Child of Teenage Parents

guns and horses:

its all about responsibility and how serious you take being a parent.

I completely agree. There's a girl who used to go to my school who had her first child at 16. Since then she's had two more with a different guy, and the first is now looked after by her mother. I think that it's all about whether people put in the effort. If you give your child 100% then of course your kid is going to end up a better product than if you only looked after them half-heartedly.

I think nowadays most teenagers don't realise the difficulty of being a parent, or what it entails, as we're at that point in our lives where we feel like we don't need authority. We're less likely to sympathise with parents at this age, which to me, gives the impression that we may be worse at being parents for that matter. Nor do we really understand the value of life anymore. It seems like so many people just make children nowadays with no consequence to their actions.

My mom was 18 when she had me but my dad was a lot older (+10). My cousin's mom had her when she was 14 but her dad was older. I turned out alright. ^_^ My cousin...she's...eh...she's doing pretty ok...

My mom was 16 and my dad was 17 when I was born. My mom had all four of her children before she was 22, three with my dad and one with my stepdad. And I think we all turned out okay. We definitely went through some shit growing up, but that was because my stepmom couldn't handle being a stepparent and my dad didn't know how to raise a daughter compared to sons.

I don't "condone" teen pregnancy, meaning I don't think it's something people should try for and it should try to be prevented, but I don't think teenage parents are whores or bad people or anything like that. I just think that, in my opinion, pregnancy should at least wait until a parent is out of high school.

My best friend was pregnant.
Sadly, she ended up in hospital and she lost the baby. It was the saddest thing.
I really do think some teenages can handle it. My best friend is the strongest person I know. She wanted it with all her heart. She just couldn't have it, because God had other plans.
But she would've been able to handle it, and I would have been there for her too :3

Shit, my parents were young as hell when they had my oldest brother. They had eleven kids before they were 35. I really don't think they were emotionally equipped to have children either. They split when I was ten. My mom barely looked at us for maybe a year, and shit, I don't even know where the fuck my dad ended up for awhile. They left me and my two older brothers and my twin to raise the younger kids. It was really fucked up for awhile. But now... well we turned out pretty well... I mean I was basically raising kids at the age of ten, but now my parents are all tuned in and shit. My mom can't raise teens if her life depended on it. She sends us all to live with our dad every other month. And our dad tries to be our friend. He smokes with us and shit.

From my experience, I don't think that teenagers are emotionally stable enough to take care of children... I KNOW my parents weren't. But shit... they were kinda fucked up in the head anyway, other people might be different...

My mother had me a month before she turned 15. I'm practically raising my sisters while my dad goes off to hang out with my uncle or workout and my mom works less than 15 hours a day.

My mom and dad were 21 when they had me, my mom had to dropped out of the uni. And we lived at my grandparents place (parents of my dad) my dad studied and i dont really know where they got money from, they got divorced when i was like 1, things just werent ok. My mom told me that this really hurt my dad. He moved to usa, (we lived in venezuela) to study but he visited often. And called me every sunday.
My mom always tried her best to make me feel good were I was. She had my half brother 5 years later. And started the university when my brother was able to go to school now. She is now done with the university and moved to argentina looking for a better life.

Shes the strongest and most amazing person i know.

I believe it depends on the person, and also the support they get.

My grandma had my mom when she was 17 and they both are amazing and very smart persons.

I love them and im so proud of being what i am.

Mom mother was 16 when she had my brother (married at 14). She was divorced that same year. She had me at 19. During this time my Mom got on drugs, met my dad (also on drugs) and she miscarried before me. They married before I was born. There were a lot of problems after that, and I'm sure life would have been better had they been older. But I love my life and both got off drugs and work steady jobs. We own our land, our home, and our cars. I love my family and I'm glad I grew up with them as my parents.

I don't believe teens should try to have kids but if it happens the children shouldn't be looked at as burdens, rather gifts, even if they give the child up to adoption.

My mom was seventeen when I was conceived and had me just before she turned eighteen. My father was twenty two I think. Even at that age he wasn't ready to be a parent. She on the other hand was.

Poverish or not she raised us better than most adults. By us I mean my brother as well. She has him less than a year after I was born. I scoff at those who say teenagers aren't fit to be parents. Don't lump them all together just because a few screwed up.

i think some people are really ready to have a baby...some people have hard lives and want somethin good to happen. i think if you want to and you no what your getting yourself in for then go for it.

