Pregnant at just 11 !!!!

[biglips]

WTF!!!

\link{http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17067634%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=pregnant%2d%2d%2d%2dat%2djust%2d11-name_page.html\Shes making it all sounds so easy to look after a baby! - eh!!!}

Not sure that having her baby taken away from her wouldn't be as big an act of child abuse (towards her) than the neglect we all fear her baby might suffer.

I think the fact that she's made national news might ensure that she gets better support with parenting than her mother did.

I know - despite my musings, the guardian-reader in me is deeply shocked.

There is a book of Edinburgh vs Glasgow jokes and I remember reading one along the lines of

How do you know if you're a Weegie?
You let your 12-year-old smoke at the dinner table, in front of her kids.

Well (aside from the fact that they are actually from Lothian and not Weegies!) I thought it was a lot funnier before I realised how true it was!

i suppose, historically, people died a lot younger too so everything had to happen sooner iyswim?

I'm thinking she's from Livingston. Livingston, Weegie, it's pretty much the same thing . . .

:o

How on earth can this girl be a parent when the she clearly has no parenting skills to draw on from her opwn parents??

I've heard that this girl will have a lot of "resources" available to her. Hmmmmmm. What the entire family needs is intense parenting classes, preferable including a 2 week residential course, for at least a year, or for a few days at each developmental stage of the baby.

Nah, this won't happen. On the balance of evidence, this baby will grow up with all sorts of behavioural problems and be a drain on our society - just like his/her mother and grandmother.

It's a sad indictment of British society that a "night out" for an 11 year old child is normal, never mind the fact that she got pregnant.

Imagine if your mum is 12. I really think this baby should be put up for adoption.

Historicaly people may have married younger, as others have said, they might nit have consumated those marriages until later. However in the past young girls would have far more practice of looking after kids, as they would have looked after their younger siblings etc

Most of the girls I teach who are 11 are not capable of looking after a hamster, let alone a child, at that age. the vanishigly small few who might be capable of looking after a child would still probably be a 'better' mother with a few more years life experiences and education to pass onto the child.

A smoking, drinking 11 year old is, I would bet, highly unlikely to be a wonderful role model to her child.

Social services is investigating the girl's mother. The girl's mother is a mother of six.

Reading in the press today the girl admits to starting smoking at 9 and drinking at 10. the baby was concieved when the girl was drunk in a party.

The girls mother says that she is proud of her dd for keeping the child.

Be that as it may she should be farking ashamed of her own parenting skills! My dd is 9 and is busy playing with beads in the kitchen. She is 9....I know where she is and what she is doing. If she started to smoke I would know as soon as I smelled her! WTF is this mother playing at?????

She should be ashamed of herself

The last thing she needs is our scorn and judgement. She says she's happy and looking forward to it. Good for her. Let's allow her that. She young enough and impressionable enough to soak up the attitudes of the public. I think it's wrong to inform her she's sill and irresponsible in such an over stated manner. Why all the vitriol and scorn? I don't get it.

Some young girls have and will always get pregnant. Sometimes it's fine. My SIL remembers going to school with a bump and feeling so ashamed because of reactions like this. Otherwise she loved being pregnant and becoming a mum and had plenty of support. Now she's nearer forty and her 'baby' is in his twenties. Her biggest regret in life is that she never had another. She chose not to have another because she soaked in all the righteous scorn of others and vowed she wouldn't make the same 'mistake' again.

She's a fantastic mum and she has brought up a really lovely boy. Man.

I am not being scornful of the child. I'm sorry that this has happened to her and I deeply and profoundly hope that she will be happy and healthy and supported and all will be fine.

I'm scorneful of her idiot mother who thinks that it is appropriate to let a 9 year old smoke, a 10 year old drink and an 11 year old get pissed and pregnant! The mother is 34 and should know better!

Of course that's true MB but we can't judge everyone by our own standards and I think that the scornful attitude of this thread, and of the majority of people in society, makes matters worse. It's not as if punishing them is any help at all.

i think its absolutly horrendous that a child of this age is allwoed to have a baby. the article said she feel pregnant whilst on a drunken night out! what on earth was her mother doing?

she was sat there 8/9 months pregnant smoking roll up ciggeretes whilst her mother looked on? why would any responsible parnt watch a child smoke and certianly not when they are pregnant!!!

there was no mention of her father but it said she was part of a lrge family. anyone hazard a guess as to where they get their money from?

no one has found out about her being pregnant until now....wonder hwo the un got the scoop? i wouldnt bet agains the mother calling them in the hopes of a nice fat pay cheque.

the whole family disgusts me. im sorry and i know i am bound to offende many people but if my daughter fell pregnant at that age i wu=ould make her have a termination.
her baody is simply not ready to take the strain of a pregnancy and birth. it is unfair to expect her to bring up a child and miss out on her own life and well ...i could go on for hours.

Oh and i had my Ds on my 20th birthday, my mum had me at 17 and SIL had my nephew at 18. so im not agianst young mums per se but 11 is not young its disgusting.

now go ahaed have a go at me

oh and before anyone says about "in the past girls have married at 12" or whatever...they also used to send 5 year olds out to work...shall we do that as well?

just because it happened doesnt mean we should celebrate it or agree that its right. there is a reason why such marriages are now illegl and have not been the norm for a very very long time

fattiemumma

I cant say I disagree with anything you said.

allowed to have a baby? Should she be forced to abort then?

totally agree with you FM, I had Ds a month before my 19th birthday, and even now I thikn I am too young to have children (am 27 now) 11 is so young, my DS is 8, thats only 3 years younger than this girl, I was looking at the girls in his year yesterday, thinking that any of these 'babies' could be pregnant at 11, its so wrong.

Spidermama, I think that, while we should be understanding of other peoples situations when reasonable, this womans behaviour is simply not reasonable.

She was not caring for her child. And for that I do judge her and find her wanting.

I also judge her for parading herself and her child to the tabloid press. She should be ashamed of her parenting, not parading her inadequate behaviior to the press!

SM, it not that we feel all teenage mums are 'bad' but she is 11 FFS!!! She is a baby herself.

SGcat...I'm looking at my dd (9) and thinking the same thing.

I bet that your dd couldn't start smoking without you knowing, and more than my dd could....because we both care enough to monitor our kids.

and this woman didn't

SGC.....spot on!

I smoked for about five years 11-16 without my parent's knowing. My mum was a very good mother