Underage pregnancies.

Originally Posted by kitkat

my 16 year old daughter told me while I was pregnant recently that she is never going to get pregnant. If she wants a baby she will buy one. I dont think the answer is telling kids not to do it. I think showing them the realities of bringing up a baby - sleepless nights, dirty nappies, no social life - would be a better contraception.

i think thats a reality check at any age

Originally Posted by Tara

i think thats a reality check at any age

Oooooh yeah, it certainly is!

[Mej]

Originally Posted by kitkat

If she wants a baby she will buy one.

Buy one??? Is there some kind of baby blackmarket i haven't heard of.

Same as above really raised middle class with good parents, but they were pretty ignorant to what went on when i was younger, sort of 14-19. I got away with a lot more than most. Loads of people i knew had babies by the time we left school or at least by the time they were 17, some grew up with it, some didn't.

Talking of compulsory contraception; when I worked for the NHS we tried the implant on lots of young girls in these sink estates. Needless to say we stopped it, as they were cutting them out! I think that speaks volumes for their intentions.


As for 'things are getting worse'. Sure they are.... Our parents generation lived their life like Miss Marple I'm sure

[gruntygiggles]

Wow, quite a thread this one.

Firstly, a friend of mine in school gave birth the her first child at age 13, still came to school until 2 weeks before birth and came back 6 weeks after...full days and did really well in her GCSE's. The father was 1 year older and no charges were ever brought. They then went on to have another child at 19, twins at 22 and their last child was born 4 years ago. She is now 30, her and the father of all the children are still together, now married. Both completed school and a levels. Nic went to college and became a hairdresser and Ryan went to uni, working two jobs at the same time and is now on about £60k a year, with Nic making about £40k a year as a partner in a small salon. Their parents helped and they had no financial support off the state that any regular family wouldn't get. They now have thier own beautiful house, have paid their parents back every penny and are a lovely family.

They may well be the exception, but it happens.

As for the vast majority of girls getting pregnant in their teens, either as a way to keep a boyfriend or get a nice flat and benefits. For the families that don't work, live off benefits but continue to have child after child and let us all pay for them, I think there's only one answer.

Say, "yes, we will support you and your children, but on our terms".

Don't give them money, give them food stamps or vouchers that can only be redeemed against food and drink (alcohol not forbidden, but limited). Any household purchases would have to be applied for so they can't have skyHD, a Wii and Xbox while they sit on their arses and let us pay for it all.

I really feel strongly about this. I'm not saying it is the norm, but in one of the less desirable estates near my hometown, many children would have to go to school with shoes too small and worn, pass me down clothes and next to nothing for lunch while the parents smoked 40 a day, drank every night and ran two cars. It's not the rule, but was common then and still is now.

We HAVE to give our hard earned money to help these people and I do not begrudge helping those that need it. Many young teenage mums are not entirely to blame.....they are mostly children themselves after all. BUT, I cannot tell you how much I hate paying taxes and watching fit and healthy men and woman have 4,5,6....children while not working and having no intention to work.

Lets stop making it so bl**dy easy for them. It's our money, we should have a say in how it's spent and I would much rather know that my taxes are ensuring that every child brought into this world under these circumstances is going to get fed well and be given all they need to have a happy, healthy childhood. If the parents want sky, an x box or plasma tv, they can bl**dy well get a job and go pay for them themselves!!!

Tim Wilkie...for parents like you, I think we should be grateful. Not all teenage pregnancies can be blamed on parents and that is evident when you see the families where the parents become the biggest and best support for the children and grandchildren. My beef is with the part of society that believes it acceptable and normal to be able to live for free and not have to work. We should just not have to carry these people through life. I lose almost £20k a year in income tax and it makes me sick to see it go to people who don't even have the urge to support themselves or their children.
Ok......my point made!

+1 - and a well made point it is!!

At the end of the day teenage pregnancies always did and always will happen - maybe now we just hear about it more.

It's the scroungers that need to be sorted, not the 15 year old girl that had an accident and made the brave and life changing decision to keep her baby and bring it up.

Originally Posted by gruntygiggles

Wow, quite a thread this one.

Firstly, a friend of mine in school gave birth the her first child at age 13, still came to school until 2 weeks before birth and came back 6 weeks after...full days and did really well in her GCSE's. The father was 1 year older and no charges were ever brought. They then went on to have another child at 19, twins at 22 and their last child was born 4 years ago. She is now 30, her and the father of all the children are still together, now married. Both completed school and a levels. Nic went to college and became a hairdresser and Ryan went to uni, working two jobs at the same time and is now on about £60k a year, with Nic making about £40k a year as a partner in a small salon. Their parents helped and they had no financial support off the state that any regular family wouldn't get. They now have thier own beautiful house, have paid their parents back every penny and are a lovely family.

