3 sisters pg at 12, 14 and 16 - mother blames school for lack of sex education

[suzywong]

Of course it was in the Sun

I do not want to get in to the benefit angle at all, I just wonder if anyone else has any ideas about how to get the contraception message through to girls? I mean one of these kids was PG 3 times prior to this at under 16! Their mother blames the schools for not starting sex ed early enough.

What do you think?

Flum

Do you REALLY think that a 13 year old can experience the "sheer pleasures of motherhood"?

Because I don't. I think that at 13 that child should be feeling the pleasures of her own childhood.

Actually your statement makes me feel quite cross.

Here's a shocking story - a teenage girl got pregnant through sleeping with the son of a house she was living in. He refused to have anything to do with her and his parents threw her out to fend for herself. It happened in 1875, the girl was a maidservant and she was my paternal great-grandmother. The same thing happened at about the same time to my maternal great grandmother.

Is any of this really new? At least these children will get an education. My grandfather was taken out of school to do agricultural labouring when he was 11.

I haven't read the thread but I've been thinking about this a lot today, a 12 year old being pregnant is truly shocking, it really is far too young. I know I'm stating the obvious but it's really got to me, this.

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oldiemum, and my grandfather died of tb. people still do but that still doesn't make it ok, does it?

I thought that the whole idea of society is that we try to make things better.

And 'experiences the pleaseure of motherhood at 13'? Words fail me. I have yet to meet at 13 year old who is realy capable of looking after a pet hampster, let alone a baby. Granted there may be one or two but the vast majority are far too imature. Many will try to refuse to tie back their hair in a chemistry practical because the band will 'spoil' their hair (whereas getting it all burned off will make it look just dandy). How can children with this little sense be responsible for another human being?

Granted they will be on a steep learning curve once the baby arrives, but that doesn't help either child.

Aside from lifting the aspirations of these young girls, I think the only thing that might make them think twice about purposely getting pregnant is if their babies were taken away and adopted. But, who knows, that might just raise the teen abortion rate. I can't put myself in their head since I was so different at that age. What comes first for them? The desire to have a baby or the desire to have sex?

Oops - meant to add... isn't the abortion rate for teenage pregnancies 4 out of 5? I believe it is quite high - so, for the majority of these girls, their having sex isn't about having a baby.

there's wasn't contraception back then either!

my SIL had a baby at 14 and although i find it shocking I dont judge her, but being pregnant at 11 seems awful to me

Part of the probelm is that the area of the brain that controls emotion matures before the frontal part of the brain that controls cause and effect and logical thought! That is part of the reason that the feelings of 'first love' are so strong. And also why children who are still developing need the guidance of a loving parent. An adult who can see cause and effect, while still remembering 'first love'!

If we pander to our childrens desires we are not doing them any favours. When they are tille they want to eat crap all day but we do our damndest to make sure they eat well. They may well want sex at 12, but we try to stop them! Or at least we do if we are responsible adults!

tbh i blame society, sex is soooo important, you only have to pick up a magazine.Its disgusting that young girls have to grow up sio quickly and be tied down so young

We are not letting our children be children.

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Something I was wondering, the mother doesn't work because she is "looking after her family", but the younger girls get free nursery for their babies so they can go to school, & the older girl is a SAHM. Can someone explain how that means she "can't" work?!

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For goodness sake you can buy a condom in any supermarket!

It isn't the lack of contracption, the lack or information about contraception they just don't think that it will happen to them.

There are pleanty of people on MN who didn't think it would happen to them and they were grown ups at the time!

What we have to do is to take the pressure off these girls so that they don't think that there is something wrong with them if they haven't 'done it' by a particular age.

We have to make sure that our girls are confident enough and feel good enough about themselves that they have sex when they are adult enough, not have sex to make them into an adult.

We have to make sure that our kids have fun, interesting things to do that don't invole sex or dressing up like a slapper! Most kids would enjoy other things to do. Having sex young *isn't giving us a nice , happy , well balanced generation, is it?

And this is the big one. Our kids, from the earliest reasonable age have to be taught, in a supportive and loving way, that they actions have consequences. If you fuck things up, you pay the price. It can start with the small stuff and by the time they get to 14/15 they will have a much more realistic view of how it would be to have a child.

I didn't have a kid at that a because a. my mother would have killed me.
b. the rest of the family would have been ashamed of me.
c. my friends wouldn't have benn envious of my baby they would have been horrified at the constraints it put on my life
and lastly d.
I had lots of things that I wanted to do with my life that didn't involve having kids. I did them, then had my kids.

You are so right. But what needs to be done to get this message through to people like these girls?

HMB - you misunderstood. I just dislike the moral panic that says that society is going to the dogs and that all this is new. I also meant that people in this position get treated more humanely now than they used to be, which is a step forward.

But our country has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. I bet it hasn't always been that way.

Well, I'd start by prosecuting men who have sex with under-age girls. And that means under the age of 16. Even 15 and 364 days. Age of consent has to mean something. A line in the sand if you like. A sliding scale of punishments for the man, depending on the age gap between them, the bigger the gap, the great the punishment.

Instead of letting daft mothers parade their kids on TV so they can blame everyone else she should have been asked by the police why she allowed her under age child to have sex with her knowledge and concent.

Accidents happen to the vest best and most wonderful people. But an accident at 16+ is a very different thing to an accident below that age

Sorry, very best! Excuse me I'm feeling rather ill at the moment!

The mother contradicts herself hugely when she says she can't work because she is looking after her family and then, OTOH, says she can't know what her daughters are doing every part of the day? Can't she?

I don't think society is going to the dogs. Far, far worse things happened to very young children in the Victorian times. I seem to recall there were thousands of child prostitutes working then.
I can't help feeling some of it is to do with the poverty trap. I would be interested to know what the income level of pregnant teenagers is.
Whether right or wrong, my parents, school & friends all gave me something to aspire to. I wanted to go to college, have a career etc. Like some others on here, apart from the fact my mother would have flayed me alive, I knew I would have been a social outcast if I'd had a baby while I was at school (a comp, but probably most children came from fairly stable & financially secure backgrounds)
However, I can't help thinking that sometimes in economically deprived areas it must be hard to break away.
I'm speculating here - don't really know for sure. What do others think?