Britain's youngest mother

And while drunken kids do indeed have sex all the time, I still think a 15-year-old boy sleeping with a drunk 11-year-old is just.... taking advantage, frankly.

What was a child of 11 doing in Edinburgh?

I dunno, it's a tricky question. Is a 11-year old responsible enough of making such a decision? Then again, if she is, wouldn't that also make her responsible of getting drunk and having unprotected sex?

Look, I don't mean to say she isn't a victim here, I just meant to say that in cases like this the morality and blame isn't necessarily clear-cut.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/4764417.stm

(Again, this is mere speculation. What I'm trying to say is that, in my opinion, not every time a 11-year old has sex with a 15-year old it is a case of rape.)

(x-post)

how does an 11-year-old get pissed anyway? where? what on? a thimbleful of vodka?

gah, i sound like some pompous twat from the shires there. i don't mean to. i just think there are issues here that run far deeper, and go back much further, than this particular story.

thinking about it: i was 13 when i first got steamingly drunk. but that was a one-off; it didn't happen again for another year. it seems implicit in this story that this girl and her mates are going on "nights out" and getting pissed. they're fucking 11!

her mother is obviously a major-league arsehole; but even then, it's not quite that simple, is it?

quite.

The age of consent here is 16. I think most people could tell the difference between a 16-year-old and an 11-year-old, even one who'd had her first period (the newsagent selling the ciggies may have chosen to turn a blind eye...)

i'm sorry. i think i've offended even myself.

Weird thing is, she might still be in school when her child starts at infants.

As if any teenager gives a fuck what the legal age of consent is! Kids be fucking.

This is obviously a case of massively irresponsible parenting. That mother is a fucking disgrace. How anyone could allow an 11-year-old to smoke, let alone get drunk at parties unsupervised is beyond me.

I didn't get any mockery or stuff like that - neither my friends nor hers didn't seem to think it was that weird (or at least they didn't say anything out loud), and even her mom seemed to accept it, despite me spending nights at their place. Of course I thought about it myself, since she was in the nineth grade and I was already out of school, but in the end I realized she wasn't that much less mature than I was, so I didn't feel like there was anything wrong with it.

I really love the completely unnecessary emphasis.

And is this part, slipped in as an afterthought at the end of the article:

Both were thought to be visiting the UK from Africa.

A sly anti-immigration jibe, or am I being paranoid?

Yeah...

x-post

"Your honour, it was all a misunderstanding. I was just trying to swap football stickers with the boys."

Tuomas in being a (legally defined) pedo shocka.

xpost: OK, what is a council flat and what are the connotations?

Monsieur Gainsbourg to thread

Cashback!

There are all kinds of sly, bigoted snideys all over the tabloid article. What annoys me the most is that this Voice Of The People, Innit? style is practiced almost exclusively by white middle class/public school arseholes writing for Mail-type tabloids, where a well-cast aspersion can earn you big bucks.

The case itself? Rape. And hey, people focus on the girl's mother but there are three others who haven't been in the firing line who are equally responsible - the other parents.

It's a teeny bit different in Scotland, as always, but essentially the "13 and up" rule still applies.

MOMUS
TUOMAS

CAP'N SAVE A MOMUS

MOMUS
TUOMAS

Jon, for fucks sake! I know you're kidding, but this is still a public forum and I wouldn't like to be called "pedo" for dating a 15-year old when I was bloody 19!

Also, I think you ought to check yourself: standards of the Court of Jon Williams are fairly shocking as to jurisprudence. Nick would only be a paedophile if he was arrested, charged, tried and convicted of the offence. You are not cop, judge, jury, or jailer here and furthermore, everything you post suggests you have a certain revulsion for those who adopt those attitudes.

She said: "We didn't use a condom but I didn't think about getting pregnant. I wasn't bothered at the time.

"I slept with him because I was drunk and because I wanted to. I don't regret it."

She added: "I can give up smoking any time but I don't find it affects my pregnancy.I also don't drink any more."

They can't get him for rape if she's telling the papers she's consented, surely. Statutory rape, maybe, due to her age, but not actual rape (I'm no legal expert, as you can tell).

Re: emboldened bit. Yes, maybe not now, but you try explaining to your son/daughter (if s/he's not been taken into care) why s/he was born with all manner of health problems because you haven't got two braincells to rub together.

(xpost, Suzy, WTF, so if I nip out and kill someone later on I'm not really a murderer if no-one finds out about it?)

Yea, I assume he isn't attracted to little kids so it could only be considered legalistically, so you're right.

To get back to the thread, when I was in upper sixth form at school, all the boys in my year all stopped going out with the girls in our year and all went for the third years instead. We're talking 17/18 year old boys and 13 year old girls here, for the benefit of our overseas viewers. I'm sure there was shagging going on. I wasn't privy to this, presumably being past it at the age of 17 and passed over in favour of someone still in ankle socks and training bras.

