HUZZAH! Banned from Rentech.com!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I'm. sorry, Inge, but I too have my mouth hanging open!  First, this older woman (why a woman, I ask!) who is going to take responsibility for the child - what if the older woman already has a life, feels she's already done her share of raising kids, etc.  Are you going to legislate to FORCE her to do it?  come on, move into the 21st century - I'm a lot older than I think you are, and I've managed to do it!  Stop living somewhere in the dark ages when all women were considered good for was having babies and minding the home!  My generation fought a long and uphill battle to change these kinds of views, you are trying to undo everything we worked for just to satisfy some crazy geneticist idea, and remember which political system was for creating the "genetically perfect race"?

[Renatus]

I partially agree with you on the family thing, Inge, but not totally. The 'traditional' nuclear family is a fairly recent invention, and it does both parents and children good to have the extended family involved. The parents have someone readily around to ask for advice or fall back on if everything goes pancake shaped; the children know that they have lots of people who very directly care for them which helps to give them a strong feeling of being connected. This is very important.

However, I do object to the idea that the grandparents are obligated to contribute a large amount towards the parenting of a child that their kid has while teenaged. If the teenager is old enough to make that sort of decision, they certainly should be old enough to take responsibility for the consequences. I do not think it is right for the grandparents to throw the teenager out or refuse to help period - that helps no one and makes it far less likely that the teenager will be able to take proper care of the child, and it is especially brutal when adults cut their pregnant teens loose when the teen is still a minor herself, as they ARE still obligated to care for the teen until she reaches age of majority. But it doesn't follow that in continuing to take care of their child that they are then obligated to take up large amounts of responsibility for their child's child. It is the right thing to do to support her in this responsibility, but expecting them to pick enough of it up so that the teen can resume being a teen - no. If a teen gets to make adult decisions, s/he gets to take on the adult responsibility that goes with it.

[KellyQ]

Inge, I have read every word of your posts on this topic and to imply that I and others haven't read your posts simply  because we don't agree with you, is insulting.
I think the situation you are speaking of sounds very idealistic and unrealistic in today's world. It sounds an awful lot like the Legacy Challenge, actually  !
I know that the family you described is traditional in some parts of the world but in most countries that kind of culture no longer exists. I have had friends who had children while still in their teens while I had my children while I was in my 20s and I see absolutely no difference for better or worse, genetically, (which is what this debate started over) because they had their children earlier and I had mine later. The only difference I see is that it made my friends miss out on fun things that teenagers should be enjoying because they were responsible for another human being. Most of them dropped out of school, struggled financially and didn't get to go out for a night of "clubbing" because their parents felt that the baby was their responsbility, not the grandparents. That is a view a lot of parents have in regards to their teenagers becoming pregnant, don't expect them to raise your child because you are still a kid and want to have kid type of fun. You negated that when you became pregnant, especially if it was a choice made on purpose.

[ZephyrZodiac]

To look more closely at the genetic argument - let's consider what happens in a family which hasppens to carry the gene for some severely disabling illness.  An adult considering having children would no doubt seek genetic counseling and medical assessment of the risks first, would a teenager be that responsible?  I doubt it.  And the young man fathering this child, probably purely because he "doesn't like condoms", how likely is he to consider the risk of passing on this inherited condition?

[Hook]

I am saying that I don't agree that the person who runs the home and makes decisions for the child should necessarily be only the biological or legal parents.   I am saying that yes, the parents should be around while the child is growing up, but no they don't need to be the people paying the bills, doing the cooking, driving the child to football club, or having the final say on house rules.   The people doing those things could be older family members who share the house.   Lots of cultures do it that way.   If the eldest woman continues to set the rules, then it doesn't matter if a teenager has a baby she was too mentally immature to parent - she will be taught how to do it and someone will be there to step in if she isn't getting it right, or if she deserves a night out clubbing.

There are quite a lot of mouths hanging open at this point, including mine.

We are saying that we don't agree that the PEOPLE who run the home and make the decisions for the child should necessarily be the grandparents.  We are saying that yes, the grandparents should be round while the child is growing up, but no they don't need to be the people paying the bills, doing the cooking, or driving the child to football club.  The grandparents should have the final say on house rules;  after all, they do not simply *share* the house, it's *their* house, bought paid for by by their toil and sweat, and many many missed nights of clubbing, among many other things they had to give up when they had kids.

