I'm at wits end with my teen mum daughter

[Ithinkiminlimbo]

Hi all,

I really don't know what to do for the best for the situation im in, and this may be a bit of a long one so grab a cuppa and strap in. I also have dyslexia and adhd so if my timelines and spellings get muddled, well, thats the reason :')

So, at 14 my daughter started a new high school, and because it was a mid year transfer, had no friends, and when she did get befriended, it was with the wrong crowd. My usually sweet delightful girl soon turned into a horror half the time. Thats normal i know, but when she turned 15 and got her first boyfriend, she got so much worse.

Thing is, my dc is sweet, but very naive, and i feel mean saying this but, not the brightest but makes up for it with her down to earthness and kindness.
This lad she was seeing projected all of his attitude and problems onto her, and she started acting like we were the worst, bunking off school, smoking weed and being so mean to me.

It all came to a head when after months of this, she and him ran away from school in the morning and we didnt find them until the evening. We had the police looking and when she got home, she got a telling off from them, and she basically said it was my fault she ran away, im too suffocating and stress too much. they have one chore a day to do and i let them spend their time to do as they please as long as homework is done, so i dont get it.

Me and my partner went on abreak around this time, as my stress levels were so high and i wanted to focus on working on my daughter ( we have since come back together, so yay) .

Anyway, i got called into school, her teacher sits me down with dc and she tells me shes pregnant. Shock, we go to a clinic, shes 25 weeks, so. no termination, this baby is coming. Dcs bf is 17, social and police are ok with that, so we prep for the babies arrival.

Dc has the baby, little boy, hes great and after a while she goes back to school and studies and get enough gcses to go to college. I arrange for care to learn to pay for childcare and arrange her bus timetable, but ask her to take the reigns for all that during the summer, as im starting second year of uni, and also have my other 2 dc to raise.

I bought all the baby gear, and buy the formula, nappies, everything, and yes i get child benefit for her, but i keep reminding her to apply for herself. She'll snap at me and saying shes doing it... but never does, same with healthy start, same with transfering her care to learn details for college and a new childminder. If she doesnt sort that during half term, she cant go back to college as the new sitter, and rightly so, has refused to offer childcare if it isnt in place. She is the only one that can liase with college to sort her application and she keeps mugging me off.

Her and her bf split, she cooled down and seemed great for a month or so, Now theres a new boy in the picture shes acting a bugger again.

Tonight when i popped out to get binbags, she left her son 10m asleep in his cot in the company of my 12yo son. I got home, and got back in my car and found her walking back from the shop with this lad, and another. She flat out refused to get in the car, and this was over an hour ago and shes still not home, her son has woken up and ive put him back to bed but i cant believe she'd leave him like this.

Im a f/t student, i work p/t and pay for all i can for her. i get my friends to donate old baby clothes for her, source all her kit and it goes all unappreciated i feel. Yes i expect her to clean up the house after her baby and to sort her admin out.

I cant believe she'd leave him like this. Maybe i do too much and need to detach more, with organising her life, not in an oppresive way, just to make her life easier as i know having a kid at 15 must be hard, but i also didnt sign up for this.

any advice, hand holding or solidarity would be greatly appreciated

This is all a bit extreme about fostering. A friend of mine is a foster mother and she has great ongoing relationships with past fosterees and their parents.

Anything other than an open adoption, which can be highly problematic, cuts off baby from family and vice versa and is highly traumatic.

It’s not very realistic that anyone in this scenario would agree to adoption.

I think if you encourage her to put the baby up for adoption you will all regret it massively in the end and you will likely end up with no contact with either your daughter or your grandson.

Most teens have a really difficult phase and it's compounded in this case by being a young mum, but they do usually come out the other side of it with a lot of love and patience. It's incredibly hard but I think you need to stick with it, enable her to get an education and have some sort of social life whilst helping her to take responsibilty where you can. In 5 / 10 years time things may well be much better and you will be glad you didn't give up.

It's not ideal, and probably not what you had in mind for this stage of your life but I think you're going to have to step up at this point and accept where you are.

My son became a dad at a younger age than we were hoping but our grandson is amazing and our lives, although way harder than we expected, are also much richer. Really hope it gets better for you soon.

Has your daughter been assessed? if you are neurodiveergent she likely is too.

Did she make a choice though - or did she genuinely only find out once it was too late to have all the choices available ?

