14yr old pregnant girl vs mom and B/F, who will win?

Hopefully it ends up (since if its born its unlikely that she’ll give it up right away) in the system to get adopted when its still young, cute, and unable to remember horrendous parenting since she will win and have the baby and ultimately end up with it taken away.

hope the baby wins. the poor thing has the right to be born and experience life’s simple joys.

No one is going to “win” in this situation.
First, the Mom needed to do some parenting and not try to be so “progressive”.. which sounds like a bit of an excuse for not wanting to do her job and give her daughter rules and boundaries.
A 14 year old is a child.

Now the Mom is scrambling try to fix the mess she enabled in the first place. Pitiful. I just hope if they decide to have the baby, someone finds it a better home than with this bunch.

The girl is in charge and from the sound of it, she has know this for quite some time. Has her mom by the short hairs as it were. Like JustPlainBarb says, mom missed her chance to prevent this train wreck.

Oh my freaking goodness.. im in the exact same situation right now! Its so Bad..
Except im 19 and she is too. not going well.. no one wins sorry.

Indeed, what parents call “progressive”, the kids call “permission”. Rules and boundaries would have certainly gone a long way to avoiding this situation.

But that’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it? Your question is “who will win?” I can’t tell you that, but I can certainly tell you who is going to lose: everybody. As @Silhouette accurately said, the Little Miss is definitely in charge here. My prediction is that she’ll have her baby, and that poor unfortunate child will more than likely be raised in a similar environment to her mother’s of no rules and easy morals.

And so the cycle continues . . .

Beg pardon, everyone, but one of my best friends was a baby in a similar situation – cept her mom was 13 when she got pregnant. Sometimes what seems to be the worst situation can turn out for the better – my friend’s mother has said many times that the birth of my friend saved her life, because it made her pull her life together. Perhaps my friend’s mom is an exception to the average, but I just want to point out the possibility that this 14-year-old may not necessarily continue in the vein she’s begun in – having a baby tends to change things, and if this girl wants the baby then it would seem that she wants something to change. It could happen.

@avvooooooo Glad to have you back with us.

After going on record as saying the mom (of the pregnant 14 year-old) is an idiot, I would like to agree with those who say no one wins in this situation. That being said, the way I see it the woman (child) carrying the baby has the final say. Period. It is her choice to keep and raise that baby, give it up for adoption, or to decide to terminate the pregnancy. Her body – her choice.

@wildpotato I know several women who had babies very young and were able to use raising the child as a catalyst for positive change in their own lives. Unfortunately, I also know several women who had babies very young who – along with the child – were challenged in ways they had never expected and mother and baby paid (and continue to pay) the price.

The way the question is phrased makes it sound like a betting pool, but there’s really no information nor probably can be without knowing the individuals in question to say who wins.

It is not a nice situation for the 14-yo. If she wants to have and keep the baby, she would need and deserve the support of her family. I hope that if she keeps her mind (and I think in the end it is her decision), they will come around.

Legally, I’m not sure who would win, since the 14 year old is a minor, with no means to support herself, let alone a baby….

On the other hand, the mother of the 14 year old is the one who gave permission for the under age CHILD to have sex….even with protection, babies happen! Now, grandma will be raising another baby….poor kid.

There is more choice in this situation. The 14 year old has the baby, and puts it up for adoption. I don’t understand why abortion and raising a child you don’t want is considered “better” choice that allowing a couple who can’t have children to raise one that you aren’t in a position to welcome.

Isn’t sex with a minor technically illegal…? Well, what has happened has happened, there is no reason to dwell in the past…but we now have a future that we must analyze. I say let the baby live, everyone has a right to life and because we did not create life, we have no right to end it.

The choice should always lie with the mother of the child, but they should always consider the wishes of the father. I don’t think the grandmother should have any say, as their parenting skills have already been shown to be woeful.

I don’t know who wins, but the girl cannot be forced to have an abortion. That would be wrong. She is the only one with the right to decide here.

And I don’t know if anyone actually calls that sort of thing “progressive” parenting, but it is anything but. Stupidity is antithetical to progress. I really don’t like the attempt to co-opt the word “progressive” (one that I would apply to myself) and apply it to try to make excessive permissiveness sound positive.

@wildpotato, here’s hoping that you’re right, but I’m not going to bet more than a dollar. I figure with the long odds against this bet, I could make a fortune if I (that is, you, and the girl, and the baby) all win. Okay, I’ll go $2.

Has anyone, anyone on Fluther heard of the law violation Contributing To The Delinquency Of A Minor? this is exactly what this mother has done to her child.

