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

I know someone who did this. Also 15. Her internet boyfriend abandoned them both and she only had the one child. Her parents were mostly absent and had zero idea the creeps she was meeting up with off the internet. She was craving attention too.

No-one gets pregnant "accidentally" where they have the knowledge and education to prevent it.

Yes they do. It's entirely possible since not all forms of contraception are 100% guaranteed, unless you believe that unless one is prepared to take the risk they should remain celibate, and that an acceptance of a small risk equals planned pregnancy.

🙄

The OP said in her first post that the only people who know are her and her husband.

If he is ok with it, why the fuck do you care?!

ETA Only my husband knows that our first child was not an "accident" and was actually planned even though we were only 15.

Sorry, I must have skim read your first post, thought your husband didn't kno.

It hardly matters now, Karrotten, you've done really well, congratulations.

It's right there in the first line of the OP. Right there.

I know this isn't AMA but I'm asking anyway - do you look back at your care of the first child and regret your young age and how it impacted on your parenting? All the 15/16 year old parents I know (most professionally, which is a self selecting group as I am a social worker!) but a couple I know socially were really not prepared to care for a baby/child at that age and neglected them to some degree. Do you see a difference in how you parent your older child?

Agreed what on earth is it you want people to say?

I had a good friend at school who desperately wanted a baby at 16. She didn't even have a steady boyfriend, she just knew she wanted a baby. She tried a few times, had an early miscarriage, before getting pregnant at 17. I can just remember thinking she was nuts. Like most teens I was scared of pregnancy and believed the message in the 90s that teen pregnancy "ruined your life", it was to be avoided at all costs as far as I was concerned.

Looking back now, she was just a very caring and maternal person, she used to try to mother me at school sometimes (I wasn't a very organised person)! She was an only child and her parents were not very interested in her, which was very sad, they were indifferent to everything she did. They had her unexpectedly, very late in life, it was like they couldn't wait for her to grow up and get on with it on her own. As a result she was very grown up and independent. I think she also just really craved someone to love, and to love her, her own family unit.

She did fairly well on her own in the end. Once pregnant her father gave her 50% of her inheritance early (they were fairly wealthy), and she bought a flat. Again, her parents didn't seem to care, she ws just out of their hair as far as they were concerned. She stayed with the father of her child for a while, but when that didn't work out she moved away. Last I heard she had a second child in her 30s.

It kind of a sad story. I thought it was all absolutely crazy at the time. Your post has made me look back on it all, and it kind of makes sense to me now, I understand why she did it.

Absolutely. It’s not something i’d want my own daughter to do (she is 17 now and very academic, not had a bf yet) but I also know if it did happen, it doesn’t mean your life is over like people love to tell you. Those comments have kept me focussed over the years.

I had my eldest at 16 and at 24 after I graduated we moved 250 miles to London for a job. I’m
the only one from my childhood friendship group who left out small town. I don’t see why it’s such a terrible thing to stay in the place you grew up, surrounded by family & friends. Most people do. In my home town anyway, most of them i’m in touch with via social media have stayed. Nothing wrong with that. Personally I wanted to spread my wings, but not everyone does.

I always assumed it was abject stupidity that got most people here, this post hasn’t changed my mind.

No in all honesty maybe because my child was planned rather than an accident but I think I did a good job.
I won't take all the credit because of my young age there was a young parents health visitor that used to visit once a month and bring a pile of informative leaflets about things like nutrition etc

One difference is my youngest child has lived their whole life in an actual nice house

It's a bit of a MN trope that the posters who had a baby aged 14/15/16 went on to excel at school and have multiple degrees and a stellar career in their chosen field. That might be true for some and good for them.

But seriously, there are oodles of statistics out there which show that teenage mothers are more likely to live in poverty, be uneducated, raise their kids on their own - just struggle. Actively planning to have a baby aged 15 when you have no qualifications, are not legally allowed to work, in a transient relationship with another child and all the other compounding factors is just stacking the odds against you from the start. It shows a very immature mindset which is hardly surprising in a 15 year old.

To add - I don't think the stories of people who had a baby aged 20 or 21 are in any way relevant. There is a huge difference between a 15 year old child in an immature relationship with another child, and a 20 year old who has been out of school for at least 2 years, in a relationship with another adult, legally able to work etc etc.

I do think background, ambition, expectation and family support make a big difference.

