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?

A lot on this thread thinks having a baby young is a crime and you have wasted your life the bloody stigma i could say the same about older mums why have babies when you're knocking on 50.

Well i had mine young i worked hard and studied i have a good job i love and have been in for years.
I travel a lot ive not missed out on anything and my life is blissful,
I travle even more now the kids are grown up.
At 38 im now child free.
I didnt want uni not everyone does.
Not every young mum is gonna go down the wrong road.
Im not saying it was easy it was hard but i made it with all the stigma and judging with it.
Op i think you are over invested in your niece life.

I know. It’s embarrassing. Of course they wouldn’t be happy. So performative.

She's 19. She has her whole life ahead of her. Her life isn't over!

There are a few short years of caring for small children. She has all of her 20s to go to university. There is lots of help for students with children including free creche places, holiday schemes etc. Then once she has graduated she can go for any career she wants just like any other new graduate.

You may think her partner will hold her back because he isn't keen on more intellectual pastimes. But he may well have other qualities equally important. He may turn out to be incredibly supportive and a very involved Dad. And if he isn't a great fit for her they will go their separate ways and she will make her way as a single parent as many others do.

You can help her by being supportive and quitting the dramatics!

I‘d feel the same. A friend of my son told me she was pregnant the other day, she’s 17. A couple of months back she was here and was telling me about her plans for university and travel. She wasn’t sure she wanted the baby but her mum talked her into it, said she should be grateful blah blah. She looked so lost.

@Cookiecrumblepie I don't think people are saying the OP is horrible - she's just being over the top dramatic.

Her niece is 19 she will 1 million percent need support. I was a young mum and it was hard I cried most days and I had no support.

If she is as amazing as you say, she will still live a fulfilling life. If she chooses to have a mundane life, that's her perogative

Also, there's nothing wrong with finding art galleries boring. I find them tedious but have a very vivid life!

I also thought you will say niece got addicted to drugs or criminal activity. Pregnant? To a boy who has different interests to her? So what.

She is still that amazing person and will carve out her path, albeit different what you and your family has envisaged for her. Therein lies your problem, you had certain expectations and now you’re in pain cause it won’t happen the way you imagined.

My advice is, have no expectations and let her live her life and be fully supportive. She’ll be fine and will work it out, she sounds like a smart person. She can still get education, she might need support from family but it’s all doable. She can travel the world when she is 35, with a teen and hopefully that nice boy/husband.

"Wouldn't be happy". Indeed not. There's a big difference between that, or indeed disapproving, and describing it as "throwing your life away".

Exactly this. Yes you can do those things still but it absolutely will not be the same as doing it without a child in tow!

I am surprised posters are being so hard on you.

If this was my niece or my daughter I would be gutted too!!

There is so much more to life than being a mother. Yes, my DC are amazing and I love them with all of my heart but I am glad I waited until my 30s to have them so I had my 20s to go and explore the world a bit, go to uni, establish a career and most importantly be free! It meant when I became a mother I was ready for that to be my absolute priority. Also if I had got pregnant with the partner I had at 19 my life would look a lot different now, you grow and change and at 19 you are barely an adult!

I spend a lot of time on these threads reading about how men are shit fathers and don't pull their weight and there is so much LTB advice.

We should be sending the young women in our lives the important message about being careful who you start a family with, as ultimately it is them that the responsibility lies with when the father decides he's had enough (not always but much more likely to happen when 19)! Further to that we should be thinking of the child that is being brought in to the world and what their world might look like.

There are middle aged women on mumsnet moaning about how hard holidays are with toddlers or how they can't cope with a crying baby despite having enough money and help

Indeed. My observations tell me that quite a few older first time Mums find it hard to adjust, hard to cope with 'lost freedom' and hard to find the energy. I don't think 19 is optimal but my experience is that most young Mums have lots of energy, get stuck in, and it's society (sometimes their partner too if they have one but sometimes their (also young) partner is great and also suffers judgement and projection) that makes that hard for them and damps their joy, confidence and ambition. It's not that younger or older is better, it's not a competition, it's just that the balance and details of the pros and cons are different. Funnily enough I get a fair bit of (thinly disguised) envy now that I am a younger Mum with grown up children.

What is this 'lost freedom' anyway, I've never felt it? Is it at least partially a social construct? When I had my children quite young, it was my choice, and what could be freer than being an adult, being seen to be one (as a mother), living in my own home, and choosing myself how to live my life while parenting and influencing my own offspring?

THIS is what you should be both feeling and imparting to her - she'll pick up on your disappointment and disapproval, as well as that of others no matter if you think you are hiding it, and she might well internalise it all without realising it - and THIS is what will make it hard to leave her partner if he turns out not to be good for her, and THIS is what will make her narrow her horizons in the longer term. NOT the having of the baby per se or even the choice of partner.

It should be a time for her of genuine support and sisterhood from her female friends and relatives, a time for enjoying the pregnancy which could be her first and only (or her first of a dozen (who knows?)), and exploring these new horizons, not dealing with a lot of crap and atmosphere from other people's opinions instead. Think on that, OP, and give your head a wobble.

This could've been written about me. I since have completed two degrees, had more children and am not a door mat
This post is ridiculous

What is this 'lost freedom' anyway, I've never felt it? Is it at least partially a social construct? When I had my children quite young, it was my choice, and what could be freer than being an adult, being seen to be one (as a mother), living in my own home, and choosing myself how to live my life while parenting and influencing my own offspring?