You don’t have to sneer at what a progressive parent is – the situation you describe is not about being progressive or not…as it quite more often happens with ‘conservative’ parents, believe you me

I hope the 14 yr old win because legally she cant be forced to have an abortion. Maybe having the child will make her make better decision than her mother. She wanted to do grown women things now she needs to deal with the grown women responsibilites

I hope the mom wins. If she doesn’t I hope all of these people have the financial ability to care for the baby and provide the teenagers the chance to finish school.

As many other flutherites have said, no one wins. But each person involved has choices to make.

The pregnant girl has to choose between abortion and continuing the pregnancy. If she decides to give birth, she has to deicde between placing the baby for adoption or trying to parent the bay herself.

The birth father has to choose between supporting his girlfring in whatever choices she ultimately makes or pretending he was just a sperm donor by walking away.

The pregnant girl’s mother has the choice between accepting her daughter’s decisions about the fate of this pregnancy or trying in vain to undo what has already happened by pressuring for different outcomes. But if the girl decides she wants to parent, the mom still has choices – she can become the surrogate mother by taking over the baby and letting her 14yo continue as if nothing has changed, she can refuse to help her daughter at all which could increase potential for eventual adoption or she could take the hardest middle ground by offering limited support to her daughter and grandchild. By limited, I mean shelter, food, love, advice when asked for – and that’s it.

@wildpotato Nice to be missed!

I’m for charging Grandma and any other adult complicit in the sleepovers with aiding and abetting statutory rape and the same kind of record as a pimp or madam.

Statutory rape is a crime for a good reason. It’s not because legislators are a bunch of kill-joys, it is because we as a society have decided that children are not capable of making decisions and the results of those decisions are usually detrimental to society. It is no different than laws on underage drinking. We as a society have decided that 14 yos should not buy alcohol. If a parent invited children into his/her home and provided them with alcohol and that ended with a bad outcome, the responsible adult is guilty of a crime and should be prosecuted.

And before all the young jellies float by with all their anecdotal, Gilmore-girl tales of how someone they know was in this situation and turned out OK, stop and think about it. The exception does not disprove the rule. A thousand people can go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and 5 survive. That doesn’t mean we should allow people to do it.

It is also not a personal decision, affecting the teen parents and their adults. The baby had no say and neither did society.

The outcome is very seldom good when a 14 yo gets pregnant.

http://www.teenshelter.org/Jims_Statistics_on_Teenage_Pregnancy_11-11-06.pdf

While negative outcomes are statistically higher among teen pregnancies, those statistics rise exponentially in under 16 pregnancies:

5 times as many miscarriages
5–10 times as many birth related disabilities
These children have 5–10 times the rate of malnourishment and neglect due to mothers; lack of parenting skills
Under 16 mothers are less likely to agree to adoption
The majority of under 17 mothers have a second teen birth
Teen mothers have a lower educational level and a higher poverty rate through life
A lower educational level and a higher incarceration rate for these babies through life.
The daughters of teen mothers are 5–10 times more likely to become teen mothers
$$billions every year are spent on additional support.

BTW Nobody “wins”

@galileogirl thanks for bringing that perspective into the discussion. I’ve worked with lots ot pregnant teens over the years, and I agree that the long term outcomes are rarely positive for anyone.

It’s also worth mentioning that numerous studies have shown that virtually all girls who start having “consensual” sex at 14 and under are survivors of sexual abuse. All.

But when you’re dealing with the individual situation, as our society is currently strucured, there are still personal decisions to be made by all involved.

Her reasoning is that she can’t stop her daughter from having sex

That right there? That’s bullshit.

As @holden would say you might not be able to prevent someone from killing themselves but that doesn’t mean you should hand them a loaded gun.

@MagsRags “It’s also worth mentioning that numerous studies have shown that virtually all girls who start having “consensual” sex at 14 and under are survivors of sexual abuse. All.” Off-topic but would you have a reference, preferably to a review article, at hand? I could use it but am too lazy to do a literature search myself.

this happend to my sister’s daughter- who was 17. The baby is now a year old, the parents work in fast food places and live in a dumpy apartment. They can’t afford to buy paper towels. It’s a sad life for all concerned.

@belakyre and others, the law varies by state. In MA, 16 is the age of consent, but 18 is when it would become statutory rape. In other words, sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds can have sex with each other.

As many have said, the mom should have tried talking the daughter out of sex in the first place. Fourteen is just too young. My mom talked me out of it at 17 so I waited a year.

@Janka I’ve heard this stat at several conferences I’ve attended in the past, but it turns out to be difficult to tease out in a google search! I’ll see what I can find in my resources at work

First of all no one is killing a baby. It’s a clump of cells at such an early stage.