I went to a girls’ grammar school in 1973. We were very much taught that we’d be ruining our futures by getting pregnant! We had our first talks about contraception at 12, so that at 16 we were rolling our eyes as once again we were told about The Pill and rolling condoms onto bananas 😁

We used to sort of ‘police’ each other’s virginity, too! If someone was thought to be sleeping with their boyfriend at 15, it was considered shameful! I knew of one abortion, at 16.

However, interestingly, the girls I knew who got married/pregnant very soon after leaving sixth form were all from not great families, and all got together with soldiers (big army presence nearby). These families weren’t poor, just emotionally neglectful, and most of the girls concerned did quite well at A level, ABC/D type marks (considered to be very respectable in 1980!) so I suspect there was an element of wanting to build their own family. Most got posted to Germany.

Being pre internet, we lost touch, but unfortunately, none of the marriages lasted.

This doesn’t surprise me that much. I remember reading teen romance where characters got pregnant and there were stories about teen pregnancy on TV shows that were not going for the wholesome ‘don’t even think about it’ stance. So there was definitely a market for it. I doubt you are the only one.

It's a complex mix of human nature (we are hormonally designed to procreate at this age), teenage lack of experience, family history and situations, and being a naturally nurturing person, which most girls are. Sometimes it's a 100-1 chance ie, contraceptive failure, sometimes it's a lack of sex education and/or coercion. I think we've learnt that the reasons teen pregnancy happen are very diverse and individual.

I mean, you can call it all stupid, but I think overly simplifying something so that it fits your preconceived prejudices so that you can feel superior is pretty dumb. But there you are.

Think this nails it really. Many ( obviously not all) of the people who have kids very young would not be the same ones that are uni attending career driven people even without the child.

It's still possible to continue with education even if you have a baby. There are ways and mean and the education/ career driven people will find them m

Do you not think being a social worker you see the cases that are not going well rather than the ones who are ? If a child of a young teen mum is being looked after well they wouldn't be in your caseload

Slight twist to the tale; somebody I knew slightly (same junior school, different secondary, both still local to the same area) got married the minute she was 16; before the recent change in the law, marriage at 16 with parental consent was legal, while the age of majority was still 21. This was in the early 60's, when having a child out of wedlock was considered quite scandalous; societal attitudes were very different then, and, relevant to this case, testing for pregnancy was a much more long-drawn out procedure, and a termination would have been illegal.
Nine months after the hasty wedding, she did indeed have a healthy baby, but her mother was known to express her annoyance that she suspected that the child was a honeymoon baby, and that her parents had been railroaded into giving their consent because a baby was on the way, when in fact she had claimed falsely to be pregnant to cement the relationship with her boyfriend. Even back then, I thought this was all very far fetched!
It seemed incomprehensible to me, even then, that somebody should be so determined to launch into family life so young; as PP's have said, it was drummed into us that, however lovely, babies and homemaking are no easy ride, and early pregnancy cut off so many opportunities.

I mean yes? I literally said that in my post

My Sisters friend got pregnant at 16.Said she had always wanted a family! She has a good job, but didnt go to Uni .I think she has done well though.Her parents were supportive and kind .A SM to her child .I wonder if when older some may regret it.Was there an author who had a baby young and still got into Cambridge ,taking baby with her?

I was responding to what you said here:

'we didn't get a council house, we got our own place'

That sort of implies that a council house is not 'your own' but a private rental is. In reality there is no difference. If you leave your parents home to live independently in a separate household that isn't a room in a shared house, then technically get 'your own' place.

However, if it's rented, whether from the council or a HA or a private landlord then it's not 'your own' in the same way that a bought property is. That was my point. I was trying to clarify the distinction you were making between having a council house and having 'your own' place as though they were completely different things, which they are not.

So are you telling me that you had a child at 17, moved out of your parents house and have never been in receipt of housing benefit, or universal credit and the housing element of universal credit? That you've been fully financially independent this whole time and you and/or your partner have paid for everything yourselves (apart from child benefit of course) by having savings and good jobs?

Because if that's true then you are certainly very, very unsual.

Grow up, like, what are you actually getting out of this? Presumably you know that parable in the bible about picking on other people's perceived 'faults' so that you can ignore all the massive ones of your own? That.

So pointless making out it's usual. The small percentage that comes under SS could just as easily be parents not in teens. Or are you saying no parent over 20 has kids involved in SS