To think on balance my friend did it ‘right’?

[shedidithink]

When in sixth form, my friend had an unplanned pregnancy, went into a bit of denial and by the time it emerged she was definitely pregnant it was too late to terminate. I think she was about eight months pregnant at our mock A levels and deferred the real thing until the following year.

She then went on to have two more children (same dad, not that it matters) and so her family was complete by the time she was 25. At thirty, she went to university, trained as a teacher and has been working successfully and happily ever since. Her children are now 27, 25 and 21, have all finished university, she and her DH are 45 and tbh have had a great life.

I know it sounds like I’m bitter and I’m 100% not! Shes awesome. But I was thinking about the sneery comments she had at the time this morning (I posted a birthday card to her) and now I think how well it’s gone for her. I kind of wonder sometimes if it makes sense to have your kids really young. But then not many people are in a stable enough relationship then. But if you are … I don’t know, maybe it’s something that should be considered.

I’d also wonder if the training as a teacher is with a family as viable today as 20 or 30 years ago.

It is an interesting question. I have a friend who is my age (early 50s) who met her husband yr1 at university same as I did. Both of us are still married to lads we were with at 18.

Difference is she had a baby yr2 at uni. She had shotgun wedding and the university provided cheap family housing to live in and allowed her to take baby to classes. She opted to train as a teacher after graduation as it was seen as a family friendly job suitable for a woman with children 30 years ago. She’s worked as a primary teacher and now minds her grandchildren.

I opted for postgraduate training in a none family friendly profession, married and had child in 30s. My dc is still at uni.

My only observation is she acts and looks a lot older than me she’s definitely a grandma. I’ve pondered it as if I’d got pregnant I suspect I’d have done same as her.

What do you think is best for them?

I don't know anyone who was jetting around the world having fun in their teens and twenties, they were all working. Maybe a holiday abroad once a year, but they all had friends they would go out with at weekends and have fun. Whatever way you do it, it may work out well or not, a bit of the luck of the draw.

@Moreholidaysthanjudithchalmers I was about to correct you and say she trained as a teacher in 2011 so that was only a few years ago - oh, wait! 😅

I've been with DH since school, first baby at 18, married at 19, second baby at 23 and we're still together happily and made a success of our lives.
I do think we are in the minority though.

I'm glad it worked out and it sounds like it was "right" for her but that won't be the same for everyone. Kids are exhausting, expensive and limit what you can do with your own life so if you have then it comes down to having those restrictions when you're young or delaying until you're older.

I know it sounds lovely to be free/empty nesting at the young age of 45 but she lost her carefree youth. I went to school with a girl who had a baby at 15 and another a few years later. By the time she was 35ish she was living a life I envied, motorbiking through Thailand with her new boyfriend, gorgeous and glamorous and childfree again. But it's easy to forget the loss of her teenage years. She was from a culture that was strict about sex and babies before marriage so her mum and her religion threw her out. Her nice dad left the faith and divorced her mum to stick by her but it was absolutely tumultuous. She did eventually get some qualifications and a driving licence but said it was so hard juggling study, driving lessons and a PT job in a shop with tiny kids. (The dads were useless and disappeared - if her own dad hadn't stepped up she would have been stuffed.)

I am 52 and my youngest is 12. Most of my friends have much older children and are living a second youth. But I really wouldn't have been ready to start a family in my 20s. I was having too much fun, clubbing, travelling, enjoying my career and enjoying a few years of happily married life before thinking about babies, so no regrets. Sometimes people say "oh rubbish you can just travel with kids". Well, I couldn't have afforded it. "You can still have a career with kids" - I did but we could barely cope with the nursery fees and mortgage in our 30s. Any earlier it would have been impossible to do both.

It's swings and roundabouts isn't it?

It’s nice that it all worked out for your friend but I don’t think it would be something many people would recommend. Also, I would imagine that things like family support (time and money) and whether one parent is working full time massively impact whether this is a largely positive or negative experience and lifestyle.
I was born to parents in a very similar way to parents who didn’t have anything and had no family support. My childhood was desperately poor. I wouldn’t wish or choose that for anyone. I’m not saying that poverty is exclusive to young or teenage parents BUT I think that it’s much less likely if you’ve had time to establish yourselves with careers and a house etc.

You sound awesome too

I ended up having my kids a little later than I would have liked, but there's no way I'd exchange my carefree, responsibility-free 20s for having more freedom in my 40s. There's no way you can replicate that true freedom of youth, not once you've got an established career, financial responsibilities and kids even if they are adults.

I’m not sure what you mean when you say you don’t think it is realistic any more. Are you saying that it’s not realistic to have children in your mid 30s? Or are you saying that it’s not realistic to have that wild carefree youth followed by a well-paid career anymore? If that is the case, how is a teenage pregnancy the solution to that?

I think she was lucky things worked out as well as they did. Too often we seem to be starting from an assumption that the father won't step up at all. And it's really hard to do it when you are both that young.

OTOH, I'm not sure doing it at 40+ is the best solution either. If you say this you'll get lots of people telling you they are are a good parent at 40+ perfectly possible to be! Or that they only meet their SO at 38 - again, fine. Those are your personal circumstances. But at a societal level it would be better if we could make it easier to do in your late 20s and early 30s. It's harder later and there's more stuff waiting to go wrong. Plus fertility issues. Speaking as someone comforted a decade ago in her mid 30s that there was still time.

Is the family willing or are they forced to step in because the teenagers aren't capable of being independent parents?

Haha, no.