The girl has the right to do whatever she wants with her baby. Mom and boyfriend have no say. Of course, the girl and the baby have to deal with the consequences.

That’s life.

They couldn’t make her have an abortion… it’s legally her choice.

But CPS can get involved once the baby is born if the mother can’t properly take care of it.

@holden How does one do that? In chat about here no one has that solution. You can’t lock her in her bedroom, that could be seen as false improsonment. You can’t threaten the boy to say away. A phone with GPS can be ditched a a friend’s house. Even if you could afford alarms she might be able to sneak out if she as many are hell bent on doing it. Things you might have done or could have done decades ago the law stops you from doing now.

@tinyfaery lurve, lurve, lurve!

@Hypocrisy_Central I don’t know. But taking that kind of attitude is not fucking parenting.

I just don’t believe that all 14 year olds that have sex were sexually abused. I agree it is a young age. I believe that there might be high percentages, but in some subcultures girls are having sex at 14 and I don’t think they were all abused, they might have been pressured by peer pressure to have the sex, but I don’t think there has to be previous abuse.

As far as having this baby and both the mother and child winding up in a very bad situation, I think we need to know what circumastance the teen is in now? What is her parents socio-economic level? Will they help her financially if she keeps the baby? If this is just another cycle, meaning the pregnant teen, was born to a teenage mom on public assistance herself, then she is probably screwed, but if she is a middle class girl she might have a shot.

Also, in my state (it varies by state) the dad does not get to “choose” legally whether he wants to support the baby or not. When a girl has a baby and names the father, the father either agrees he is the father or has to submit to a paternity test. If he is the father he has to pay for the test. If he is not then the state pays for that test, and the girl gives another name. Once paternity is established the dad is on the hook to pay to care for the baby, althoug he is not automatically given rights to see the baby, the girl has custody as the mother. If he wants court documents saying he has the right to visitation or some sort of custody he has to go to court and fight for it. There are some counties in some states that have a packet of forms a father in this situation can file to get some rights at a minimal cost.

My advice to moms who have sons is to let them know that they, the son, has no control if they get someone pregnant, the mother does.

The best thing that could happen is she miscarries and gets some of those little pills you take every day.

@holden, @Hypocrisy_Central is right. It’s not “not fucking parenting”, it’s just realistic. You can set the right example and teach right from wrong, but in the end you have no real control over what she does when she’s outside your house and when you’re not around.

@stemnyjones nobody is arguing that parents have control over what many teens do outside the home. but in this case Mom is inviting the bf to spend the night. In all likelihood she is a good hostess, turning down the sheets and serving breakfast in bed.

@galileogirl These days is not the thought to be more friend to the child than parent? Man does that sound icky.

No one is going to “win”. The 14 year old will be able to keep her baby as no one can legally make her abort or give it up for adoption, but that’s going to be one hard life for her and her baby with even her mother against it.

I’m curious to were they live that her mom said legally it was ok for her 14 year old to be having sex. Most states in the US have 16 as the age of consent. I hope things work out for the best for that little baby.

@Seaofclouds ” Most states in the US have 16 as the age of consent.” Psst That is a little secret most of the media don’t want out, that the age of consent is 16 in a lot of US states, they want you to believe 18 is the magic number. The age for consent is only valid when the younger person wants to engage in sexual conduct with an older person. If both are under 18yr and within a certain age spread, in my mind I want to say 4 years, there is really no law preventing it that I have ever found, they can boink like bunnies until their giggly parts fall off. People may say “you are too young to be doing those types of things but here have some prophylactics, protect yourself

” The 14 year old will be able to keep her baby as no one can legally make her abort or give it up for adoption,” Really? Last I checked 14yr was still a minor under her parent’s care. They can tell her she can’t go to the concert, you can’t have an after school job, if they signed her up for boarding school she best pack her bags, she will not buy those types of clothes. The parent’s are in control how could they not force that play if they really wanted to?

@Hypocrisy_Central Once a 14 year old is pregnant, she is allowed to make the medical decisions for her pregnancy and the child. I only know that because I am a nurse and legally, without her permission the doctor’s can’t even discuss her care with her parents. So in regards to an abortion, her parents cannot legally make her have one and as far as I know, they also cannot legally make her give the baby up for adoption. They could petition the courts to find her unfit and have the baby removed from her that way though.

No one wins. Legally they cannot make her have an abortion

@dutchbrossis yeah. At this point the only thing we know is who loses. The only question for the baby (‘potential’ baby) is “how badly”?

I think the 14 year old pregnant girl would win bc she is probably pissed that her bf didn’t wear a condom and that her mom allowed her to so she is prob ready to fuck some shit up!

