Really Confused

[princess_slash]

OK, i wasn't really sure where to post this, but I need some advice and a bit of advice. Please dont judge me.

the thing is i desperatly want a baby. I'm 16 and been with my boyfriend for about a year. We've jokingly talked about a baby but i know he isn't being serious and he thinks I'm not either. But I think about having a baby everyday, I don't know why i want it so much, i suppose just for love and for something that depends on me and my boyfriend solely and we can be solid and happy together all 3 of us. My parents would be so angry if i got pregnant though, they want me to go to uni, i'm from a fairly middle class family and education is very important to them. But i feel i could manage to care for a child aswell. Im close to stopping my pill. i know this sounds all soppy, but its nearly taking over my life and i think about it all the time. Could anyone who is a mother here give advice? I need to weigh up all the pros and cons. thanks

[Wyetry]

I think you should try writing down what you think the pros and cons are in this thread which will focus your mind on weather what the correct decision for you to do is.

Then i'm sure that lots of people who have experience of bringing up children will be able to provide you with some more pro's and con's.

I would also suggeste that you do a bit of a budget to work out how you are actually going to afford to raise a baby. I know that the most important thing when bringing up a child is to offer it love and support but all the love and support in the world aren't going to give your baby the best start in life if you can't feed and clothe it and give it a roof over its head. I did a few quick calcuations a while ago and came up with a very rough figure of around £5,000 per child which is needed per year, just to have an OK but not wildly lavish lifestyle. Which included the extra rent and mortgage costs you'll need to pay, the extra heating and lighting costs. The costs of food, clothing, child minding, all those christmas presents you'll need to buy and an annual family holiday (which isn't a neccessity but is nice) or even outings to keep your child entertained and stimulated. Plus on top of that you will need to feed, clothe and house yourself (which is at least £10,000 a year per adult at a minimum) and account for the costs of any extra's such as school outing and University.

I would also make a list of all the things you will be missing out on if you have a baby now - even if your not academic you'll miss out on lots of things normal teenagers and young adults get to do like going out in the evening. Going travelling around the world. Plus if you leave school at 16 your earing potential is dramatically reduced

[squeal]

You are still young and have your whole life ahead of you.

With you only being 16 is it really that likely that you would stay with your boyfriend for life, would you really want a chil being brought up without their real father?

Your education is going to be ruined and you may never have a sucessful job.

Sleepless night and shitty nappies. A baby is alot of responsibility and hard work. If you had to look after one for a day i think you would soon change your mind.

Sometimes i think it would be nice to have one too but i realise what hard work it is and would rather give it a real start in life when i'm older, financially secure, with my own home and husband.

If you stop taking your pill and don't tell your boyfriend then that is pretty much fucking him over when he trusts you, becoming pregnant could make or break your relationship if he doesn't want one.

I could be talking shit here but still, learn from others mistakes in this case, don't learn from your own.

[I'm With Stupid]

I need to weigh up all the pros and cons. thanks
Ignore the pros and cons. I find it quite scary that you would consider having a baby without planning it with your boyfriend first. Sure plenty of blokes will be happy to stand by their girlfriend when they fall pregnant by accident, but it's hardly the sign of a trusting relationship that would last through a child's life, when one person would be willing to plan to have a child with thier partner thinking it's unplanned. And that's what you'd be doing if you decided to just stop your pill without telling him.

Just a quick thing to remember. No matter how good you think you'd be at taking care of a baby now, you'll be ten times better with a bit more life experience and money behind you.

[wildchild]

I don't know why i want it so much, i suppose just for love and for something that depends on me and my boyfriend solely and we can be solid and happy together all 3 of us.

These are the most common reasons for wanting a baby at your age and honestly I don't want you to think I'm judging you here, but they aren't good reasons for starting a family.

Firstly, a newborn baby doesn't love anyone apart from itself: it's all "me me me" - "I'm hungry", "I'm tired", "I'm bored", "I'm too hot", "I'm too cold", "My nappy is wet", etc etc. And while you're getting nothing back from this little creature, you still have to put in 110% round the clock. Especially to begin with but even as they get older, you give a heck of a lot more love than you get back, and if you feel you don't have enough love in your life now, how are you going to feel when you have to give more of it away and it's not getting topped up along the way?

Secondly, having a baby doesn't mean you instantly become a happy family and live happily ever after. To start with, having a baby has to be a joint decision and if you stop your pill but your boyfriend isn't ready to become a father yet, you're not laying the best foundations for a family life of trust and joint responsibility. Next, have a think about how much you've changed in the past, say, three years. It's reasonably to suspect that you will change the same amount in the next three years, and if you and your boyfriend change along different lines, then you're not going to want to stay together. Is it really a good idea to have a baby who could potentially become a child from a broken home in only a few years' time? Obviously you could say that any relationship could potentially break up, but you guys still have so much changing to do and that makes it much more likely that yours will break up at some point down the line.

And finally, having a baby will change your relationship with your boyfriend completely. It won't be how it is now but with an extra person attached - that extra person will be taking up so much of your energy and attention that it's very easy for the relationship between mother and father to not just slide into second place, but to drop out of the picture altogether. A lot of new mothers find they don't want to entrust their baby to anyone else, even family, for the first year of its life, which makes it hard to find time for being a couple rather than parents. Evenings out will become a luxury and even sex may drop off the agenda because you're too tired, feel too unattractive, or lose your sex drive altogether (not uncommon for months after the birth). As a mother you have a lot of hormonal changes which the father doesn't get, which means it's hard for him to understand the way you're feeling and why things have to change, which can cause a rift between the couple.

But i feel i could manage to care for a child aswell.