Thread: in my school the skeezy girls were all pregnant at 14 and out soon after. As they were my bullies before impregmentation I have to say I was somewhat relieved at the time. My sis is friends with many of them now. She was a borderline case!

So if he (or anyone else) actually did shag an underage girl, that doesn't make them a paedophile in itself, there has to be a trial? A conviction? I'm quite happy to believe you that he didn't, btw. But if a jury saw it differently, that would make him a paedophile, would it? See, I thought it was the *action* or *intention* that made a paedophile such, not the label put on you by others, be it a jury or a spiteful name-caller.

Also let's fight the real enemy: any guy of 15 who is putting his penis into anything other than his hand or a sock is probably going a little too fast for his own good.

Kids experiment with teh shagging. This doesn't make them the real enemy. The real enemy would be the people who don't *educate* children about the consequences of what they are doing.

NO.

Ailsa, FWIW:

pedophile: an adult who is sexually attracted to children
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

I wouldn't consider a adult/teenager sexual interaction as falling into this. (Nor would I consider it 100% ok.)

If this girl hadn't come from an underclass background, it's very unlikely she would have decided or been allowed to keep the child. To me, the saddest thing about this story is that a girl of 11 could see no better future prospects for herself than being a mother.

Incidentally, anyone convicted of shagging an underager in this country would be placed on the Sex Offenders Register, and therefore probably labelled a paedophile by the gutter press anyway. This, obviously, doesn't make them a paedophile, you understand.

(xpost)

Maybe the law should differentiate between paedophilia one, paedophila two etc.

Ha, talk about ways to end your career in politics!

The pill is free and very easy to obtain in Britain, though probably not if you're 11. I don't think there would be significant class-related differences in access, and I'm not quite sure what you mean by attitudes. But yeah, I read this ages ago and I've no idea how true it is.

The more aspirational young women of whatever class origins sign up for pills, use condoms, or are just picky on all possible levels by nature. It's all about being educated in terms of options and secure enough in your self-esteem to accomplish them.

But suzy, are you suggesting the state force all pregnant under 16 year olds to have abortions, against their will? Because that is pretty horrible.

Bottom line, for me personally, it would be unconscionable to bring an embryo to term that came about as a result of non-consensual sex.

This thread fills me with despair.

The embryo, or a scared and pregnant 15 year old that's being railroaded into an abortion in suzyworld?

Bottom line, for me personally, it would be unconscionable to bring an embryo to term that came about as a result of non-consensual sex.

Suzy, can you explain your use of "non-consensual"? Do you really think that anyone having sex under 16 is incapable of consenting? Or are you talking about rape at any age, a different matter entirely.

Anybody who has extrapolated from my posts that I believe in compulsory, non-consensual medical treatment OF ANY KIND would be an utter, utter fool.

That's what the law says, ailsa. xpost

It can't be hammered home enough: girls from the poorest sections of society don't mind having babies at 12 because they don't think it will harm their future life options. And that is not an unrealistic assessment.

Excuse me, what?

xpost ailsa OTM throughout thread.

Of course we have to try to provide the best education possible. But without the real prospect of a meaningful career, and a real belief within these kids that they can achieve such a career, education will not be enough.

And even though that isn't the case, if the mother is given the right support this needn't be a case of "ruining your life". A baby is in no way the key factor in this girl's future life opportunities, and nor should it be.

So what I'm saying is that the most harmful thing happening to this girl at the moment is not her pregnancy but the hand-wringing shite that tabloid newspapers and their readers will write about her.

A FEW ARTICLES ABOUT YOU (ANONYMOUS) IN A PAPER VS. HAVING TO RAISE A KID

Er, xpost.

Suzy, this girl did not make a mistake. She wanted to do this, she wants to have the kid.

I don't really disagree with you, Jon, I don't think. It's just that my attitude is this is happening because we have a lousy inequitable social system, and expecting it to not happen while that system remains what it is is missing the point.

i just think the contradiction suzy brings up is interesting - the law makes a cut-off - 16 - so that it doesn't have to try to sort through the impossible situation-specific gray areas of when power dynamics due to age undercut consent - it just says, "16" - full stop. yet there is also massive societal pressure, often from the very same govt. figures and church orgs etc. - who would no doubt be horrified at lifting statutory rape laws - to bring babies to term conceived in the context of statutory rape

That can indeed be the case. Various benefits (yer standard dole money, family credit, housing and council tax benefits paid in full) can see you as well off as someone working for the minimum wage, not to mention the fact that you don't have to look for childcare, or take time off work to be pregnant since you got that out of the way when you were in school. It's not ideal, but neither is sitting at the checkout in Farmfoods for the rest of your life.

