to feel that 'young mums' shouldn't all be tarred with the same brush?

[ElieRM]

Am about to turn 19and DD is 7 wksold.At baby clinic, which I attend fortnightly to get DD weighed and discuss the odd issue with HV, have made a great deal of effort to be friendly to other mums, all of whom are 30+. Can never get more than a curt 'hello', often attract sneaky, unpleasant looks and feel although I'm being judged because of my age. Other mums are happy to sit and chat together, I tend to leave as soon as all necessary business is completed.
Also often attract unpleasant looks when out and about; general concencus of opinion about younger mums seems to be very Daily Mail, all on benefits, single, no prospects, councilhouses etc etc
I KNOW not everyone thinks this, but AIBU to feel a little hard done by? After all, DP and I are in a comitted relationship, we dote on DD and are both students' DP is working flat out to support us over summer, and we're both fully intending on completing our degrees and paying our way!
Often see other young mums swearing at kids, shouting etc and can completly understand why people form opinions. However, should we not be judged on our indivual merits, both as parents and people, rather then simply by the age we gave birth?

Have not read all posts but read the first page.

I was a very young mum myself and do not read the daily mail...........but find it difficult to understand why you don't like being tarred with the "young mum" brush but think that it's ok to put all daily mail readers into the same box.......what are they bad people for the newspaper they read??

My suggestion to you is.....if you don't want people to make judgements of you perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to do it yourself.

Is that not a little hypocritical.

I think the bottom line is this - twenty, thirty, forty years ago people were generally more tolerant/empathetic towards very young parents because there were far fewer opportunities for young women in education, travel and career opportunities, and it was much easier for young couples to have stable permanent employment and a home that wasn't funded soley or in part by the tax payer. It was expected that everyone bar a few very intelligent, highly educated, ambitious, (almost always middle-class)independent women (who would be viewed with a mixture of awe and suspicion, frankly) would be married with children by their mid twenties.

These days if you are under 20, or even 25, many people would be a bit baffled that you would even want to be saddled with a child so soon, when there so much else you can do first, and they might be downright irritated if you clearly couldn't really afford a child. I don't think marriage really comes into it now - but people do still like to see evidence of a solid, healthy and reasonably long-lived relationship, where BOTH parents are committed to having the child) Of course there are plenty of older mothers who fit don't fulfill all the ideal criteria either, but I suppose the accepted wisdom is that at some point you just have to get on with it and hope for the best, whereas at 20 and under, you may be considered to be rather over-optimistic at best, and downright irresponsible and silly, at worst, depending on your individual circumstances.

Of course we should not make the assumption that someone will be a bad mother, be unintelligent, with poor educational achievement, low lifestyle expectations and a poor sense of social/moral responsibility just because they are very young. Though, let's face it, women who fit that category do have an alarming tendency to have children very young, make appallingly misguided choices with their neanderthal menfolk, have no means of financial security, and a sense of entitlement/expectation that the state will sort them out. We all know that - there's no point pretending it doesn't happen. Because those young women are so profligate now, it has become easy to sterotype all very young mums.

I am (somewhat)overweight, and I get really angry about the assumptions made about the mindset/lifestyle of fat people. I can tell you until I'm blue in the face that I eat tons of salad and veg, abhore junk food and fizzy drinks, rarely sit in front of the TV,
take lots of energetic walks with my dogs, and frequently have days where I barely sit down at all until 9pm. But it doesn't change the fact that I am clearly still doing something wrong, as I'm fat. And until I am a size 12 people will continue to make certain assumptions about how they know I must secretly eat, and how lazy/inactive they know I must secretly be. A strange analogy, but it's a good one, I think!

Some people are just judgey no matter what the reason. Would you want to be friends with people like that anyway?

I'm 36 and am always interested to see Mums of different ages, with different ages of children etc. I always want to know how they are getting on.

Tbh sometimes when I see a really young Mum coping beautifully I just think how amazing they are as I would not have been ready at all at their age. I am also inclined to think that they probably wouldn't want to be friends with someone much older than them like me. I am always friendly though but I am quite shy too and realise this can come across as aloof sometimes.

I do find that people find safety in numbers so when I see a group of Mums I am unlikely to get many smiles or any chat.

There are a lot of 30+ mums out there who would love a friend to talk babies with - I am of the opinion you can never have too many friends.

I wasn't saying that all Daily Mail readers hold a certain view, just that the Daily Mail itself espouses that view.Apologies, shouldn't have used the newspaper example. My own FIL reads the mail and holds no such views.

elieRM - Thanks. Have you got childcare on campus? That would help. One of my sister's friends got pregnant in 4th year of medicine (her situation was not so stable, had only been with soldier bf for 2 weeks and he had been posted when she found out).

