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?

Why would you say that? No, we’re both from nice villages and our parents owned their own homes. I brought a house at 20 with no parental help (I realise that’s much harder now) and have given my kids a good life. I understand that if you come from a long line of people who don’t aspire to anything more than parenthood then it could be harder to break from that, but still not impossible. Also if you are and you don’t aspire to more than that yourself then you can live a happy and fulfilled life just being a parent and nothing more.

my point is having kids young doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. I read thread after thread from older parents who have waited until the perfect time really struggling to adapt and to life as a new parent. At 19 I took to it like a duck to water. I was great without sleep and had lots of energy. It’s really not a disaster.

This x

Op encourage her to look at uni still. Assuming she's in London and has good grades there isn't a reason she can't go to uni. Lots of them have childcare. I'd encourage her to keep with her dream

@Ottervision You've said over and over the niece has made her decision, but she's 19. Yes she has agency but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that she could have been subtly coerced into making this decision. Also that she hasn't (quite understandably) considered various issues - that she may be waiting years for accommodation in social housing, the various types of support you need from your family when you're a parent (at any age but especially at 19), and that the higher education landscape may be changing forever from academic year 25/26 if the new government force universities to raise their tuition fees (likely), thus deterring people like OP's niece from ever going to university.

Yes, she's 19. She's an adult. It's her body, her decision. You're saying maybe she's been coerced into keeping it. What's the solution, coercing her into termination?

We don't know what she has and hasn't considered.

I grew up on the Scottish version of your nieces estate, OP. Girls got a rudimentary education and then got pregnant and married ridiculously young. Whatever dreams they had ended because people from our background don't have the support to do the things that middle class teenage mums get to do. For those girls there was no college, Uni, decent jobs and most are still on the estate now nearly 40 years later and with numerous grandchildren and even great grandchildren all born into that shithole with no motivation to escape.
It was fucking depressing then and it's ducking depressing now.
I too got pregnant at 19 by some no-mark boy who I met at a party. Like your niece I had dreams. In my case it was to escape the estate and the crime and the poverty and the tiny, tiny world with no ambition. My grandmother, the on,y person I told, advised me to get rid of it because if I didn't I'd end up like her and like my mother ans she didn't want that for me. I listened to her and had the abortion. Went to uni and never looked back.
It's not the story of fulfilment and earth mother-hood that many posters on this thread are pretending will happen, but for girls like us, it is always the best option.

I get it OP. It's not the baby per se but the whole life she's now locked into. If she were having a baby with a like minded chap they could make it work, live togther in other countries etc. But unless they break up she's going to be stuck in the role so many get stuck in. But it's her choice, she's obviously switched on and has chosen to keep the baby. She's in london so still more chances than someone stuck in the arse end of nowhere.

Sounds like you want her to live the life that you would like to live. She is choosing something different. Your way is not better and she entitled to have the life she chooses, not the one you want to project onto her.

Until I discovered that I was pregnant - at 19, just having escaped a DV relationship - I had every intention of going to uni to study journalism. I had a place at what was then, the best uni to do so. Then I got pregnant. Had my daughter. Started a new relationship. Found my actual vocation. It's the furthest removed from journalism as you can imagine! I went to uni when my daughter was 2. To set a good example for her. My teen pregnancy was not the end of my dreams - far from it. Neither will your niece's be, for her.

She has a supportive partner. So what if his family are a little stuck in their ways - that doesn't mean that she and the boyfriend are going to be! Give them a chance to find their feet, and I'm willing to bet thy might just surprise all of you.

Dreams change. That's the manner of them. A teenager who dreams of escaping a family who seem to see them as little more than an extension of themselves...? Well, maybe a baby and a family who support one another, or have seemingly low expectations of one another, is another dream. Another way of escape.

Had I terminated my daughter, gone to uni to study journalism - I'd not have fallen in love for the first time, had my younger child, dug all over the world, made the vast majority of friends that I did, I wouldn't have my daughter.

Then again, my family have always understood that I am my own person - not an extension of them. Perhaps, @Corianm, you need to realise that your niece is an adult in her own right. And one that might decide to cut you out of not only her life - but also that of her own child. Is that what you want?

The OP is long gone.
Can't say I blame her.

@Guitarstringscar the niece has already got a place at university and already thinking about placement year

I bet @daliesque post is what the OP is concerned about, not families who live in reasonable areas who can help out and support (even if not financially)

Absolutely!

I don't understand your hostility.
The same as the OP, who has the boundary to respect her niece, you can only say so much.
I did have a conversation with them, about past dreams/ ambition etc and if they consider it would make them happy in the future if in the long term stay with someone who doesn't share the same goals.
Always respectfully, as it is a tough conversation to have. We are still very good friends.
My point in my post is that a partner for life is someone with similar views. I don't think it's the case of the OP's niece.
If you are 40+ you know this.

I've rarely seen as many wilfully misunderstanding (or contrary for the sake of it) posts on a thread on Mumsnet.

Then that would be brilliant. But if what the OP says about her partner is correct then I very much doubt that she will be happy.

Two of my step children had children early and regretted it. The third learnt from their mistakes and built up her business and is having the time of her life. I am sure she will have children when she is ready.

Ok. You know best.

What I meant was you don't know these two personally and therefore cannot say if they will last. None of us can.

The op knows her niece and how she feels. It's not about her boyfriend it's about her and what she wanted. That's what the op is mourning about.

It seems very much about the boyfriend and his class tbh.

But yes the op does know her niece. All she can do now is support her.

Are you not tempted to discourage your daughters from uni and to follow your path instead? If you are so happy that you fell pregnant at 18 and are ‘super glad’ you had your kid at 19, why not recommend this way to your kids?

I understand the disappointment. But id want to know why has she decided to settle for this man? If she was this person wanting so much from life, then her being with this man isn't in line with it. But It'll all sort itself out. Maybe this will be her one child and it'll be the making of her.

Not the poster you replied to but had my children at a similar age. I aren't recommending anything to my kids. That's not my place. I am letting them know all their options, including many alternative pathways, and letting them make the right decision for them. They aren't me and it's their lives. Not everyone meets the right person early either.

She's 19. In 18 years when her child (maybe) moves away to Uni she'll be 37. Still young enough to go off traveling and exploring and living her life.

I think out of the biggest disappointment in having a child at 19 and your Auntie writing you off, you'd be the thing she felt saddest about when she looks back at her life.

OP, I’m with you all the way. You love your niece and long for her to live her dreams — and she was working realistically towards that goal.

I feel your disappointment for her. I have felt the same way about several of my younger relatives, who had a real spark and were open-minded, adventurous and full of curiosity about the world; one of them was also academically gifted. Their parents were loving but conservative and didn’t encourage them to spread their wings.

None of them travelled or went to university or tried anything out of the ordinary. They settled down in their early twenties, in most cases near their parents. All good, but they’re doing things that would have been just as satisfying five years later. I hope they never regret all the adventures they didn’t have.

I still have great hopes for the youngest of them, in her teens, who is doing an apprenticeship in a traditionally male area, and loving it.

I hope your niece is happy, but I totally understand your feelings for her.

But OP, remember you’re posting in AIBU, which is a bear-pit.

I'm glad for you, that you escaped your background.