I'm not my parents were in there early 30s when they had me, but a few of my friends were born to young parents and my boyfriends mam had him really young. She had him 6 months before her 16th birthday, his dad bailed when he was a few month old and went to america. His mam did a brilliant job - never went to college or finished school but worked to give him everything he would have ever wanted. He only found out in Sept who his father was as his great-grandmother(on his fathers side) died and his maternal grandmother let it slip. The boyfriend is 21 now and is very close with his mother but doesnt want to know his father since he walked out on him 21 years ago.

sophiesyn:

i think some people are really ready to have a baby...some people have hard lives and want somethin good to happen. i think if you want to and you no what your getting yourself in for then go for it.

I think the problem with that is that you can't really know what you're letting yourself in for until it's too late. You can think you do but you can't really imagine it until it's happened.

I'm not the child of a teen parent, but I am a teen parent myself. Or at least I will be in October.
Just thinking about my son being ashamed of me for some reason or another breaks my heart.
I want to give him everything that I never had or don't have. Would I wish this on other people no. I tell all my friends to wait. The stress is hard, but I get through it, because I need to for my son. I've had a lot of friends who have actually stopped having sex since I got pregnant. They realize how easy it is for someone to say "I'm not going to get pregnant." and it actually happen. I will do anything for my son, give up being a teenager and going out and doing stuff with friends for him, because he deserves that.

My mother was 14 when she got pregnant and 15 when I was born, my father was 17/18. I'm sure the first couple of years were a bit harder for us but she had a supportive sisters and stuff. And now, 15 years later, I'm here. My mom has a good job, though she never graduated/went to college. I live in a big, nice house. Sure, it's with some help from my stepdad but it's mainly all mom. She's raised me the right way too. I have pretty good values and I've learned from her to never judge anything or anyone for what they seem to be or what they are. She may have been a teen parent but I feel that if she had me as an adult, she wouldn't have been as great as a mother. She was pretty big into alcohol and doing acid before she got pregnant and I...I was her reason for sobering up. We made eachother into better people.

And like some others have said, it's all about how serious you take it and how loving you will be to your child, like my mother was/is to me.

@ avengedsoph
"Wanting something good to happen" or someone to love you are bad reasons to have a child.

I'm not the child of teen parents, but my best friend is. Don't get me wrong, I love my friend's mom to death, but she gives my friend (and all of us), a little too much freedom. Meaning, she let's us smoke, drink, etc etc in the house. It gets weird sometimes.

I personally am not a child of teenage parents, although I do know a few people who are. I think it's unfortunate for the parents and the children, simply because the parents really aren't ready to care for the child both physically and mentally. I really hate it when young women, like 13-20 say they want to have kids, not like in the future but right now! I feel like the media pushes a lot of images of women having children as an easy and wonderful thing. Wonderful? Yes. Easy? Not by a long shot. I've watched my sister struggle to raise her child by herself. My sister is educated and seeking a job and she still has to make choices of sacrifices things for herself so her child won't go without. I hate when people say they're ready to take care of children but have only experienced people in their families having kids, or see it in the media and think it's easy. I wish there were less teen parents in the world. I think it's so much better for parents to experience they're lives to the fullest extent and then pass that on to their children when they are ready. Obviously not all parents plan to have children at such a young age, but still, I wish it was less of a statistic.

Despite that, I take my hat off to teen parents and single (teen) parents who do find a way to make everything work out for themselves and their children. It's a hard situation and I'm sure their are times it's rougher than most people could imagine!

I think that a child's childhood can affect them massively when they're older and therefore I don't think it's right to have children as a teenager because the likelihood is they probably won't be fully equipped to bring their child up in the best possible way.

My mom was also 22 when she had me, and I'm glad she did. My mom had gotten pregnant beforehand, but for some reason she decided to keep me. My parents...they're not perfect in the slightest. They fought all the time, and my dad lives 3 hours away from me and only saw him on breaks. However my mom and I are really close and growing up, she always sacrificed a lot for me and always made sure I was taken care of. Sure we struggled a lot, but I never really thought of us being poor, because I always remembered having a good time. My mom is my best friend still, and yes she gives me hella freedom, but I never take advantage of it. Despite her allowing me to do anything I want, she still managed to raise me to be independent, motivated, and take pride in my education, which I did by graduating high school.

There are some parents out there who do a good job of raising their kids, despite being young, my mom is proof. Oh, and I think it's hilarious someone said their friends are embarrassed because their mom was young, hah, all my friends LOVE my mom because she's young. In fact, all of them call her mom too -_- but my mom is an awesome person, who's always been there for me. I'm glad she had me when she did.

@ drowning lessons.
My parents were teen parents but they never did that. My mom was a more liberal mother, but my dad was incredibly strict.