Various benefits (yer standard dole money, family credit, housing and council tax benefits paid in full) can see you as well off as someone working for the minimum wage

yeah, i mean this is my point exactly

plus you're forgetting that this poor girl is now forever linked-up with whatever inevitable lunkhead helped her to produce this economic miracle

This girl is linked up to the boy that knocked her up in terms of biology only. Chances are, she'll never see any money from him. If she even sees him. Or perhaps they'll get married, he'll get a job and provide for his new family when they're old enough. Funnily enough, I don't know what will happen to them.

No-one is saying this whole situation and the way our society can be is a *good* thing, but it happens.

It's bedtime. I'll just reiterate that compared to the fucking over you get in this country because you're lower working class, when or if you have children is a negligible inconvenience.

As I mentioned already, it's just what some lassies do. I've worked with them (to clarify, I've worked to try and train and educate young adults, to try and get them off benefits and back into work) and no amount of well-meaning advice is going to change someone's mind about the life they are leading if they don't want their mind changed. It's a whole different culture over here.

None of the young mums I've come across are bad mothers, incidentally. They've come from poor areas, have little prospect of gainful or well-paid employment, didn't give a shit about school. So they're choosing the option to live on benefits and playing happy families. It's a purpose to their life. I'm not saying this is the norm, and I'm not passing judgment. I'm just pointing out that this girl, although young, is far from unique.

(xpost, yeah, what noodle said)

Actually, as pointed out above, in the UK kids between 13 and 16 are considered capable of conseting to sex with each other, but 12 and unders cannot. The idea being that when you are 11 years old you don't understand enough about sex to consent to it. Same way an eight-year-old wouldn't be allowed to. In the eyes of the law, just because she said she wanted to have sex doesn't mean she was capable of consenting to.

Hmm. Initially, when I heard about this I was quite shocked that she was going out and getting pissed and smoking loads etc. However, I then remembered that I started drinking, smoking and smoking dope at 12 years old. Admittedly, I didn't do these things as often as she seems to have been doing, but that wasn't through any choice of my own, rather through limited opportunity.

I do think that 11 is frighteningly young to be having a kid, I'm surprised she wants to keep it, and she does seem kind of stupid (based on "I can give up smoking any time but I don't find it affects my pregnancy"), but it is her choice and there are plenty of idiots with children out there already. Also, I think Tuomas is right about the other kid involved in this equation - yes, he MAY be a manipulative little fucker who raped her, but equally, for anyone who can remember anything about real life at that age, he MAY be an immature lad who got drunk and got a chance at bonafide turkage with someone, and wasn't about to turn it down or ask any questions about it. We don't know.

Gah, I have nothing really to add to this, but, uh, ailsa OTM.

I'm aware people feel that I am being too severe here but if you think I'm sorry for that, shove off. What is the point of consent laws if nobody enforces them, or is even seen to?

but then it is adults simultaneously demonising, eulogising, romanticising and exoticising alcohol and narcotics that will make some 11 year olds (a large proportion) who've not been effectively deterred want to try them.

I'm saying go after the BOY here, the older kid who OUGHT TO BE SETTING AN EXAMPLE.

In general though, I wouldn't like to live in a country where kids who had underage sex were considered genuine criminals and hounded by the law. I don't see what the benefit of charging the 15 year old boy with rape is. The best thing the government can do is enforce a broad and non-moralistic program of sex education in schools (the current one isn't perfect but I think it's pretty good) and try to create a more equitable society where a quarter of the population doesn't belong to an underclass without meaningful prospects or higher aspirations. Other than that, it's up to families and communities to educate and care for children as best they can.

Well, I looked and acted pretty much the same from the age of 12 until I was about 21, so I never had many problems getting served. Drugs are always available if you want them. My friends were all older than me by a couple of years (and are the sweetest people in existence, so their age was not a pressure), so they too got served easily, and I never particularly advocated anybody else's use of illicit substances. I felt that it was something that was fun for me, and you know what, it really was. I certainly wasn't ready for that kind of experimentation when I was 11, but maybe some people are. In real life, i.e. ignoring the law for a moment, things are never as straightforward as "that person is aged x, so they must feel like y, and therefore be able to do z".

Once you're an adult it's fine to go looking for that stuff but until then, it's never just you that is compromised by its illegality.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, here. My parents would be compromised by its illegality? The people who supply it? Society as a whole? In the former instance, I guess so, but I was willing to take full responsibility for my actions, and feel it is very unfair to 'blame the parents' in all instances. I was a human being in my own right, I had the capacity to choose. As for the latter two, well, I'm still not sure how you could extrapolate that from my indulgences. If we go back to the pregnancy issue, then maybe society could be hurt by many 'child pregnancies', but it seems that your solutions are not a way to aid the people in society who are really hurt by them.