I see a lot of people saying that the baby loses, even if it is not aborted. While I have to say that this more than likely will be the case, under certain circumstances the baby could live a wonderful live, even if the mother is 14 when she has the child. If the mother were to mature once the baby is born (like most mothers do) and the family has money, who is to say the baby is going to have a horrible life just because of the mothers age?

@stemnyjones I agree that the mother could mature, but what about the fact that the father and grandmother don’t want the baby. Sure, the grandmother might change her mind once the baby is born, but in my opinion, that is what will make the baby lose (it already has people that don’t want it). Yes, children can grow up and survive without grandparents and fathers, but knowing that those people just didn’t want you is a whole other story.

@Seaofclouds I agree that the child would lose if the relatives made it clear that they didn’t want him there; hopefully, that wouldn’t happen. But all of my family encouraged me to have an abortion when I got pregnant (granted, I was 22), and now that Alyssa’s here, they all simply adore her. As far as people that I know (I can’t speak for the actual family that this question is about), that is usually how it goes – the family is worried that the mother is not ready and encourages an abortion, but their fears are quelled when a healthy baby is born and the mother starts to act more like a responsible adult.

My grandparents were upset and wanted me to have an abortion because they practically raised me and my two siblings, because my mother worked all of the time. Now that they see that I don’t even trust them to babysit (my grandmother has already accidentally let my baby’s head knock into things twice), they are more than happy that she is here. My mom encouraged me to have an abortion because I am a lesbian and she, as a fellow lesbian, was scared that having a child would alienate me from my peers and make it hard for me to ever find love (which proved wrong, as I have a wonderful girl in my life helping me raise my child). The dad wanted me to have an abortion because he is a drug-addicted, womanizing asshole, but now that she is here and so absolutely beautiful and sweet, he is doing all that his bum ass can do to help.

I just hope that, if this question is regarding a real family and the girl did have the baby, this is the way it went: everyone’s fears disappeared when a wonderful little bundle of joy was born, and it is raised in a happy, loving home.

@stemnyjones 1st of all <bowing deeply> congratulations on your RIGHT choice not to punish your daughter and see all the distractors eat crow. You go girl! It also goes to say you never know what help the paternal grandparents will give or aunts, uncles and cousins, or those on the father’s side.

If I had been pregnant as a teen my mom would have brought me to the abortion line so fast my head would have spun. If I had refused, I know my parents would have been loving grandparents, although I think my mother would have resented the extra burden on the family. I don’t think it would have affected the child, what I mean is I don’t think the childs relationship with my parents would have been negative, but I do think the child would be affected most likely, becuase young teens can barely take car of themselves, let alone a baby, and the teen would “grow up fast,” so to speak, but the teenager is still unwise to the world, has lack of experience that only living can give you.

JLeslie ” I do think the child would be affected most likely, becuase young teens can barely take car of themselves, let alone a baby, and the teen would “grow up fast,” so to speak, but the teenager is still unwise to the world, has lack of experience that only living can give you.” Which just begs the question as to why society is so lackadaisical and apathetic to kids boinking like bunnies, almost a tongue in cheek opposition to it. Had it been anything else, hiking the Amazon, sailing to Hawaii in a 45ft sloop, climbing Pike’s Peak etc the parents would surely come above the radar of the authorities. Hardly anyone would think it was a good ideal to let a guy and his buddy try to sail to Hawaii in a sloop when all they had is a few sailing lesson and got the rest from books and watching sailing movies on DVD. Yet with something even more important it is either “You should not do it wink wink but if you CAN’T help yourself use protection”, or “I can’t stop it so I might as well try to manage it” I don’t think that would fly if a parent was asked why they allowed their teen son and daughter to go hike the Amazon on their own with no guide or supervision when none has any greater experience than a week of Boy Scout camp and reading National Geographic.

@Hypocrisy_Central How do you suppose we stop teenagers from having sex? We can tell them we don’t find it acceptable and that they shouldn’t do it, but how can we physically stop them? (I’m not trying to be condescending, I’m honestly interested in your ideas because I have a 8 year old boy that’s already asking me what sex is.) The only way I could think to absolutely be sure they aren’t having sex would be to lock them in their room and never let them out or to put a chastity belt on them, but I don’t think either of those would go over well.

@Seaofclouds You are right. We can’t physically stop them but we can educate them on how to be safe if they have to do it.

