestingly those young married (no kids until later) couples are the ones I know who are still together.By and large the ones who had kids young and were unmarried had the usual chaos.

Also how do you know he's unambitious and uneducated?

Hes an apprentice. He'll have a decent career. There is literally nothing wrong with that.

I really object to the reverse snobbery of the phrase " she won't get to swan around Italy learning Italian"

Sorry but my DD travelled to Italy as a late teenager, young adult and being in a country where you don't know anyone and you are not fluent in the language teaches you:

1. humility (precisely because you don't "know it all" and you are the outsider you are on the back foot and forced to adapt and learn)
2. resourcefulness (because you have a tight budget and you learn to be independent, responsible and make good choices);
3. adaptility (you are forced out of your comfort zone and are confronted by different ways of doing things).

Frankly, I know quite a few young people who are quite entitled, know it all and think the world owes them a living, who would benefit from having to be put in a position where they have to adapt to everyone else and not the other way around. So please don't dismiss foreign travel as "swanning round" because, done in the right way, it can be properly character building - and it combats complacency and insularity and blinkered views - something we all need less of in the world today.

Exactly. They’ll pile on that she should have thought about that before she chose to procreate with someone who earns £6/hr, lives with his parents, and spends most evenings at the pub. “LTB!” they’ll shout from the rooftops…

Absolute bullshit. If you want to know why, just read one or two of the HUNDREDS of posts on here by women who did exactly this, and have spent their lives running round facilitating the lives of and clearing up the shit of not only their kids but the complacent, selfish men they had them with, bolstered by exactly this kind of sexist worldview. Women then trapped as helpers and servants because they have no independent income, no qualifications, and no external support to live the lives they want.

Yes, OP, I did, although that woman is none of my business. She is my cousin's daughter and at 19 and 20 she quickly had two children by a loser who was abusing her. Obviously not married.
Now, I was born in Communist Czechoslovakia,
(I'm child free, 45) and she, being 20 years younger, had an amazing start for life by different parental attitudes, different standard of living etc.
I moved to the UK and have a successful life,
she totally chucked hers into the bin.
As I said, none of my business, but my (crass)
elderly mother calls her "that silly cow" and cannot bring herself to say her name. 😂

YES

Did this thread somehow get cross posted to a Fox News forum?

I’m sure many if not most mums of daughters on here would not be best pleased if their sister took it upon herself to discuss contraception with their daughter!

gosh, going against the grain here but yes it will affect her long term as she has a greater chance of being in poverty and a lower standard of living. For women it is much harder than it is for men. They often bear more responsibility of caring duties and it can hold them in economic circumtances they want out of. At the same time she will have this amazing little being come into her life that will change her identity. No other feeling will ever match that. Hope all goes well for her during pregnancy and birth.

I am sure her desires in life can be holted for a few years.
Parents can travel.
Parents can study.
Parents can work together to make it work if it does or not, even if family are doubtful.

She still has her whole life ahead of her. She can still do all those things. So you don't like the dad and his family, he is her choice. She may not stay with him forever anyway. They are young and his opinions will grow and change with time. Are you the same character you were when you were 19?
You are coming across as ignorant as you think they are in some ways. Just roll with it and be supportive and embrace the joy the baby will bring,

Wow. If she isn't disappointed, you shouldn't be either. She can still do all the things she wants to, possibly even with the baby which would be amazing! My sister had a baby when she was 16, long before the teenage pregnancy pandemic (my nephew is a wonderful 27 year old man now), she was supported by my parents and the other grandparents and still finished high school, got a University degree and has an executive position in car sales. A teenage pregnancy didn't ruin her life, I'm sure your niece will be in a similar supported position, especially since you love her so much.

Because it’s stupid AIBU, which is like a debating game to far too many posters.

They’d feel EXACTLY as OP does if this was their child. Gutted. But no, the point of far too many replies here is to play devil’s advocate. ‘Ahhh but have you considered? No? Oh you silly bad person!

Just a game. If OP had posted in relationships she would get a very different response.

It’s sad girls full of potential whose life trajectory could be completely diverted. However, with well supported family, pregnancy shouldn’t be too much of an issue, she can still go to uni etc.

Fine, if that’s what you want, obviously. But a man who works for his dad, spends the rest of the time in the pub with his friends, and comes from a family where all women are SAHMs who wait hand on foot on their men is a very poor match for an ambitious young woman who was going to be (almost) the first in her family to go to university, and to travel. Yes, he’s unambitious and uneducated.