What is the point of consent laws if nobody enforces them, or is even seen to?

Well, the boy in question is being prosecuted, despite the girl's statement that she was willing, so they are being enforced. I think that what (some) people are saying is that having a law like this, whilst it does work to protect children from exploitation, also very frequently ignores the complexities behind sexuality, social relations between people of a younger age, and peer/media pressure. I don't think anybody actually has a problem with the consent laws beyond that, but what you are proposing (seem to be proposing - am I misreading you?) is very much like the system of punishment that has been discussed in numerous religion/abortion threads: the girl has been BAD, so let's take away any help.

I hope that all makes some semblance of sense. xxxposts from before suzy's last post.

Cathy: I don't see what the benefit of charging the 15 year old boy with rape is.

Okay, I can't agree with either of these, because we're making judgements about things we don't know here. Certainly I don't agree with charging him because he should have been setting a better example, as otherwise we'll end up charging people for all kinds of random crap. However, there are DEFINITELY circumstances where a boy in this situation should be charged for taking advantage of a minor.

sorry, just popping up here to be reactionary!

we'll end up charging people for all kinds of random crap

this isn't random crap, though. it's not littering or spitting in the street or chewing gum in public - it's having sex with a drunk 11yr old.

She's a human being, FOR FUCK'S SAKES. Do none of you remember having a brain when you were 11? Do none of you remember ANYTHING about being that age at all? Or were you just completely retarded when you were that age and are generalising from that? I'm sorry, but she is a sentient being, who may be making a bad decision, nay, a terrible one, but you are a fucking monster if you would hold a person down and make her go through with a medical procedure that she was not willing to go through.

Jesus, and I thought I hated children.

I'm off this thread.

Emily, nobody here hates kids, they just think the best points you can make on this topic aren't good enough.

it may not be a useful distinction, to make, but what you're saying doesn't have a lot of use, either

it IS breaking the law (of course) but that doesn't really seem like the actual issue, here, or what needs discussing (don't know who should be discussing, either)

I doubt there are v many 15 year old children that feel they "OUGHT TO BE SETTING AN EXAMPLE" to 11 year old children or even think about it

it's a muddle

Me, I have a little sister and I'm the oldest kid in my family so the 'setting a good example' meme is a big favourite in my mom's house. I also had authority figures in my childhood that were worthy of my respect, doctors and detectives and the like, and because of my knowledge and connections there, at school girls from vulnerable homes would seek me out for advice about what to do next when they fell pregnant. You've also got a few Americans on thread who are, as women, mighty freaked about the possibility that religious nutters in their country would require this girl to give birth and 'pay' for this indiscretion.

I also think the girl in question, quoted, might be playing up to the attention she's getting from the kind of icky journalists whose job it is to chase stories like this. I could never be one of those doorstopping freaks.

it's also a bit of a cop-out (when talking directly about this story) to, v often, begin to talk about yourself/your childhood (I understand it is useful, sometimes, to attempt to explain/frame your point of view) when all you say is what you knew and what you were like/would have done, when you are making the point about coming from a place/culture that is quite diff

not arguing w/ you because I don't like you but just because of what you're saying, I promise, but can't v well post, to you, w/ out sniping, too: not everyone has your connections, suzy, or is connected to you, to be able to get the advice you are able to pass on from your v informed and well-placed connections xx

I wouold be little more than a selfish bitch if I didn't use what I knew to help people who came to me seeking help! You assume a lot about where I come from, like it's this rarefied place but I can assure you girls were falling pregnant at 13 in my town 20 years ago, so this problem is eternal and not confined to shitty neighbourhoods in Edinburgh.

I have barely thought about where you come from never mind made any assumptions. wasn't implying that this is just a british or scottish problem, at all, because how could it be? was only picking up on your own comment about the diffs between this country and yours ("religious nutters", etc)

don't like the phrase "fall pregnant". I'm not sure why or maybe I am!!

Maybe a lot of Americans on thread feel that the fight for reproductive rights is a very important single issue. It is, and I hate to be essentialist but until you've got a uterus of your own ("one careful lady owner") you might not appreciate that your 'muddle' is nothing compared to the conflict experienced by the women and mothers who have been posting on this thread.

I think it is not a v fair rank to pull and I don't think I believe that women naturally have a huge headstart on the understanding of all of these probs

re: "fall pregnant" is because of the fall, yeah, or The Fall, or just because it's a bit like "fall ill"

crosspost
you used it, while not liking it, because you think you know I was born/grew up in britain? and thought I would be more sympathetic for its use? do you like "bampot"? just wonderin!

Well, I did say when pulling it that said uterus card was essentialist, so I take your point, but since I raised it in the first place as the essentialism it is you needn't have bothered. Uterus owners are hard to argue with.