I am not sure it is realistic to have a wild, carefree time in your late teens / twenties AND establish a career, unless you do both I suppose thinking about it. I do know someone who went to work in Singapore on an internship and someone else who slightly less glamorously but more appealing to me personally had a year in the south of France.

But that’s probably for the high flyers. For my part, I’m pedestrian, middle of the road, happy to be here but have to be realistic. My parents would not have funded months of carefree travel, I couldn’t have afforded it myself so that was that really! Most people are the same.

Yes, I am unclear about this too- how on earth is a teen pregnancy going to make a having a carefree youth and well paid career easier?!

Her parents certainly weren’t willing. His were. I can’t say I’d be made up if DD was pregnant at 18, but there are any number of things she could do I wouldn’t necessarily be thrilled about but would support regardless.

I am not sure it is realistic to have a wild, carefree time in your late teens / twenties AND establish a career, unless you do both I suppose thinking about it.

I did it and so have all my friends. In your 20s its perfectly possible to be wild and carefree and work on your career and mainly thats precisely because you have no other responsibilities!

Could certainly not have done it if I'd had a baby in my teens though 🤣

Agreed, I think this matters a lot. She got lucky picking the right guy when she didn't have the experience to make proper judgements, I think its great that the OP is happy for her. I would be.

Also good that the grandparents would also likely be young enough to really enjoy their grandkids. These days there are a lot of people who are well into their seventies by the time grandkids show up. My dad's grandads were 46 and 48 when he was born and he has great memories of them being strong, healthy, active men well into his adult life.

I'm glad it worked out for her. It can, of course, but it's a hell of a lot more of a gamble and often relies more on other people's/parental support when they are young and not financially set up.

Personally I'm glad my teens and twenties were just as they were and I kicked the hell out of being young and care free before having DD1 at 29 and DD2 at 33. Glad I didn't leave it later given later diagnosis of PCOS and endometriosis, and also that my parents were older. DDs got to their teens with all four grandparents close by. I've been very lucky. We've 51/55 now and they are pretty independent and will be completely so in <5 years when we'll also be mortgage-free.

My 20s were brilliant. I matured as a person, established my career and social circle and enjoyed travelling. And most importantly, I didn’t have the mental responsibility of children. I’m in my 50s and my kids are at university or graduated. Yet I still worry about them, so having ‘freedom’ now is not the same as it was in my carefree 20s. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Fair enough! But is the logic then that because having a wild and carefree youth is unattainable for most that you might as well have your children as a teenager?! I know I’m being a bit glib…!

To be honest, the wild and carefree nature of my youth was not because I had disposable income or because my parents paid for me to go on a gap year (they didn’t), it was because I didn’t have children to look after! I was working and establishing my career whilst having very few responsibilities. I was able to move and work abroad, invest in my friendships and my hobbies, and not wake up at 4am with a crying unwell toddler! So it all felt very carefree in comparison to when the children came along. I doubt I would have done many of the things that I did in my 20s were not the fact that I didn’t have children. I’m really glad that I did those things then and I’m really glad that I started my family when I did.

@SusieGIass - I mean that I do not think the ideal pushed on here - wild, carefree youth filled with travelling and parties but somehow simultaneously establishing this glittering career - is realistic. Perhaps if you come from money it is, but for my part I and most of my friends were from sort of lower middle class backgrounds: can mum and dad help with university expenses and paying rent, yes, will they pay for me to trek around Thailand for a year, no.

So when I left university I had to get a job pretty quickly and this was true for the majority of my contemporaries.

I do not think teenage pregnancy would have made this more realistic but what I mean is that when I look at my friends life and at mine I am not sure that they are so very far apart. I certainly didn’t have the wild twenties many on here seem to have had; I bought a house at 24 and had a mortgage, a job, responsibilities, had to be up in the morning and had bills to pay. Of course, I didn’t have children and appreciate the freedom I had a lot more now I have them (to go to Sainsbury’s alone …) but it wasn’t exactly trekking the Himalayas either, you know?

I had my first when I was doing my GCSE’s. It was tough! And you have to have the right support around you. She’s now 18 and my friends are all just having their kids now. I own my home, have a successful career, have spare cash and can be pretty selfish with my time. However when I was 16 I definitely didn’t feel like I was doing it right and I felt then how you probably feel now but in reverse. Having said that I think parenting at 16 was definitely easier because I didn’t have a clue about much so was definitely less anxious

It can work really well practically, but it’s totally the luck of the draw depending on family support , and the partner in question

I was the same age having my eldest and then I had my youngest a few years later so my two are similar ages to your friends children. It was tough but I think being a parent is tough at any age sometimes. For reasons no one could have predicted I raised my children as a single parent until I met Dh many years later (he has a daughter a few years older than my two). It worked out for me and I love being in my forties knowing that all three kids are adults and have done well. I also built my own career up, probably later than planned but the pros were I didn’t have to have any breaks for maternity leave so I could focus on my job more. I’m also grateful that we now get to travel to some amazing places that we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford when I was younger and I wouldn’t have appreciated it the same way as I do now. I look at friends trying to juggle kids, careers and social lives and I don’t know how they have the energy to do it all.

She was lucky it worked out well, that's all, that she found the right partner very young. I think you are being unreasonable to think there is a"right" way to do this. You have to work this out based on your own strengths and weaknesses, and priorities for what you want out of life.
Plenty of young parents do an amazing job, others just wouldn't be ready for it and child may end up in social services care or adopted and all the associated problems with that.