And where's the mention of the baby's father in all this?  Or his parents?  Are her parents going to support him too?  It sounds like the night out clubbing that she "deserves" was what led to her getting pregnant in the first place.  I emphasized the word PEOPLE in the above paragraph because the grandparents usually include a grandmother *and* a grandfather, unless unwed pregnancy runs in the family.

The position Inge is putting forward is that of the teenage mother.  I mean, who wouldn't like to have all the fun and none of the responsibility?  But there's also a certain pathology involved:  if the young mommy didn't get to raise her own child, will she try to take over raising her grandchildren, even over the objections of her children?

I'm all in favor of extended families.  But I'm not in favor of the grandparents shouldering all of the responsibility while the young mommy goes out clubbing.  The grandparents are there to *help*, not just there to do all the work while young mommy has all the fun... paid for by the grandparents.

My sister-in-law got pregnant at age 13.  On purpose.  She wanted a baby.  Her parents would have taken responsibililty;  after all, they had 8 kids of their own, what's one more mouth to feed?  But she was intelligent, headstrong and irresponsible.  There would have been fights if she hadn't lost the baby.  And with that many people in the family, there wouldn't have been any money for clubbing.  Since she was number 7 of 8 kids, she didn't have her mom's babies to cuddle.

As for the genetic argument, it makes no sense.  Women at age 16 do not have healthier babies than women at age 30.  But someone who is 16 (or younger) might try to make that argument.

Hook

[J. M. Pescado]

Most teenagers "like" the idea of babies - they're cuddly and apparently all they need is feeding, bathing and nappy-changing and a cot to sleep in!  They are too young to realise the implications of babies growing into toddlers, then children who need help with schoolwork etc. - all this while young mum wants to go out and party with her friends!

Obviously, they haven't played TS2, then. Once they start complaining about toddler hell, they'll probably lose that thought.

[Inge]

I'm all in favor of extended families.  But I'm not in favor of the grandparents shouldering all of the responsibility while the young mommy goes out clubbing.

Ah, but the point is, in my scheme those grandparents would have had the same opportunities when they were young parents.   Obviously it's not going to be fair if I raise my daughter without any help (which I did) and then she has a baby at 16 which I also raise without any help while she is out clubbing - and then presumably I get old and frail without help too...  No I was thinking of the scenario where it is always the people aged 35-55 who take responsibility for both very old and very young, and outside those ages do their own thing apart from dropping a baby or two between 16-20, for its grandparents to bring up

[veilchen]

The concept of that extended family, where one or two adults take on the role of care-giver while the rest of the household takes on other supporting roles is not in itself a bad idea. However, that would never work in the real world. The burn-out rate of those care-givers would be astronomical, not to mention the role-strain of trying to accomodate the wishes, needs, whims, and support needs of everyone around them. A child is the parents' responsibility, not the grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Personally, I would've taken exception if my mother, or then mother-in-law, or anyone else in either family had started telling me how to raise my children.

I had my son when I was 25, and my daughter when I was 30. Both are beautiful, intelligent, and healthy children; not a genetic defect in sight. My children are well balanced and strong minded (not to confuse with head-strong or stubborn), and I believe that was because they had a strong bond with both their parents and knew that they could and can always count on us. My ex-husband was a lousy husband, but was and is a good father. The bond with my children is strong, I could've never just popped them out and then hand them over to relatives to raise. They are living, breathing parts of me, I have created them with their father, so it is our duty to take care of them.

I am 46 years old, and I consider myself in the prime of my life. If someone would give me the choice of either staying my age or go back to my late teens/early twenties, I would politely decline the offer. I have grown intellectually, emotionally, and mentally. There would be no way that I would take on my son/daughter's responsibilities. I would most certainly help in any way I can, but in the end, it is their child, their responsibility.

