Planned to fall pregnant age 15

[Karrotten]

I'm 25 now so this was a decade ago it's something I've never admitted to anyone not even my own mother. Only my husband knows that our first child was not an "accident" and was actually planned even though we were only 15.

Don't get me wrong I have no regrets with how how my life is and I love my child but I look back and think I must of been really disturbed to intentionally do that.
Every one else I know who had a child so young fell pregnant accidentally. Closest I've heard of it being planned is internet theories of young girls getting pregnant just for a council house. I did not even know what a council house or a mortgage was at 15 though.

Not sure what the point in this post is, just musing over something I can obviously never admit to in real life

Normal childhood. No traumas or neglect.

If OP had got pregnant at a different time, say 27 then you wouldn't have been born. So infact did you a favour getting pregnant. Would you rather have not been born?

I had a "normal" childhood which I actually think was why I really wanted to have a child.
My childhood wasn't anything especially special and it wasn't perfect but we did a lot of things like days out (sometimes just a car drive to a beach/park etc) which I enjoyed and I essentially wanted to replicate that life.
I enjoyed family life - so I wanted to carry on family life.
To me it just made sense.
(although my one and only baby didn't come until I was 33 🙁)

Statistically teenage mothers tend to have poorer outcomes as do their children. They are less likely to be able to buy a house or have a good job. It’s also true that they are more likely to live in poorer places with less opportunities.

again some so buck the trend and good for them. But it’s not something we should want for our daughters

I first had unprotected sex at 15 and was a bit disappointed when my period turned up, my mum found out and put me on the pill.

I then started seeing someone else at nearly 16 who was 20 and we planned to have a baby when I turned 17, we were together for 7 years and I never fell pregnant. Looking back it was a good thing because we had a very volatile relationship.

I had a miserable home life, my Mum was on her third marriage and that wasn’t happy. I hated school then later was doing a job I hated and I had this romanticised idea in my head of me making this happy little home with my baby. I knew I’d get housed by the council because some friends had and that’s all I wanted.

I'm 46 now and have never been ambitious, I just wanted a husband and loads of kids with a nice house! I now have a lovely house, lovely husband and 2 kids plus a nice little job. I do wonder where I’d be if babies had come along sooner, probably not having the nice life I have now because it would have been with a really unsuitable man!

To be honest, it’s easy to have these luxuries, like choosing to fall pregnant when you know other people will pick up the tab. Wonder if the paying public get a choice on whether they want to pay for other people’s ‘extreme broodiness’.

On the other hand, you have independent women working themselves to the phone trying to get financially stable before having children in their 30s and 40s because they spent their most energetic years working tomboy for other people’s kids.

Sorry not sure what's being implied here? I have a job, married to my child's father, he has a job too.
If I had a nickel for every grown woman in her late thirties who gets extremely broody and has a child with any tom dick or harry because she knows it might be her last chance (not judging it's understandable)

So nope not going to let anyone make me feel like they're better than me just because they were older when they had children.

But I’m not OPs DC and I was purely speaking for myself.

I was asking OP if they would ever tell their DC.

You’ve now put forward a completely different scenario here from the one I was responding to - ie thinking you are the product of an accidental teenage pregnancy and later finding out it was intentional.

If OP had got pregnant at 27 I would still very much be here.

Neither you nor your boyfriend were in a position to have a baby at 15 without someone else picking up the tab.

But at 15 she had the biological imperative, driven by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. What she didnt have was the knowledge that 10 years later some middle class middle aged women on Mumsnet would judge her for following that same biological imperative.

She was 15, do you really think that the the consideration of "Oh wait, who will pay for my baby?" crossed her mind?!

Smart enough to lie about it.

You're embarrassing yourself now.

You are not the most important tax payer.

More common than you think OP. I know several teens who did this.
I had my first child in my early 20’s, so not a teen, but when me and my now DH first got together as teens we used to say we would have a baby when I was 19 so the broodiness was definitely there!

That said, I’m glad I was a few years older as I had already worked FT for a few years, gained a qualification, had my own place etc. When DS was 6 months we got a mortgage and I worked and studied for a degree. Had another child late 20’s, but don’t think I was a significantly better parent being 7 years older. If anything I feel I was a better 22 yr old student parent with lots of energy and determination. Now in my late 30’s I have a much higher paying job but feel exhausted a lot of the time and guilty that my younger child doesn’t always get the best of me.

There are pros and cons to having kids young vs waiting until 30’s but I agree with a PP that says 20’s to early 30’s is probably the sweet spot for having babies. I don’t feel significantly worse off for not waiting until a more ‘acceptable’ age. Whilst the statistics seem to be against young parents, it also seems to really disconcert (middle class) people at work that I can be fairly senior, but also be a young mum who left school at 16. It seems to be at odds with the narrative of falling pregnant young = stupid, uneducated girl on benefits and ruined life.

Anyway, try not to beat yourself up OP on the choices you made at 15. You sound like a devoted parent and have done brilliantly, plus you’re still so young to experience lots of life experiences:-).

What do you want me to say?

Thank you?

Contraception does fail. My DM had a coil when she fell pregnant with me. It came out when her waters broke.

Edited: Not sure where that gif came from!

I don’t think it means you were disturbed @Karrotten.