You don’t need to be a mother to be an adult.

Yes you can do those things still but it absolutely will not be the same as doing it without a child in tow!

Fine. But how judgemental to think it's better (which is what you are implying) to do it one way rather than the other. It's cobblers.

in tow

Although it's this type of turn of phrase, which I see ALL the time, which is part of the problem. Why is your child in tow which implies they are an inconvenience to you? Why not "with you"? And so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

Your niece was perhaps trying to live up to your high expectations of her when she was around you.
You may have been subconsciously projecting these expectations onto her for years and she may have felt like she had no choice to tell you what you wanted to hear.

It's her life. It isn't over because she has got pregnant at 19.
What she needs now is support from you, not judgement.

I 'threw my life away' at 18 with a baby.

I went to uni at 30, now have a master's, a fantastic job that i love AND three brill kids, one a fully fledged adult!

Oh, and i have done all this while being a single mum. I have true plans to move abroad, i travel a lot. I have an amazing life. It hasn't been without it's downturns, but i have worked hard and got to where i want to be, in spite of being a single mum. And i daresay being a mum has helped somewhat.

Her life has taken a different path, it isn't over.

I would be so sad. To miss the stage of life when you are young carefree and able to study / learn / explore the world develop yourself as you see fit. You have years to have children. Once you have them that’s it they come first rightly but to have never put yourself first as an adult is really.

You've made your life so much more difficult. Happened to a friend of my sisters and definitely limited her life. Bright girl never made it to university or left local area.

Agree with all of the above.
The OPs headline title was a little OTT, as I wouldn’t say ‘chucked life away’ but more that life is now taking a very different path. However, if this was one of my DCs I’d be gutted too. Yes, parenthood might be amazing for this young couple, but there’s no denying that her life will be very different to how it may have been. For example, at 19 most of her friends will be travelling, going to Uni, partying until 3am, experiencing life in a way that young adults who are footloose & fancy-free do. OPs niece will no longer be able to do this. Yes, of course she can do all of that when her DC(s) are older, but by then her friends likely won’t be partaking in all that and may be settling down/be in careers. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the OP feeling disappointed.

What are you advising though, given that she is having a baby. She can't unhave it. The worst thing to do in this scenario is to say, 'Oh you've missed your chance now, you've thrown your life away.' The best thing to do is say, 'Congratulations. You'll cope better with sleepless nights than most mothers and you'll get your life back when you are in your thirties if there are things you want to do with it that are easier done once kids are grown up.'

No one stops being intelligent. Implying she had one chance and has blown it is the worst, most defeatist attitude anyone could offer her.

I get your knee jerk reaction, but if your niece is as impressive as you say, then surely she will take motherhood and building a life for herself in her stride? (With or without dead weight boyfriend; and frankly it’s not you who has to live with him, it’s her so her choice).

I know plenty of women who got pregnant very young and went on to have incredible careers as single mothers. She need not rely on her boyfriend if she’s truly focused on building a career, but this will all come down to her own priorities and those can and do change as we grow.

Children are a blessing, and if she’s a kind person, who is good with children and comes from a family who supports her then she has every reason to be a brilliant mother to her child. I reached all the academic and career highs you had envisaged for her and found motherhood put a stop to that for me anyway, as a much older woman. I actually wonder if having had kids early before then focusing on career / study might have been better for me and I often feel sad about how much less time I’ll have with my kids because I had them older.

Of course life is harder when you have a child to factor in but plenty of people make it work and having a child can also give your life meaning and focus too.

Perhaps instead of acting like someone has died, your energy would be better placed in thinking about how brilliantly she’s going to respond to this challenge and can show your support by offering childcare should she ever need it in future if she wants to study or get a job?

I did not say that you need to be a mother to be an adult, that's twisting my point!!

However, this idea that doing so at the younger end of adulthood (which is what she is at 19, this is not a schoolgirl pregnancy) automatically implies 'lost freedom' is a nonsense.

What I sense on here is actually quite a lot of older mothers justifying themselves and their decisions, or circumstances and making heaps of assumptions about what is 'better' for random women they've never met because it was 'better' for you, or you think it was because you haven't got a hypothetical identical twin running as an experiment! Stop telling other women what order you think they must do things in to get it 'right' and just get on with living your adult female life letting others do the same with the same courtesy that you would like extended to you, and stop being so negative about those who do it differently, thus at the group level disadvantaging every younger mother you come across.

study / learn / explore the world develop yourself as you see fit.

Do you not do these things since you passed the age of 25 or so then? Now THAT is sad. Why assume 19/20 year olds are carefree just because they’re young? For example that was the most depressed and anxious time of my life.

Bright girl never made it to university or left local area. That’s a personality thing, surely. Millions of non-parents are the same.

My ds had his first child at the age of 18, his gf was 20 I won’t lie I was shocked and a little disappointed as both were in apprenticeships with a career mapped out for them and dreams of travelling. But 6 years later although both have gone seperate ways and ds has had another child with a new partner both his ex and him have done well for themselves on different career paths,ex is a student nurse and has travelled to places and my ds in now a manager in a company. They’ve both worked very hard.

it was their life, both being adults and considering the shit that has happened to our family over the years my ds getting his gf pregnant really wasn’t a big deal.

life happens, it really does

and we are from a rough estate, not sure how that’s relevant tbh