Teenager are not physically ready for children; everything is still growing and developing. The risks of complications in teenage pregnancy is very high. Prematur birth is just one of them. 34 % of pemature birth is in the 15 - 19 year old range, as opposed to 9% in the 30 - 34 year old range. Aside from premature labor, teenagers ages 15 - 19 have increased risks of anemia and high blood pressure as well. Teenagers in that age group also are at greater risk to deliver babies with low birth weight. Those babies can suffer anything from lung and respiratory distress, vision loss, serious intestinal deficiencies, to bleeding in the brain.

An added risk is the risky behavior that teenagers are prone to engage in. They are more likely not to be mature enough to take proper care of themselves while carrying a child. The initial risk is therby increased in significant proportion.

Genetically speaking, an older mother and father are really not genetically defective parents. True, sperm and the oocyte have been manufactured/stored for a longer period of time, but it is generally surmised that if they are rendered defective, it is due to environmental forces, and not the age of the mother/father. Parents over 35 are ususally advised to consider anmiosynthesis to test for Downs syndrome, but the majority of Downs syndrome children are born to women in their twenties.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Veilchen, your arguments have the one thing lacking in all of Inge's - LOGIC!  and with that logic comes truth and common sense.

In particular, what you have said about the risks of teenage pregnancy I , for one, am totally in agreement with.  The risk of premature birth is something which should definitely be taken into account since at long last the medical prefession is catching up with the teaching profession in admitting that a large number of premature babies are never able to perform normally in school.  And if they can't perform normally in school, what chance do they have in adult life?  They are condemned to low pay, low prospects, poor housing, they may need support from social services to help with thir children.  There is also a greater risk of premature babies developing serious health problems later on in life. 

It is one thing to support those teenage girls who get pregnant, often because they are gullible and believe a young man (often several years older than them) who tells them that "they can't get pregnant if it's the first time", "the withdrawal method is safe", and worst of the lot, the definitely older man who tells them "you won't get pregnant, I've had a vasectomy!"

It is an entirely different matter to condone the behaviour of the young, and not so young, men who often take cruel advantage of a young and inexperienced girl. If grandparents take over all responsibility for the child, that leaves the child's father thinking, more fool them, I've got away with it again!

In a genuine love affair between two young people, the young man will care about his girlfriend, and if they are unfortunate and the girl gets pregnant, maybe because like many youngsters she forgets to take her pill one morning, then he will want to be there for her and the baby and take his share of the responsibility.  This may mean, if his parents are the ones with the bigger house, more money, etc., that it is his family and not hers who provide the roof over their heads until they are old enough to support themselves and their child, but it should not mean that either set of grandparents are expected to also take on the job of raising the child!

[Hook]

man who tells them "you won't get pregnant, I've had a vasectomy!"

You're assuming a responsible teenage girl who is not intentionally trying to get pregnant.  It works both ways.  The girl tells the guy she can't get pregnant 1) for medical reasons, 2) because she's on the pill, 3) because she's too young, and doesn't want the guy to use a condom (if he's responsible enough to insist) because 1) Neither of them have any diseases, 2) because she doesn't like condoms, and if these don't work, 3) because she is allergic to condoms.  I've seen it happen.  More than once.

I still have to ask, where is the father of the baby in all this?

Hook

[ZephyrZodiac]

Apologies, Hook, I hadn't intentionally left out the teenager who actually wants to get pregnant and doesn't care who she hurts in order to succeed!  And obviously, a young man who has no wish to become a father just yet, and probably only with someone he's in love with, is very much the victim in those circumstances!  He can be taken to court for child support, and that is both unjust and unkind!

The point I was trying to make is that in a genuine caring partnership between two young people, babies are generally an accident rather than a deliberate choice, but most young men do not run a mile at the thought of becoming a dad - lots of them make a really good job of being supportive and helping with everything.

[Inge]

Although most people are in disagreement with me, it's heartwarming to see that it's possible to have a controversial discussion politely, and what's interesting is that it is taking place on one of the few forum sites that don't censor threads for flaming etc.   Just goes to show if you treat people like adults they'll behave like adults!

[Brynne]

I don't think I've blinked since I started reading this thread. And I hit the "reply" button and just stared at my screen for a few minutes without typing. I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, so all I can contribute to this is personal experience. The two points that jumped out at me were the "A baby should be a child of society" idea which is not my way of thinking at all, and the "healthy gene pool" thing, which makes me think of of the people that go to specialized sperm-donor clinics so they can have their problem-free genius child and not an "imperfect" child like mine.