Bedtime. Goodnight, RJG!

I have, and I'm pretty satisfied with her reasons for being into me. She's with me despite my age, not because of it.

Yes, I had a brain. But not a brain of an adult. I mean, don't be naive, do you think a 12 year old will be ready to raise a kid?

Jesus, and I thought I hated children.

Uh, Emily, I LOVE children and that's exactly what this eleven year old is. She may be fucking a 15 year old, she's still a child. I mean, don't be naive here, it doesn't mean that if a child works, fucks or does anything else that's *grown-up* that this makes her capable of taking care of a baby. I mean, it's hard enough for an adult to take care of a child, what about an eleven year old?

And hey we force kids a lot of things: we force'em to go to school, we force'em to do this and that, what's wrong with them undergoing an abortion?

Wow, Emily, you really know how to defend your point, no?

But it's not, and it is, respectively. There is a whole culture in "socially-deprived" areas of the UK where kids are drinking, taking drugs, and yes, shagging. This lassie is the youngest one to end up pregnant, but when does it stop being shocking? When the kids are 12? 14? Both of the leading soap operas in this country have had 13 year old characters end up pregnant (Sarah Louise Platt, a nice middle-class kid, as the result of a one night stand in Coronation Street, Demi Miller, a working class kid with parents on benefits, as part of a relationship in EastEnders) so it's enough of a cultural issue over here for it to be a common soap plot (EastEnders and Coronation Street, for the benefit of overseas readers, tend to base their "gritty" storylines on what goes on in the real world, we're not talking Sunset Beach here).

For reference, I was trying (and failing) to find the thread on ILX where people came clean about when they lost their virginity. I'm sure there are people on that who were under the legal age of consent, and I wondered if Suzy would like to tell them all, possibly including her friends, that they must be mentally ill or victims of abuse. Rather than, you know, kids experimenting with grown-ups stuff like kids have done since the beginning of time.

I'm not sure what the actresses ages have to do with anything. I'm not critiquing soap operas here, I'm just using them as an example of how teenage pregnancy is commonplace enough here for it to feature in cosy tea-time dramas.

(Demi's kid is called Aleesha, btw, and Sarah-Louise's is Bethany. I don't know who Beyonce is - xpost)

but I do know what you mean about it being an acknowledgement...maybe I just have a prob w/ why they do it/the significance of it beyond it just not being taboo, today, and, as a result, an ISSUE

Incidentally, this article includes the statistic that "the number of 13- to 15-year-olds becoming pregnant actually rose by 2.5 per cent to 8,075 between 2002 and 2003".

That's 8,000 knocked-up underagers in a year. I imagine there are many many many more who were careful enough not to get themselves pregnant. I think the police have quite enough to do without charging half the 15 year old boys in this country with rape.

This girl is 11. If this had happened when she was 12 or 13, no-one, sadly, would have batted an eyelid.

Then again, childhood is relative to the person anyway. There may in fact be many people who are quite capable of being a parent at age 12, just as there are plenty of 25-year-olds who are pretty much incapable of taking care of themselves let alone a small child. In any case I highly doubt that this particular girl would be much cop.

ailsa, I highly doubt that "no-one would have batted any eyelid". Sure, there wouldn't be a newspaper article about it but it would still have a very real effect on the girl and the people involved in her life.

On that note, is it a good thing that we even know about this? Should we even care? To what extent does this really matter to anybody who's posted on this thread? (I'm aware this opens up another unrelated can of worms.)

Ailsa, I like you so it distresses me to see you extrapolating my words - badly. I wrote that an 11-year-old having full sex whilst drunk is in an abusive situation by definition, or could have a mental illness. It's not the same as snogging behind the bikesheds and you all know it. Most girls (or boys) who act out sexually to that degree at that age have serious emotional or social problems to contend with. I'm sorry if that is an unpleasant truth. Also it's the CPS and not the police who charge people for crimes in the UK - all the police do is arrest. I know you know that, so I can only assume you're going off on one.

Soap plots are awful, but as it stands a mate scripts EastEnders so I'll have to ask *him* why these idiot girls always keep their BAYBAYS in the fictional narrative. I am waiting for that great day when Walford gets its very own Marie Stopes branch and someone in Albert Square actually uses it.

you talk about "definition" and about the definition of "consent" but throw "mental illness" around as you like

marie stopes? like the lower classes of walford use it to get sterilised to stop them reproducing as per her eugenicist beliefs?

do you think you'd be pals w/ m stopes, were she hanging around, these days, suzy?

"I would legislate compulsory sterilization of the insane, feebleminded)... revolutionaries... half-castes"

perhaps

No, what you wrote was "An 11-year-old child who wants to get drunk and fuck is probably mentally ill or is already being abused in the first place." Which is not the same thing.

