17 year old is pregnant

[Snowpatrolling]

Hi,
im not sure what I’m asking for here,
my 17 year old has just found out she’s pregnant.
she dropped out of college but has a cleaning job, her BF is a knob. She spends all her money on weed.
im financially struggling with no family support,
my youngest is being investigated for autism. She’s 13. She also self harms.
had problems with my 17 year old since she was 14. She thinks it’s a game.
im struggling to know how to cope, im already low and this I think is about to push me over the edge. Im trying to be there for my children but I can’t help but feel it would be easier if I disappear. I can’t do this anymore.
their dad is not on the scene,
somebody please tell me we are going to be ok.

She needs help but as it stands, with her behaviour, the help she needs is far beyond what her mother can provide. She needs specialised help and from her mother she needs help from a distance - realistically moving out to an appropriate place is the best option. She can’t play adults while acting like a tantrum throwing toddler.

There’s also another child at home. I don’t understand why you’re acting like a newborn isn’t extremely disruptive. This isn’t an oops baby with a fairly responsible teenager where everyone can pitch in a little and as it stands this baby is likely to be born with some health issues due to all the damn weed.

I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve help, but it has to come with conditions and consequences. She can’t have everything her way, look how well it’s turning out.

Refer yourselves over to social services for help and support. Take one step at a time. Things will work out.

Which is not remotely what's happening here- as you would know if you’d actually read the OP

I think you sort of need to drop the rope a bit OP.

… but for me there was one interesting little nugget. We know that the accusations are admissions, so I would take the “know it all skank” in that spirit of how she judges herself. She really is very very unhappy.

I would work from the assumption that she will have the baby, but that means she has to step up. Yes of course she is living in cloud cuckoo land, but before you know it she is going to get a massive reality check. So only have the discussion once and then let her pick up the consequences.

The ‘you’re trying to get the baby taken off me” is another facet of this. She doesn’t really want the responsibility of the baby, (just the fantasy of cooing and cuddles) but she absolutely instinctively wants it to be someone else’s fault, if/when it goes tits up.

There are plenty of women here who would have been “know it all skanks” in your daughter’s estimation. And some will even admit that they will make things a million times harder for themselves rather than accept advice (which they only experience as ‘being told what to do’). They might be able to advise on what to say to her, that might keep your relationship with her intact.

Try to refuse to argue with her, but just focus on planning for the future, and keeping her focused on reality.

You’re stuck in battle mode with her so of course she isn’t going to listen to any advice from you. Trust is at zero. You really need to rebuild trust in your relationship and actually be there for her and support her. Every time you write about her there isn’t an ounce of empathy or care. It’s all really harsh, blaming, antagonistic, and quite cruel. She is crying out for support from you and you’re not giving it to her. How can she be expected to make good decisions or be a good mum to her baby when she is being kept in fight mode by you?

It’s almost as though you haven’t read the OP or the updates. Oh wait……………..

OP isn’t able to give the support she knows her DD will need/want and knows she’ll be left to look after the baby, and has neither the time, the inclination nor the resources to do it. And she has another child with special needs. At this point if l were OP l would be doing a self referral to social services and let them handle it.

The baby WILL be taken off her by the looks of it if she carries on taking drugs, abusive boyfriend and living in an unsuitable place. I used to work in a maternity setting and it does happen under these circumstances

I have read her updates. Every update is attacking her daughter and projecting herself as the victim. It’s perfectly fine for her not to look after the baby but that doesn’t explain why she can’t also be loving towards her daughter. I was pregnant at a young age and my mum said it was totally up to me what I did (to abort or keep). She didn’t pressure me either way and she didn’t vilify and attack me for it either.

You are projecting, you are using the OP to defend your own behaviour as a teenager and the disruption you caused others.

Instead of having the knife out for OP, why don’t you use it to have a think about how people maybe really felt about your pregnancy but were better able to hide: perhaps because they had more financial resources, or maybe just not recovering from domestic violence.

I don’t know whether you tantrummed at your parents and are happy for people to call your mother a skank (is she a skank?) but sometimes young people stretch those around them beyond breaking point. Why would anyone expect her to step up for her baby when it’s born when she is prepared to step up now?

This is why group therapy would be useful for the family. The mum and two daughters are hurting they need help together not individually. I do fear for all the family if they don't get the right support. More needs to be done or else the op will be lumbered. The op can not rely on a 17 year old to tell the truth. She needs to tell them that she is being abused and using drugs so they can give her daughter the correct support.

She can call the op every name she wants it doesn't change the situation. Someone needs to take control and be the adult. The op needs to tell the services what is going on with her daughter and how she is abusing herself with drugs, and allowing her boyfriend to abuse her.