As for the child of society, here are my thoughts: I had my son at age 24 and was clueless as to how much was involved! It was not a planned pregnancy, but it was a nice surprise for my husband and me. My husband was in the military and was not making much income and had to take a second job. Both my parents and my in-laws helped us out financially from time to time, I hated asking them for money. I also had to go on WIC in order to buy formula for my son (he just had to have the soy, oy!), and, although I'm extremely grateful for programs like those, my husband and I were very happy to go off it when he got out of the military and started earning more money. And then, as I've said many times in this forum, we found out Jamie had asperger's (shutup, JM  ) and would require many doctor's visits,  speech pathologists, and other assorted experts. Georgia has a great early-intervention program to help children like Jamie, so, again, outside support. And again, very very thankful. But I was not brought up in the Hillary Rodham Clinton "It Takes a Village" camp. Or is it "It Takes a Camp" village? (Pardon my silliness. It's late and I've been up for 36 hours straight.) I am raising my son. I had help from some wonderful programs, and my parents do the occasional babysitting, but I deal with the day to day. And I think that's perfectly all right. It would drive me nuts to have relatives taking over my childcare duties, but that's a matter of personal opinion. My mom has just started her artistic design business(I don't remember what she calls it. She does high-end faux-finishes and murals) , and it's really taking off. She's flying to Denver to work for clients out there and she has many clients here. Extremely busy person. My 89 year old Grandma does volunteer work at both her church and the hospital and has a social life I envy. Those are my role models.

On the second point, (which I understand was about age-related gene health and not sperm clinics) that's stilll getting a little too selective for my taste, and would result in a very robotic, sterilized world if we all focused on that aspect. One thing I now know at age 35 that I never gave much thought to back in my baby-sitting years was, when you take on the responsibility of having a child, you must be ready to accept that this child may very well not be the child you imagined your little dolls being and, unfortunately, the older you are, the greater the risk and you have to take that into account. I think it's a hard thing to accept at any age and I don't think there is any way teenagers can be prepared for this, transitioning from perfect baby-powder scented dolls to real flawed tiny messy humans. And who here can say that they don't have flaws? Ok, JM probably would jump up at this, but the rest of us mere mortals are imperfect and were not exactly what our parents dreamt of when they were younger. I'm pretty sure my mom didn't play with a "collicky Val" doll as a youngster. And the dream-baby scenario for the child she already had named while daydreaming in Chemistry class probably was not "Toddler Val eats an entire box of chocolate ex-lax thinking it's candy. Or practices her big girl potty training in full view on a display toilet at Sears." I certainly didn't expect to have an autistic child. But I have one, and he's perfect.
 
I know you weren't taking things to that extreme, Inge, I just got off on a general rant, there.

I cannot think of a 15 or 16 year old as someone emotionally ready to have a child. Sure, there are very responsible 15/16 year-olds, but that's relatively speaking. They still have no real world experience. And if they do, it's probably not a good real world experience, in which case they were "forced to grow up fast". For the most well-adjusted teens at that age it is, at least in my mind, still not unlike TS2 with babies giving off false advertising by being cute and cuddly and provoking budding maternal (or paternal) feelings. Teenagers may think they need to go there, but they don't. Not yet.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I remember a friend of mine from when I was a teenager.  Thi girl got pregnant while still 15, married the father on her 16th birthday and they got a small flat.  she had the baby, then two more in quick succession, so by the time she was 21 she was more like a middle-aged woman than most middle-aged women are!  She'd had no teenage fun, never had a job, she was stuck in the house all day with three kids.  Her father died quite suddenly just after she got married, her mother had already gone off with someone else, his parents were as supportive as they could be, but in the end, she was left alone to look after these kids all day while her husband was at work.  This all happened before the pill was readily available to teenagers, and certainly not available to under 16s.  With the current easy access to birth control, this kind of scenario should never happen, but unfortunately it still does!