I am very well aware that there is a huge difference between snogging behind the bikesheds and shagging, drunk, at parties. I am also aware of the social issues behind this sort of behaviour, I deal with some of the consequences of poor education and socialisation in a professional capacity remember. But this thread is about the shagging. If this girl had used a condom, she wouldn't be in the papers. She'd still be shagging though. It's an aspect of the culture of this country that I don't like, but I'm not naive enough to think it's going to go away any time soon. There are far wider socio-economic factors that have to change before getting knocked up before you've sat your GCSEs stops being not a bad thing.

Andrew, when I say "no-one would have batted an eyelid" I meant in a national news/ILX thread/shock! scandal! oh noes! manner. Of course it has an impact on a smaller scale immediately surrounding the girl. But a 12-15 year old having a baby is nothing to get shocked about. (and I did use the word "sadly", so where I stand on this should be clear).

Because no one on tv has had an abortion and been ok with it since, what, Maude?

crosspost

you mentioned mosely, not me!

I know! I would never have guessed this kid was 11/12 years old. But sadly she is.

On that note, is it a good thing that we even know about this? Should we even care? To what extent does this really matter to anybody who's posted on this thread?

Well, I only/mainly care because I have a daughter now. It makes me think how I would react if my child would come home and tell me she's pregnant.

As I pointed out upthread, I'm not saying any of these young mothers are bad mothers. But with no education, training, skills, life awareness, they, and consequently their offspring, are missing out on so much more.

We're not just all going "oh, isn't it awful " about this one particular case. We are talking about a society in which young, irresponsible girls from poor backgrounds become mothers very young, almost certainly dooming their own child to a life in the underclass. Some people posting on this thread care about it because they have a social conscience, not out of prurience or because they have a daughter or a half-cousin and can therefore relate.

x-post, ailsa OTM

(then, the second they hit 18, they should be thrown out into the streets with two pairs of clean pants and socks and told to get the fuck on with it themselves while their parents go to the pub, for ever.)

i've been away this weekend and i'm annoyed i've missed the development of this thread. three comments:

1) ailsa's post beginning "I care" and ending "much more" is, as others have commented, spectacularly OTM.

2) beth's post: "I'd just like to throw this out there, as the mother of a 21 and a 24 year old, that "controlling" your kids is easier said than done. You can't keep them under lock and key. They have to go out and be part of the world."

er: surely one of the key jobs of a parent is to instil a set of moral/civil/whatever values that ensure the child doesn't go feral the second it's out of sight? yes, as a teenager i could be a little twat and do some faintly obnoxious things, BUT i also had a tremendous sense of love and respect for my parents, and the thing that always stopped me crossing the line - that, yes, got me called a puff when i suddenly said, no, hang on, i'm not doing that - was the simple fact that i didn't want to let my parents down or upset them. with only about three or four exceptions, i didn't give a fuck what my teachers thought; my parents mattered to me more than anything else. that, i think, is the key. it's respect, innit?

and it's a two-way thing. as i've said here a lot.

3) rjg: I don't know any of my half-cousins or anyone who writes for eastenders (sometimes I wonder how I survive)

do you think you'd be pals w/ m stopes, were she hanging around, these days, suzy?"

you owe me a new laptop. this one is full of tea i snorted out of my nose while laughing. (sorry, suzy. but really, i think that is the single funniest thing i've ever read on ILX.)

The best bit was overloading "consensual":
* You can't consent to sex under the law
* Therefore the sex this girl had was non-consensual, even if she consented personally

* Nobody who falls pregnant through non-consensual sex should have the kid
* Therefore this girl shouldn't have the kid.

Nice.

GF, in - wow! - the previous post: yes, as a teenager i could be a little twat and do some faintly obnoxious things

there is a vast difference between "rebelling" (or just plain ol' misbehaving) and being so fucked-up (for whatever reason) that you're smoking 20 fags a day at 11 and thinking it's a good idea to have a baby.

you're absolutely right about the "hope for a new reality"; of course, in cases such as this it's a pretty forlorn (but not, of course, impossible) hope. far better, surely, if the existing parent(s) made life a little better for their offspring so they didn't feel the need to rush into having kids of their own and thus perpetuating the cycle etc.

Parents of perfect kids prefer to think that it's because of their parenting, but, newsflash, folks. It's a throw of the genetic dice and you got lucky.

"perfect" kids? i've never met one, and i doubt they exist. one person's perfect kid is someone else's precocious/dull brat. what i think parents can do, and should strive to do, is instil a sense of decency in their children; to teach them right from wrong; to give them a sense of respect etc; to teach them that the world is a fucked-up place full of fuckers BUT that it is possible to live a good life; etc. all of this, of course, is subjective - but it's mostly a question of degree.

yes, of course kids are always going to get into trouble. but, you know, being pregnant at 11 (and drunk, and smoking 20 a day) is some serious-ass fucking trouble, no?