They may well be the exception, but it happens.

As for the vast majority of girls getting pregnant in their teens, either as a way to keep a boyfriend or get a nice flat and benefits. For the families that don't work, live off benefits but continue to have child after child and let us all pay for them, I think there's only one answer.

Say, "yes, we will support you and your children, but on our terms".

Don't give them money, give them food stamps or vouchers that can only be redeemed against food and drink (alcohol not forbidden, but limited). Any household purchases would have to be applied for so they can't have skyHD, a Wii and Xbox while they sit on their arses and let us pay for it all.

I really feel strongly about this. I'm not saying it is the norm, but in one of the less desirable estates near my hometown, many children would have to go to school with shoes too small and worn, pass me down clothes and next to nothing for lunch while the parents smoked 40 a day, drank every night and ran two cars. It's not the rule, but was common then and still is now.

We HAVE to give our hard earned money to help these people and I do not begrudge helping those that need it. Many young teenage mums are not entirely to blame.....they are mostly children themselves after all. BUT, I cannot tell you how much I hate paying taxes and watching fit and healthy men and woman have 4,5,6....children while not working and having no intention to work.

Lets stop making it so bl**dy easy for them. It's our money, we should have a say in how it's spent and I would much rather know that my taxes are ensuring that every child brought into this world under these circumstances is going to get fed well and be given all they need to have a happy, healthy childhood. If the parents want sky, an x box or plasma tv, they can bl**dy well get a job and go pay for them themselves!!!

Tim Wilkie...for parents like you, I think we should be grateful. Not all teenage pregnancies can be blamed on parents and that is evident when you see the families where the parents become the biggest and best support for the children and grandchildren. My beef is with the part of society that believes it acceptable and normal to be able to live for free and not have to work. We should just not have to carry these people through life. I lose almost £20k a year in income tax and it makes me sick to see it go to people who don't even have the urge to support themselves or their children.
Ok......my point made!

Errr wow!
Was going to write about my experience, but this thread has already covered it.

Originally Posted by Sean_C

Don't tar us all with the same brush. None of us are perfect. Most of us are sensible. Most of us don't go sleeping around, and I think you'll find most kids don't lose their virginity until 17 or 18.
There are people that don't comform to society, I'm sure there always were..
Don't write us off just yet, we're a nice bunch on the whole.

+1
It's frustrating when people stereotype a whole group by a very small minority within that.
Bleh, I guess it's always gonna' happen though

[gruntygiggles]

I get quite passionate about things I guess...lol. Don't get me started on immigration, the PC brigade or justice and probabtion in this country.

I was arrested in two years ago for apparently wasting police time. Someone broke into my home while I was in bed (could have been the night before and he was there all night, could have been the morning), but at just gone 6.30am I woke to find an oldish man sitting on my bed. Long story short, nothing bad happened to me aside the sh***ing bricks and some weird attempts by him of clearing any evidence. However, after a 17 hour day going from one police station to another, having photos taken, medical examination (not that I needed it luckily) and a three hour video statement being taken, I was, a week later arrested for apparently fabricating the story as they had found no evidence of a break in or any man being in the house. Funny.....two police men all day taking fingerprints, hair samples, swabbing the toilet etc and they found no evidence of a man? My father came round twice a week, my ex boyfriend came to walk the dogs 3 times a week and I had had a sky engineer in the day before, but no evidence of a man...JOKE!

I had to wait three weeks then to be told the following:-

"We are extremely sorry Cheryl (was very familiar with the DI by this stage) but it seems that the investigation has failed us a little and we have now located the evidence taken from your house. It included a copy of a key that we have determined fitted your back door and some documents of yours dating back a few years with no trace of any fingerprints. We also believe that as your dogs did not bark, the intruder had familiarised himself with them and so, they did not feel the need to alert you. Your neighbours have confirmed that the dogs both always bark at people walking by or knocking the door and so we are convinced of this. It is regretful that we had to arrest you in order to pressure you into giving us more information that we felt you may have been witholding".

I'll never forget that conversation. A few weeks later they got even more evidence but never found anyone.

Doesn't give much confidence does it? They couldn't find the evidence taken from my house, so arrested me.
I did explain that maybe I seemed like I was witholding information because they interviewed me 3 hours after this man had given me 16 250mg ibuprofen and I may not have been totally with it! Again, all I got was an apology.

This country needs sorting out!!! Look at the banks. We need to stop putting 1 person or a board of overpaid directors in charge of things that are so important.

Originally Posted by joshmac

+1
It's frustrating when people stereotype a whole group by a very small minority within that.
Bleh, I guess it's always gonna' happen though

To be fair, most people can be stereotyped quickly and quite accurately, especially the "don't letter box me" type.

Best way is to find a positive stereotype and stick with it