I am aware of a situation in my family (happened when I was a child), when a cousin became pregnant at 15, and had her baby 'adopted' by her parents. She completely rejected the baby, and that caused many problems - for her, the child, and her family.
The situation is somewhat different, as it turned out that she had been raped, but hadn't told her parents..... Completely understandable that she saw her rapist in her child, whenever she looked at it.

The child turned out to be incredibly troubled, and I think there's a big nature/nurture argument there; but, I wonder how much their start in life, and complete rejection by their mother was relevant in their subsequent difficult adolescence.

Sorry - hit send too soon.....
I was sharing that experience, as I was thinking about the early life of that child, and how that might also relate to the early life of your grandchild.

Please do this Op.
She obviously doesn't understand the consequences of her actions.
She has mum, at home, running around doing everything for her and the baby yet she is completly unappreciative of everything you do.
Now a new boy is on the scene and the bad behaviour is starting up again.
The last thing you need is a repeat of last time with yet another baby to fund and raise whilst your daughter shrugs her shoulders and does whatever she pleases leaving you to pick up the pieces....again🙁

Were you not responsible for your own actions?

Anything other than an open adoption, which can be highly problematic, cuts off baby from family and vice versa and is highly traumatic

I agree about the potential for trauma here, Mirabai, but just wonder if it would be any worse than the child staying within the family and experiencing ongoing rejection from his mother - to say nothing of being used as an emotional punchbag when she tries to blame OP for "alienating her child from his mother"

I'm another who's seen this happen, and when the lad predictably ended up in a complete mess it was hard not to think he'd have been better with a complete fresh start from babyhood

Really worrying to see posters here urging OP to call SS as they will offer "help and support". If the baby is actually a baby then allowing him to go to "foster" means he will be adopted. OP please do some more research on this, unless you think the child needs to be permanently removed from your family? Look for other sources of support for her, your grandson and you.

https://www.familylives.org.uk/advice/your-family/parenting/where-can-young-parents-go-for-support#:~:text=You%20may%20be%20worried%20about,helpline%20on%200808%20800%20222.

https://frg.org.uk/get-help-and-advice/who/mothers/

I'm sorry, OP, this sounds incredibly difficult for you. Clearly you are very supportive and ideally your daughter would step up but it sounds as though she is just too young. Essentially she's still a child herself.

There are girls who do raise children successfully but frankly I think it's a bloody miracle. We know how challenging parenting can be even with maturity, support and resources so I find it extraordinary that any teenage girls manage.

I imagine that your daughter is extremely fond of her baby but it isn't enough, the baby needs someone who can and will pull out all the stops to care for them.

I think you need to ask for help from professionals. True love is doing what's best for baby and that may be adoption. X

Sorry to say it, @GoingDownLikeBHS, but OP won't get anything in the way of support from SS if they're all living with her. They'll almost certainly promise support to avoid taking on yet another case, but it can be snatched away on the basis of one internal meeting - and that's if it ever materialises in the first place

Much better for OP to face the fact that she'd be doing this on her own, decide if that's acceptable and act accordingly

I would be worried that she may get pregnant again, contraception needs to be priority to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I know she’s had a child and needs to take some responsibility for her life but she is still a child herself and quite immature.

If you do contact social services and they feel the baby isn’t safe the first thing they will do is ask you to take the baby (be it’s legal guardian), adoption/foster is always total last resort, they will ask if there’s any family that can help first.

I can imagine how hard it must be for anyone under 18 to have a baby, I was 21 when I had dd and looking back I was so young and had no life experience, I missed out on a lot of socialising with friends but on the plus side my dc are now almost adults and my friends are juggling toddlers. She probably feels like she’s missing out on a lot right now and wants to be out meeting boys and socialising, yes she got pregnant but she had no idea of the long term implications at the time.

I agree with others that your dd may also be ND (both my DC’s are and I am going through assessment at the age of 42) it often runs in the family.

You need to sit down and talk to your DD about what she wants for the future, if she wants to be a mum to this little boy. You also need to decide what will happen if she says she doesn’t want to? For me I wouldn’t be able to let my grandchild go to strangers and would 100% care for them the best I could.

Fair point @Puzzledandpissedoff that might also be the outcome, but you often read on here that if there is a young baby around some social workers think hmm, available for adoption. I'd be terrified of losing one of my family in that way.

What does your partner think OP? When you say you have other DC are they children from a second relationship/marriage? It sounds very fraught. DD is still your child and that means you support them whatever. Clearly she is not able to care for your grandson without a lot of help and guidance from you - you still need to parent her.