What about children of decent parents? I happen to think the fact that I wasn't pissed, chainsmoking and pregnant in my teens was because of the values instilled in me by a decent set of parents, not because I was born a good person.

(xpost, haha)

Also, if the way the child turns out is a happy accident rather than a result of any parenting, why the concern over the fitness of an 11-year-old to raise a child?

Because it's not all about luck of course. You want the child to have the best chances. A parent who's 11 (and probably a single parent at that) is not giving the best chances to the baby. (No, I don't mean that being a single parent is a bad thing. Although the lack of a father figure will have an influence on the way the kid's raised of course.)

I think this whole discussion is a bit silly, really. I mean, on so many levels this is so utterly wrong. I can't imagine a pregnancy is healthy for an eleven year old. This must be doing some damage to her body. On top of that, she's drinking and smoking through her pregnancy,if I remember correctly. Well, that and the fact she's so young, is not good for the baby: The risk of crib death for example goes up if the mother's a teenager.

Also, I wonder how much the media's involvement had an impact on this. Did she realize she'd appear in the media? Does she love the attention?

Yes, I know that, which is why I think Beth's argument is silly, which is why I'm asking her to justify it by pointing out how silly it is.

Tracer, I don't think the hypothetical girl I've referred to is better off in any way at all, but she's not worse off, put it that way. I work with kids who are second- and third-generation unemployed, some of whom will never work, seeing little point when they can get handouts and be as well off without having to get off their arses and do anything for it. There's a system and my God do they know how to play it.

OK, this isn't the case for everyone, and some people will better themselves. But for kids who have "role models" who've never worked and still provide for them, where's the incentive for them to do different?

I think the girl is the way she is because of social factors, not anything she's inherited from her mother or father. She may have inherited her ideals or world-view from her, but I don't think she's genetically disposed to wrecking her life. I may, of course, be wrong.

what? what? you really believe that? in that case why bother even attempting to look after your kids? i mean, if it's all genetically predisposed, why bother with the awkward hassles such as trying to instil any sense of values in your children whatsoever?

you're a mother, beth: if you really believed this, you wouldn't have looked after your kids; you wouldn't be saying: "we all believe in doing our best by the kids, that's all that matters." i don't get your argument at all. the only "inherited" traits i think matter are the ones you inherit by teaching/observation/example. nurture, basically.

the more i think about this, the crazier it gets. if you really believe this, why not just drown the children of "undesirables" at birth? "hey, this kid's paternal grandfather was a wife-beater, and his great-great-uncle stole a sheep. nah, forget cutting the cord. just pass the bucket." better still: why not sterilise criminals? 'cos after all, they're only criminals because of their genes. so you'd be doing us all a favour.

holy fuck. i'm really, really trying to stay calm here. i can feel myself about to fail spectacularly, so i'm off.

but before i go: FWIW, if what you're saying were the case then i'd almost certainly be dead by now. ILX isn't somewhere i care to go into my family history, but rest assured: my genetic inheritance on either side is a shiversome thing of woe. my parents basically began again from scratch when they had me.

or maybe the bad genes just cancelled each other out? :)

Because you're genetically predisposed to do so, would be the obvious argument.

The study found that IQ is 70% dependent on genetics, 30% on environment. 30% is still quite alot. The authors are careful to point out that they did not include in their samples any examples of people from deprived backgrounds, such as the 11 year old mother. Also you cannot assume that IQ 100% dictates where people end up in our society.

Both nature and nurture have an important role to play.

Oh really? Environment had nothing to do with it? So she'd have been out on the streets drinking at age 11 if she'd happened to be born into a dry islamic country? I suppose her inbuilt predilection would have sent her sneaking into western hotels for the need she never knew she had.

What if she'd grown up in the country? Her thirst for under-age sex would have resulted in Scandal At Village Primary, all 90 pupils of it?

Okay, that girl is LARGELY the way she is because of a set of inherited traits.

HOW do you figure that? What parts did she inherit? Low IQ, for one, is utterly irrelevant to moral development. I know people with IQs well under 100, and some with IQs far, far above that. Nowhere do I see a correlation in what sort of people they are.

I mean, jeez! Look at the mom!
You do know this is an argument for nurture, don't you? The moronic mum nurtured her, and brought her up this way. Or you think the girl would have turned out the same had she been adopted by an upper-class family and sent to a really good prep school?

xpost

Or you think the girl would have turned out the same had she been adopted by an upper-class family and sent to a really good prep school?