I had a miscarriage so didn’t cause any disruption. I wasn’t tantrummimg because my mother talked to me kindly and respectfully. It sounds like this young person wants to move out and live independently but her mother is getting angry at her and worrying about losing out on her UC claim if she does. All of the talk on the thread about how the daughter is planning to dump the baby on her mother and refuse to take responsibility is pure projection.

@SnowpatrollingI’m so sorry that you’re in such a stressful position and feeling the way that you do. Is it worth reaching out to your GP as they might be able to help you?

On a separate note, everything you have written suggests that your grandchild, who I completely understand you can’t care for in addition to everything else you have going on, will be raised by an immature teenager in poverty and possible squalor given what you said about dog faeces, with a deadbeat dad that I would put money on not being involved and/or paying maintenance. For the sake of that grandchild, please reach out to every service you can to either support DD, or if she’s not receptive to that then for the child to be looked after by someone else. You know your DD better than anyone, how will she cope with getting up every 1-2 hours to feed, change a child and look after them all day too? As well as looking after a home? This is off the assumption that she isn’t living with you and her partner is not helping/or there.

This is just an awful situation for everyone really.
Op can’t afford to pay for and bring up her irresponsible daughter who will have to give up work.
She’s got another child in the house who is self harming and op is also clearly struggling with mental health issues herself.
The daughter can’t take a baby back to the boyfriends shit covered home and by the sound of things he wants nothing to do with this child either.
At best a social worker will step in and help provide a mother and baby unit for her but then what.. There aren’t any council houses, she’ll be waiting years.
And is it even in the babies best interest to be left with a teenager who idolises her criminal boyfriend and is breathing drugs into an innocent babies blood stream.
Im thinking that foster care and adoption are probably where this is heading.

@SunComeBackbut if that is the case, either the DD will need to consent (which sounds like she won’t) or the situation will have to get so severe for social services to entirely remove the child.

It's not pure projection. Op has said that her daughter is rejecting alternative support, wanting OP to provide the support.

It's also based on knowledge of basic human nature, and seeing this play out many times before.

Untrue. OPs updates quote the daughter as saying she doesn’t want to live with her, and wants her to kick her out formally to help her claim for social housing. Nowhere does she say the daughter is asking for support (other than emotional support which should be freely given).

OP has said quite clearly her DD wants to move out. She didn’t say she wanted any support from her - what OP did say was that she would end up caring for the baby if her DD stayed, which she has neither the time or the resources to provide because she’s working two jobs and has another child with SEN to care for.

Go back and read the OP and updates and then tell us you think this girl will engage with group therapy. Even if she would, the waiting lists are very long and it doesn’t sound as though they have the resources to do it privately.

I didn't mention anything about private. Her oldest has no choice but to engage with the services or she will have her child taken away. It was only a suggestion. Even if she got the therapy for her and her youngest daughter it would be beneficial it doesn't matter how long the wait is they need it.

The op said "she needs my support," her older daughter doesn't want any other support apart from the ops. As I said in my last post to you she has no choice but to engage with the services and the op needs to tell them what she is doing and how she is behaving.

No, OP says that in her second-to-last post that her daughter is wanting her support ( along with yelling at the GP ).

OP has said that she's very keen to give emotional support. She just can't do night wakings and isn't in a position to offer financial support.

Everything her own way?
OP managed to got two children who turned up quite fucked up.... but no.
Let's all pile up and blame an underage girl for trying to make herself a family.

Milions of people smoke weed, even more get pregnant in their teens.
OP is just pissed about an inconvenience of having a DGC in her life.

Why are we putting blame on OP and not the absent father?

And what decent parent wouldn't be overwhelmed and furious in this situation?

You’re filling in a lot of gaps here. We don’t know why they are the way they are - it’s very likely mental health problems run in the family, as OP also seems suicidal herself. OP could have been the best mother she could and things still turn out wrong. Next thing you’re going to blame addicts on the parents and parents alone.

It may come as a shock to you but teenagers get pregnant for many reasons. She has been trying to get pregnant on purpose, she’s been given contraception, she’s been talked to - it is just beyond anything her mother could have done except for locking her away.

If she wants a baby, sure, but she’ll have to grow up incredibly fast. We all had as teenage parents.

Don’t dismiss her dependency on weed neither btw, it seems to be far beyond casual.

“She’s been trying to get pregnant on purpose”. According to the OP who has been at complete loggerheads with her daughter for 3 years, no doubt driving her into the arms of this abusive asshole. I highly doubt the OP has a good understanding of her daughters thoughts, feelings and motivations.