@Lovemusic82 "If you do contact social services and they feel the baby isn’t safe the first thing they will do is ask you to take the baby (be it’s legal guardian), adoption/foster is always total last resort, they will ask if there’s any family that can help first. " - Social services vary wildly and a significant number will want to remove the child first, not as a last resort but as a first.

Does the OP really want the baby removed from her daughter? (I notice she never refers to the child as her grandson) The DD doesn't sound like she'd be able to comprehend what she was consenting to in the first place; if SS said they'd do a "temporary foster" maybe the DD would feel pressured into it by her mum without realising that its unlikely to be temporary.

I work in this area, I think some posters have a very romantic view of adoption. Outcomes are nearly always better if children can stay in their birth family. I would suggest OP applies for an SGO which comes with money attached and will allow her to book appointments etc for DGS. As long as the Dd agrees you don't need Children's services, it can be a family arrangment.

https://corambaaf.org.uk/practice-areas/kinship-care/information-kinship-carers/what-special-guardianship#:~:text=Special%20Guardianship%20is%20a%20formal,relative%20or%20a%20family%20friend.

It was a 12 year old.

@Ithinkiminlimbo Foster care or even adoption?
This baby as you know needs safety and stability-
A person I know had a 14 yr old mum
they were adopted and now as an adult sees their mum

She is lovely, but at 14 was incapable of being parent.
when one sees them together, it’s like seeing siblings!
It must be so difficult for you but the safety of the baby as you know has to come first.

OP - was adoption discussed when you found out she was 25 weeks?

Agree with this.

Maybe for adoption in general, but maybe not healthy babies for whom there is a healthy demand.

I bought all the baby gear, and buy the formula, nappies, everything, and yes i get child benefit for her, but i keep reminding her to apply for herself. She'll snap at me and saying shes doing it... but never does, same with healthy start, same with transfering her care to learn details for college and a new childminder. If she doesnt sort that during half term, she cant go back to college as the new sitter, and rightly so, has refused to offer childcare if it isnt in place. She is the only one that can liase with college to sort her application and she keeps mugging me off

I know she’s only a teen but she sounds incredibly immature and incapable of stepping up to the plate. I know nothing about the legal support but if you can get something like that special guardianship described by a PP, that sounds best.

I know two people close to me who had babies in similar circumstances. One did fine and raised the baby with support from her family. All’s ok and he has no emotional problems at all. The other girl was resentful and angry and basically left her mum to do everything - which she did. Things improved as the girl matured.

Apart from contraception - which is a priority - I think your DD needs support. She sounds too trusting, too naive and like she’s being taken advantage of. Maybe point that out to her and ask her why those boys are really with her? She’s lucky to have you and she’d be better off the minute she realises that.

Re theChild Benefit, perhaps she can’t actually do the admin or is worried she’ll get it wrong? Can she have someone to support her (that’s not you)? Surely there must be help for her? It’s sad to read about her attitude to her baby and her naivety.

Do you have any evidence folr that ?

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-adoptive-difference-new-evidence-on-how-adopted-children-perform-in-school

I feel very sorry for OPs daughter.

She was moved away from her support system at 14, to a new school, had no friends.

OP is in a (new?) relationship. Again this might be very difficult for her daughter.

Where is her father? What has happened there?

Distressed children often act out, seeking care in inappropriate ways or lacking self esteem. She ended up with a group of people who have not supported her to stay safe instead encouraging risky behaviour.

She fell pregnant at 15 and either due to fear or naivety didn't feel able to tell anyone until a point where she had no option but to give birth. Even then she couldn't tell OP directly. She must have been terrified.

OPs attention is directed towards caring for her other children, her studies, work and her partner and she is maybe not seeing the level of distress and need her daughter is experiencing. OPs shares quite a negative opinion of her daughter as "not that bright".

There is some situation with the baby's Dad which has resulted in police input?

Now OP is angry that her daughter isn't doing the jobs she feels she needs to do to deal with the practical things. Maybe this child doesn't feel able to.

What support (and I don't mean buying things - I mean emotional) is OPs daughter getting to process all of this? How can she deal with the practical things or be in a place to care for a baby with all of this going on?

We would understand a 30 year old with PND struggling, or an adult Mum who's partner had left them finding things difficult and not jump straight to "get their child adopted". This child has been through a lot, maybe look at some support before expecting her to be able to cope with being a parent. With some help, she might be able to be a good parent if she wants to be. Or if she doesn't want to be she could be supported to decide that for herself but from a place where she feels OK.