Her uni (Liverpool) were very, very supportive. She sat her finals whilst pg then took a year out and returned to start 5th year. She wasn't much behind her friends when she finished and going back was hard but because the uni were so supportive with childcare etc she did well. 10 years on she's married to soldier boyfriend with 2 more dcs and is working as a GP. No-one would guess she was someone they were meant to be looking down on !

Leaving your baby is always horrible in the beginning but you'll be doing it as an investment in her future as much as your own and I would imagine you won't need to leave her as long as you would if you were working full-time. Good luck with your degree. You'll be an excellent parent because you are already demonstrating your ability to make wise and difficult choices (finishing your degree) and you are concerned with your child's needs and enjoy her company.

Oh and you never stop worrying that you'll fail. Somethings you will do well, some things you'll get wrong. As long as you take responsibility for the things you could've done better, you learn not to have expectations of yourself and your DCs that are too high and your children are happy, well-behaved (mostly )and have a good relationship with you, you won't fail.

Not quite the same, but I thought I'd share this with you anyway.

People are always commenting on how young I appear to be and it actually really winds me up. (Yes, I know I should probably be pleased that apparently I look 10 years younger than I am, but I'm not.)

My strategy if someone says something like "You're very young" or "Is this your first job?" (wtf?) to laugh and say something along the lines of 'oh, thank you, that's very flattering, but I'm afraid I don't think I can claim to be young any more.'

On the other hand, if I'm feeling pissed off with them, I explain that the secret to youthful skin is daily moisteurising with sunscreen, and that since I was 11 my mum has made sure I've had moisteuriser with sunscreen in it every day. And then you smile and say "I suppose it's a bit late for you now, but you can tell your daughter."

ElieRM

I met my husband and became pregnant in my early twenties. I loved being a young mum, and we are still happily married with children who are doing well (my oldest is now eleven). I have a career I love and as my children are older I can work abroad for weeks at a time. It is clearly easier to combine babies and studying than babies and a full time, height of career, pressurised job.

Other women I know of my age are now having their first child and do not know how they are going to combine it with their career. I have never had that issue because I had my children straight after undergraduate degree and while doing my MSc. As a consequence I have never needed to choose between baby and career. We were poor as my husband was in his first job when I was pregnant, but we have never claimed benefits and we are not poor now.

I do not believe my children have missed out on anything: they would certainly miss out on loving grandparents and great grandparents if I had waited an extra 15-20 years to get pregnant. I would be proud if you were my daughter - I hope she has children young so that I have the opportunity to help and be a young grandmother (although I know it is her choice!).

I have never felt I have missed out; I would have been utterly miserable for years if I had not had the children that I so desperately wanted in my early twenties. I would really not want to be a new mum in my late thirties and be waiting, desperate to hold a baby for nearly 20 years. Some women do want to wait. Each to their own.

I do not believe the real issue that some older mums have with you is benefits/irresponsibility/instability/poverty etc, as that can be applied to huge numbers of people who are not young! I don't know why a few older women find it such an issue, but I suspect that it is a lack of satisfaction with the outcome of their choices - an uncaring or absent husband, a career that never flourished or has proved incompatible with children, a 20 year wait for some fabled standard of middle class living which is always just out of reach, a longed for 2nd child that never arrived or some other disappointment.

Most older women don't have any issue with young mums; in my experience the ones that do are dealing with a bitterness about their own lives. It is easy to be positive at 19 when you have all the opportunities in the world ahead of you, even with a baby. It is not easy for a 39 year old, because at that age a lot of life's opportunities are closing down. So please be sympathetic to them! I am in my thirties and it brings its own difficulties.

curiosity- yes, dd has jsut got a place on the campus nursery! which is fantastic, as I will only ever be a few minutes away from her.thank you for all your lovely positive comments!

ellieRM we are exactly the same as you, students, young family etc. I had DS AT 22. I definitely got a fair bit of this at some groups but actually my 3 closest mummy friends now are all mid-30s so I think in the end who you get on with comes down to outlook not age and those who can't see past that aren't worth stressing about. (aplogies haven't read whole thread, just wanted to post some support!)

To go back to the OP, YANBU to feel hard done by, to feel that assumptions are being made about you based purely on your age. I wonder if it's part of the general infantalising of people these days that 18 is now seen as FAR too young for parenthood, when in previous generations it would have been the norm? As kidulthood becomes so normal (children still living at home when they're hitting 30 etc), perhaps someone taking on adult responsibilities before they're absolutely forced to (by qualifying for their bus pass ) just seems shocking to some people.

As an aside, I find that the older I get the more rubbish I am at guessing people's ages. People that I know beyond doubt are early 20s look about 14 to me these days, I wonder if the other women at the baby clinic are similarly handicapped and think you're 12?