Yes, I do. I've known people who were adopted as infants and given loads of opportunies and still were plagued by addictions, etc. I've also known well-adjusted adoptees. They each entered the adoptive family their own genetic baggage, which enabled them to benefit from their environment or not.

You know that unless they entered exactly the same family, this anecdote is meaningless, right? (Again: what parts do you think we inherit that survive any circumstances? The shag-young gene? The get-drunk gene?)

Now that you're also giving credence to the sibling order thing, I'm beginning to wonder if you'll just settle for any theory here that removes responsibility from the mother's parenting and offloads it to genetic or other uncontrollable factors.

This defence of nature over nuture sounds like those Victorians who defended the slums with things like "these underclasses are naturally tribal -- even if they had space to live, they'd still choose to live eighteen to a room. It's nature's way"

There is no way this girl would have ended up a pregnant 11-year-old chain-smoker if she'd been born rich or even with better parenting. To say that her current outcome is inevitable, and would have happened to her no matter what, is a line of thought that ends at eugenics, passing a whole lot of miserable shrivelled towns on the way.

"A total pinko AND a genetic determinist" just means that your beliefs aren't coherent!

You said earlier that the girl would have turned out exactly the same, rich or poor, and that environment would have little-to-no effect on her. So why fix the environment at all? It's a waste of money, because those children are going to turn out exactly the same. If they can't help their genes, and good parenting can't help (like with the adopted kids), why offer them help?

(Unlike the argument "well if the entire evolution of humanity was different this wouldn't have happened", which just takes you to "oh shit, nothing we can do, o well, what's on TV?")

*some* things! it's the totalizing argument that i'm a bit wary of, just cos i've been a bit pessmistic of late really.

Whatever their genetic baggage, they have to do their best by their children, and if they have limitations (poverty and addictions being the huge factors, usually), they should be offered (and should accept!) help.

Firstly, you can't force anyone to accept help (ignoring the fact that if they have to accept, it isn't really offering, it's forcing). Secondly there are extensive social programmes in this country to assist people to get out of the benefits trap. It hasn't helped this lassie and many others like her one little bit.

thewres general revulsion, and shock at the fact that an 11 yr old would be smoking 20 a day, and got pregnant. its been stated that certain age groups olde than this smoke and have increasing rates of pregnancy within them eg 13-15. when is the cut of point where we tend to view it as more normal behaviour for kids? when do we stop ascribing pregancy or a smoking habit to mental illness of a history of abuse?

16 is a watershed age set by the law for consensual sex, where did this age come from? if different countries have different ages of consent, are some wrong or some right? to what extent is such an age limit arbitrary? how do we judge whether a 14 yr old is more able to make decisions about having sex, or keeping a baby, more than a 12 year old? are 18 year olds necessarily able to make those decisions?

hence why she's in the papers. yep, she seems extremely ashamed of her acts.

BUT IT IS THE 21ST CENTURY!

actually the 21st century is all about delayed adulthood.

I like being called an old fogie.

When I was in Brownies all we ever did was play traffic lights and try and steal the toy owl off the toadstool.

crosspost

Sure I'm a drinker now, but to hear people readily say "oh heaps of girls are preggers at school by 15" appalls me, really. I guess I have to accept I grew up in an environment that was fairly stable. Not wealthy though, I'll say that much.

Its funny though - once of a time, girls had children as soon as they were able, so we're talking 12-15 off they went. Child brides, arranged marriages, that sort of thing. What changed society to decide that was too young? We generally accept the body isnt ready for birth at that age but thats when one goes thru puberty. I am genuinely curious as to what brought that "gap" about - the teenage years.

everyone is appalled w/ everyone else on this thread personally why should you be any different?

The modern 'teenager' is a product of embourgeoisement and child labour laws.

I misremembered this, Demi was going to call it Beyonce but called it Aleesha instead. I think she still kept Beyonce for the middle name though.

Just a remarkable thread to read, 15+ years after.

Especially after the restrictions in abortions in America, but much else too. I think the ILE UK/US division in understanding of how the country 'works' generated a lot of the heat. The poor are still trapped and demonised though.

But I think of all this in terms of what would justice and community could look like as applied to this case. In another world (one which I think is possible) I think the mother -- who wanted to keep her child at a young age -- would be able to access child care and be able to live her life to study and work and provide, to do what she wanted. The state would rather demonise (with a willing press and public) than have conversations about what children experiment with and do.

Similarly the 15 year old man might not have his life ruined by what could be a mistake. Why go with prosecution at the first opportunity when a life of that girl might not be ruined (especially if she is provided for as I described?) I agree with some of the posts that talk of this time as one of experimentation with sex, identity and so on. I look at how children under 16 want to change or don't feel at ease in their body and want to do something about it as an example that is talked about a lot today.

"Remarkable" is one way to put it!

That's right