When you really think about it, it’s not all that uncommon for teens or even children to know (or think they know) what they want in life and to make big decisions when very young. Think of the ballet dancers and professional athletes who make their decision to train professionally at just 10 or 11. Sure, these decisions are less consequential and can be reversed, unlike having a baby, but psychologically speaking and all other things being equal, I don’t think there’s a difference between a well adjusted 15 year old deciding they want to devote their life to athletics and a well adjusted 15 year old deciding they want to be a mum. Not saying it is necessarily a wise decision, but since when are 15 year olds wise?! I don’t think it means there was anything wrong or ‘disturbed’ about you.

It just so happens that the decision you took comes with a lot of social judgement, because so many young girls become mums as a result of their difficult circumstances and upbringing. But just because that’s the case for most, doesn’t mean it was the case for you. Sounds like you were just a girl who knew what she wanted at the time, and made it happen. You chose your path in life young, for better or worse, and fortunately it seems like it has worked out well for you :-)

Don’t overthink it OP, there will always be people who judge and make you question yourself. Hold your head up high, there’s no ‘right’ way to do life. You and your children have so many years ahead of you to enjoy together. With luck on your side, your children will have you in their lives into their own retirement. As the child of a much older mother, I envy them that. Live your lives without looking back.

No need to be a bitch, I’m sure she pays her taxes like everyone else.

Yes contraception does occasionally fail even when used correctly, but it's relatively rare. What is far more common is people getting accidentally PG when they were not actually using it correctly or 100% of the time. That's not actually a failure of the contraception itself though, is it? It's a failure to use it correctly or consistently. But statistically and somewhat weirdly if you ask me, that's still included when we talk about the various methods of BC and their efficacies in percentage terms.

There is undoubtedly a significant proportion of 'unplanned pregnancies' which it turns out are not the genuine accidents they are claimed to be and this thread alone is testimony to that. I think most of us can recognise when an 'accidental' PG resulting in the birth of a baby is truly likely to be accidental and when our intuition tells us it almost certainly isn't.

One way to tell the difference is to look at the outcome. Most genuine accidents, especially when BC was being used precisely because they didn't intend to become PG, end in terminations. If you are genuinely shocked and panicked at finding out your are PG then you almost always terminate unless there are genuine reasons why you cannot.

Depending on how soon you find out you are PG and what that does in terms of narrowing your options or making it harder for you to proceed with a termination, some women may find they completely change their minds about how to proceed and decide to have the baby even though there was absolutely no intention or secret hope of getting PG in the first place. This might happen after a lot of soul searching and weighing up of pros and cons. I know people this has happened to, one friend in particular who got PG in her second year of uni and didn't find out until she was five months. I'd have done the same in her shoes and I am very much pro-choice, but five months would be two months too late for me.

The women and girls for whom it's not even a question and they know from day dot that they will have that baby regardless of their personal circumstances or the state of their relationship with the father, they are the ones for whom these 'accidents' and 'birth control failures' are in all likelihood, not quite what they seem. That overwhelming desire to be pregnant often overrides all good sense. These girls and women know they aren't in the best position or the best relationship to have a baby at this point in their life, but they are determined to do it anyway, so they only way to bypass criticism or the concern of others is to pretend they didn't mean it to happen and to pretend they had to think long and hard about how to proceed and 'just couldn't go through with it.'

I'm sure with some very young women it's not even an overwhelming desire to be PG. It's just done as a lifestyle choice and an easy solution to being able to move out of the family home or the care system, or to be able to stop going to school or college without everyone getting on your case. Not having to face up to the very tough and competitive world of work, education, self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. It's easy to say 'I couldn't do A levels/go to uni/have a career because I became a mum unexpectedly when I was young.' It's a bit of a get out of jail free card.

On an anonymous website? For all I know posters asking me to say thank you could be on the dole their entire lives and should be thanking me.
For some it wouldn't be enough until I go to a newspaper and ask to have mine and my child's face published in whatever bizarre humiliation ritual THIS is https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3825170/Working-parents-don-t-bond-Single-mother-says-benefits-allows-spend-quality-time-daughter-buy-FIFTY-TWO-presents-Christmas.html

You're not actually that stupid.

Millions of people 'pay their taxes.' It doesn't mean they don't cost the state far more every month than they contribute to the collective money pot. That's fine, we can't all be net contributors. Doing your best to not be an unnecessary and deliberate drain on the system is the most we can ask of anyone.

But even if the OP and her partner are higher rate tax payers now (unlikely at their age but not unheard of) it will be quite some time before the considerable cost to the taxpayer of her choosing to have a child at 17/18 and all the associated financial implications of that, over several years is repaid, all things considered.

Well I've never claimed a single benefit apart from child benefit until the rules changed and we were ineligible even for that, in my life. But that's not the point. Even if I had, why should that mean I don't think you might be thankful for a system that allowed you the luxury of an irresponsible and selfish choice without being made to bring your child up in abject poverty because of it?

It's not like I am asking you to thank me personally, is it? You don't need to see proof of my credentials to acknowledge any of the above and be thankful for it.

I was planned. No, really. My mother was 17 and my dad was 20. They wanted to get married and be together and they knew they wouldn't get permission without a 'reason'. They're still together. I'm 47. I was initially just a means to an end, but I was loved and very well cared for and had a wonderful childhood. They only had me.
There are many reasons and I don't fully know yours. However, it seems it's all worked out, so well done, especially on continuing with your education under those circumstances.

Why are the financial implications more at 17 than if she had been 30?