[veilchen]

That is a whole other arena of potentially serious problems when a baby is not the perfect little dolly that can be put away in the toy-box when they are finished playing with it. Children born with health problems need their mother/father/caregiver even more than a regular, just colicky, fussy, or lively baby does.
I was extremely lucky, but I know many who weren't. They never-the-less do love the child with all their heart; most are emotionally able to care for the child, some are not. I takes someone with great maturity, vast amounts of patience, and a willingness to sacrifice to care for a child with problems, so that the child has at least a decent chance to function later on in life. I applaud Georgia for their far-sightedness, the health care situation in the US boggles the mind. There are developing countries out there with a better health care system; I guess when they speak of one of "the richest countries" in the world, they meant the individual super-rich, not the population as a whole (I'm going off the band-wagon now).

Hook, even though I know for a fact that some young women/teenagers do deceive their sexual partner because they want a pregnancy, the majority of cases is about young women/teenager who become pregnant due to inexperience, lack of birth control devices, and pressure to yield to sexual intercourse. Society at large expects the woman to take care of the birth control, and is ready to blame her when she becomes pregnant anyway. Many men don't even want to wear condoms, the one device, in conjunction with spermicides, that prevents pregnancy and STD's. This reminds me of a friend of mine who told her partner "If you don't wear the glove, you're not coming up to bat."

The majority of cases of a pregnancy that was achieved by deceiving the male partner is by women older than that, and usually is done with financial or emotional extortion in mind (or both).

The 'village' thing is not a bad idea either, but you can't force a society to take on that attitude. It is still prevalent in the smaller towns and villages in Europe, at least in mine. We have a grand total of 356 souls in that village, and you can bet that everyone knows everyone else, their ancestors, their ancestoral history, their bed-time, in short, if you want to keep a secret, you better be wily. Everyone keeps an eye out for everyone else, including watching all the village children. It can be suffocating, but its really easy to adjust once you mature; you might even appreciate it. As a teenager, I hated it. If I messed up, my parents usually knew about it before I got home. Believe it or not, but I even know most of the villagers cats and dogs by name.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The village thing is great, it still exists in some remote parts of the UK too, but where is the village at 3.00 am when the young mum is distraught from sleepless nights and ready to do anything - and I mean that advisedly - to silence the little wailer?  Whereas post-natal depression is often quickly recognised in older women, often because they or their partners have some pre-knowledge of the condition and go for help quickly, the condition is often missed in teenagers, and it's just put down to general teenage moodiness!

[Brynne]

Good Lord, with the hormonal surges teens go through anyway, I can't even imagine adding the baby blues to it.
Veilchen, I agree with you. I shouldn't have made a blanket statement towards all teenagers. My best friend in high school was a teen mom and handled it much better than I ever could at that age. She had a husband (quickie marriage) who was fresh off the highschool football team and couldn't handle it. He was a real piece of work, I'm telling you. But she went to school until 1:00 and then worked from 3:00-11:00 (I remember those hours because I often watched her daughter- a little bit of "village" mentality, I suppose), earning her nursing degree. Today her kids are the most well-adjusted kids I know. I think those cases are probably in the extreme minority, though. My friend did have a rebellious period in her 20's, though. She told me at the time she was getting out of her system what most people get out when they're younger.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Your friend did very well, and as you so rightly say, is in the minority of teenagers who are mature and well-adjusted enough to cope.  My sister had a friend who was equally good at parenting , and the only family help she got was from her mother, who charged her for her time!  And the father?  His wealthy family whisked him out of the country and back home in double quick time!

I don't blame your friend for rebelling in her 20's!  Sounds par for the course, to me, and she waited until the kid was out of nappies!

[J. M. Pescado]

The village thing is great, it still exists in some remote parts of the UK too, but where is the village at 3.00 am when the young mum is distraught from sleepless nights and ready to do anything - and I mean that advisedly - to silence the little wailer?  Whereas post-natal depression is often quickly recognised in older women, often because they or their partners have some pre-knowledge of the condition and go for help quickly, the condition is often missed in teenagers, and it's just put down to general teenage moodiness!

Meh, Darwinism at work.

[Kitiara]

I think you are being niave if you think teenagers are actually ready to be parents. They may think so, but most do not understand what parenthood really entails.