@Hypocrisy_Central Wow, I made a lot of typos in my statement :). Unfortunately, we seem as humans to be hormonly charged beginning in our teens. Between that, the media, and peer pressure, young people will most likely engage in sex. I think maybe we could bring a little shame back to getting pregnant in high school, but this is a delicate balance. Any teen can make a mistake, if a girl decides she wants to go through with a pregnancy I don’t want her to feel as though she has to hide, but she should be freaked when she finds out that she is pregnant, that she has screwed up her life a little, made it more difficult, possibly stunted some of her possibilites for the future.

I knew my mom would not tolerate me being pregnant, she made that very clear. I find that some of my friends who are religious, and pro-life talk about how wonderful every new life is, even when born in bad circumstances, their children are groomed to be psychologically ready to give up their babies if they do get pregnant. Those children receive slightly different messages than I did as a kid. I do think both types of parents encourage their children to not get pregnant, but the pro-lifers talk about how wonderful it is the teen had the baby, where my mom criticized the mother for not only getting pregnant, but also having the baby. For me, getting an abortion did not sound like fun, so I tried to avoid a medical procedure by using protection, whichh worked. A child that will wind up with a baby if they get pregnant, and sees that the people around them think having a baby is wonderful in any circumstance, they might feel a mixed message in there. Maybe I am wrong.

It would be very interesting to know what percentage of teens who have parents who are pro-life get pregnant, and how many teens fo pro-choicers get pregnant. If the messaging seems to make a difference.

Seaofclouds ” How do you suppose we stop teenagers from having sex? We can tell them we don’t find it acceptable and that they shouldn’t do it, but how can we physically stop them?” No one can physically stop them less detention as you say, I can’t stop them, neither can you or anyone else. There are ways to curb it quite a bit, the same way we stop them from stealing bikes, torturing small animals, setting things on fire, killing themselves, etc. Kids are not running ramped doing those things because to do so would invoke serious repercussions, something they (especially the boys) hardly encounter. The only thing you can do is to create in your child the sense that your blessing is worth way more than 30 sweaty minutes in the back seat of the basketball captain’s car. As Sun Tzu said “Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.” Starting early you can ingrain in their thoughts they don’t want to do it because to do so is to fall from grace with you and your spouse. If they believe it is their ideal and choice to make the battle is mostly won.

Society can but major brakes on this runaway train but most don’t care or have the stomach to take the gloves off. If society had a spine they could enact a law that says any teen gets pregnant before she is 18 has her drivers license suspended until she is 32 years of age, that goes for the boy who turns up contributing the other half of the child’s DNA. Or they will be fines $250,000 which 25% of their paycheck will be garnished from every job they get or any lotto win or settlement they receive until the sum is paid back. Will that stop them all? Nope! There will be some fools who think they can get away with it, and some might, but there will be some who will get caught, and when their friends see what actually happened to them, they will think hard before they risk it. It is doable but as I say (as well as other measures), society has no spine or stomach to do it.

@Hypocrisy_Central Then you would be getting into reproductive rights. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that long ago that teenage girls were getting married and having babies (and it was normal back then). There are still some teens that get married early, would this law have any kind of exemption for those teens? What about cases of rape, molestation, and incest? That’s not the girls fault, so then you would have another exemption to the law. Another issue with that is sexual education. We would have to start being sure that we taught children by a certain age that sex can cause them to get pregnant and that said pregnancy would be against the law. The main problem I see with this law is that girls are starting menstruation earlier and earlier these days. Being able to fully understand what sex is and the consequences of sex takes a higher level of understanding that some girls just don’t have at the time they state menstruating. Unless you are going to make sexual education a mandatory part of every school’s curriculum, I don’t think it would be fair to punish a child for something their parents failed to teach them.

I think the focus should be on better sexual education for all children. I understand the drive behind abstinence only teaching, but I feel that our children deserve to know all the risks and options available. Just saying “don’t do it”, teaches kids a little bit about sex (enough to make them curious), but doesn’t teach them any way to protect themselves other than not to do it. Well that’s like dangling a new toy in front of a kid and saying they can’t have it. Of course they are going to want it and try to find where you hid it.

On an interesting side note, while researching the youngest girl to give birth, I found that the youngest documented female to give birth was a 5 year old little girl in Peru.

@Hypocrisy_Central Thanks for the kudos for keeping my baby. Even though everyone thought I should have an abortion, in many ways she has saved my life. However, I don’t agree that there should be laws like the ones you described put into place. What if the family does have money, and the baby would be in a great home with a great family… but because the mother cannot drive, she cannot find work or transport her baby to and from the doctor? Or she had a very good job, but now because they are garnishing a fine from her paycheck, she can’t support the baby?

I understand and agree with your overall point – that something should be done to deter teenagers from having babies. But I don’t think that it should be taken to the point where the babies that aren’t aborted suffer because of it, when they wouldn’t have otherwise.