This is getting frustrating because some people are not bothering to read *all* of what I am saying.  You're seeing "teenagers should not be discouraged from having babies" and stopping reading at that point.   I already said I agree that most teenagers would be unable to raise a kid and run a home in the way parents are expected to in western society in 2005.   I agree with you there - have you read this now?

I am saying that I don't agree that the person who runs the home and makes decisions for the child should necessarily be only the biological or legal parents.   I am saying that yes, the parents should be around while the child is growing up, but no they don't need to be the people paying the bills, doing the cooking, driving the child to football club, or having the final say on house rules.   The people doing those things could be older family members who share the house.   Lots of cultures do it that way.   If the eldest woman continues to set the rules, then it doesn't matter if a teenager has a baby she was too mentally immature to parent - she will be taught how to do it and someone will be there to step in if she isn't getting it right, or if she deserves a night out clubbing.

I did read all that you said. I still disagree with you however. Your scenario sounds great on paper, but I (and apparently quite a few other people here) think it is not a practical or realistic solution. Of course it is great when the older generations in a family help with the upbringing of a child. That is the way it should be. It is not fair though to encourage people who aren't ready to be parents to have kids and then expect others to take up their slack. If my child got pregnant young and needed my help, I would be there to help. If, however, I discovered that s/he intentionally had a child taking it for granted that I would assume the responsibility, I would be very angry. It takes a village to raise a child. Fine. But, the parent should have primary responsibility, and people should not seek to start families until they are ready for that. Just my opinion.

[ZephyrZodiac]

It seems to be the general opinion of nearly everyone here!  I'd be interested to know how many teenagers also agree......

[Danni]

The village thing is great, it still exists in some remote parts of the UK too, but where is the village at 3.00 am when the young mum is distraught from sleepless nights and ready to do anything - and I mean that advisedly - to silence the little wailer? Whereas post-natal depression is often quickly recognised in older women, often because they or their partners have some pre-knowledge of the condition and go for help quickly, the condition is often missed in teenagers, and it's just put down to general teenage moodiness!

In my case, the village is down the street or around the corner at 3am (both my parents-in-law and grandparents-in-law are willing to help out at any time if I feel I cannot cope ) but I am extremely lucky in living in a village where nearly half of it consists of relatives or close friends of my partner who are willing to help however they can

I was diagnosed with post-natal depression at 17, go figure

I don't agree that the grandparents should have responsibility for their grandchild. The situation I'm in with my daughter and parents-in-law is ideal for us, as I have primary care for my daughter (along with my partner), but we have family backup if we need it, and we get a few hours off a month to enjoy ourselves and be young as there's always a willing babysitter

I still get the occasional sleepless night, and it's hard work, and it does mean I've probably missed out on the whole teenager era (I'm 19 now, was between 13 - 16 when I had to look after my siblings, and 17 when I gave birth to my daughter), but although I think it would have probably been better to wait longer, I can look after my daughter most of the time, and I know it's mine (and my partner's - it's his child too!) responsibility.

I don't think teenagers should have children- from a teenage mother

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, first off, congratulations Danni, to you and your partner, for being strong and overcoming your problems yourselves.  I wish you and your child well in the future, and I hope once your child is older you will be able to have a little more time for fun.

[veilchen]

ZZ, that brought back memories. My son had a very hard time while teething, and we frequently walked the floor with him at night. Inevitably, during the next day I was asked whether my son's teeth broke through yet, and free advise from everyone around. They were very aware that we once again spend the night pacing with him. Big ears, big eyes

I did have a lot of help; my family was all around me, parents, siblings, aunts, unlces, cousins, the works. But I never demanded it, they volunteered. I did the same for them, we always help each other out, and that goes for the villagers too. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for the majority of the population, the village mentality is only alive and breathing in, well, villages now-a-days.

Danni, it is refreshing to hear a success story, I wish there were more of them. Post-partum depression is real and dangerous to the health of the mother, thankfully it has gained some wider acceptance lateley. That was another area where women were told to "just get over it". I swear, I am getting so sick and tired of these words.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Veilchen, I so agree with your last paragraph!  And the other thing, if you're female and go to the doctor complaining of feeling ill, they automatically put you on anti-depressants.  If a man goes with the same symptoms, they do a thorough check to find out what's wrong!