How do you feel you could care for a child? I don't doubt that you would have enough love to give, but physically are you ready to cope? A newborn baby needs to eat every four hours, so you are looking at a maximum of four hours sleep at a stretch not for a couple of days, not a couple of weeks, but for a couple of months AT LEAST. Some babies don't sleep through the night until they're over a year old. And they don't do what you want them to do - you can't put them down for the night at a time of your choosing and that's it (unless you're very lucky), and equally you can't stop them waking up at sunrise if they're so inclined. You can't guarantee they'll take a nap even if that's what they normally do and you're counting on it for a power nap to get you through the day.

Are you financially ready to cope? Take a look at the price of nappies - a newborn baby gets through 10-12 each day. Formula milk isn't cheap either, and even if you plan to breastfeed, not all women are able to because they just don't produce enough milk, so you can't discount the possibility of needing to buy formula. Where would you live? Would your parents let you live at home with a baby, or would you need to find your own place? If so you've got all the costs associated with living (rent and council tax, electricity and gas bills, food, water rates, etc etc) PLUS all the effort required to cook and clean to look after yourself as well as a baby.

And are you emotionally ready to cope? A baby comes with a heck of a lot of worry because you are the one person keeping it alive and it doesn't come with a handy manual of what you should do. You will worry about it eating enough, you will worry about the possibility of SIDS (when babies die in their sleep for an unknown reason), you will worry about missing a symptom of a serious illness or medical problem, you will worry about the possibility of it being snatched when you're out shopping and turn your back for a second, you will worry about whether you're giving it the best possible start to life. Sometimes it will cry and nothing you do will make it stop, and that is terribly emotionally draining.

I hope I've given you some food for thought here. A baby is a wonderful thing but once you become a mother you have so much less time for yourself: for education, for enjoying your youth however that may be (partying, travelling, relaxing with your mates), for learning new things about yourself and your interests. Once you become a mother you have a lifelong responsibility and your days of being carefree are over. Treasure them while you can because you can never get them back, whereas you still have many years ahead of you to have a baby.

[AmsyBamsy]

I understand why you feel this way. I was recently pregnant by mistake and when I found out I actually started thinking of ways to keep it, but I'm 17 and tbh its not a viable option. Money issues have been raised in replies, as has the issue of whether the father will stick around, especially if you do deliberately get pregnant without informing him of it. The want for child is strong, but the want and the practicality are two very different things.
PM me if you want to talk. A xxx

[playdead]

Many teens feel like that but the problem with having a baby so young is you and your boyfriend are unlikely to be able to aford to bring the baby and yourselves up in a way you would like.
if you leave school/college so early its unlikely you will get a well paid job + looking after a baby will make holding down a job even harder
It is better (in most cases) to wait till your prepared for the baby finanicaly and emotional, you never know your feelings towards your boyfriend may change as your only young with emotions all over the place.
i would say wait for a child, you have loads of time and probably don't want to be sat in a flat while all your friends are out clubbing and pulling guys.
have fun while your young and have a child when you've lived your life to the full as you wont be able to get it back again when your 33 and your daugter/son is leaving home to start a family so your left all alone

[Sofie]

What's wrong with waiting until you've gone through college & uni?

[princess_slash]

thanks everyone,

i do know about finacial issues etc etc, and i know it wouldn't be the best thing for me. But I want it so badly its tearing me apart. all the time if im in a situation im thinking "where would the baby be?" "what would he/she be doing?" "i'd love to be holding him/her right now" etc. and i just want to postpone these feelings to a later stage in life, but i cant do it. The only thing stopping me really is what my parents would say, and that i really don't want to put my boyfriend in a situation he is not happy with. But he thinks im joking when i ask him. When i think straight about it i know its not the right thing to do, but this want inside me is so strong its hard to control. I want to finish 6th form and go to uni, but i have this crazy idea i can do that with a baby. I need to try and think racionally. but i cant.
and if i did have a baby, i would like to stay living at home. whether my parents would allow it is another matter. I just have this dream of a perfect life, that i dont really want to have right now.

[Lacy]

thanks everyone,

i do know about finacial issues etc etc, and i know it wouldn't be the best thing for me. But I want it so badly its tearing me apart. all the time if im in a situation im thinking "where would the baby be?" "what would he/she be doing?" "i'd love to be holding him/her right now" etc. and i just want to postpone these feelings to a later stage in life, but i cant do it. The only thing stopping me really is what my parents would say, and that i really don't want to put my boyfriend in a situation he is not happy with. But he thinks im joking when i ask him. When i think straight about it i know its not the right thing to do, but this want inside me is so strong its hard to control. I want to finish 6th form and go to uni, but i have this crazy idea i can do that with a baby. I need to try and think racionally. but i cant.
and if i did have a baby, i would like to stay living at home. whether my parents would allow it is another matter. I just have this dream of a perfect life, that i dont really want to have right now.

I used to be like that at your age. I'm now 20 and that desire has completely gone, my life would have been so ruined if i'd given in to what i wanted.

[Simba T Lion]

This may sound really stupid, but what if you got a dog? A dog you and your boyfriend bought together. One you got as a puppy so you would have to train it and all that. Dogs love love and they have lots to give and you can give all your love and care to one. It could be like your little baby, except one that doesn't wake you up in the night and cost so much.

[SuzyCreamcheese]

You poor thing. I went through an INCREDIBLY broody stage when I was about 18, and it totally dominated my thoughts. I think sometimes it can be hard to understand what a strong biological urge it is for some women.
I dont want to sound dismissive, but I actually got a pet instead and I really found it helped to channel my nurturing urges, without having my whole life turned upside down irreversibly at such a young age. It was only a wee hamster, but it was something for me to love and I did love him!!!

I ended up having a baby at 24 and im glad I waited.

[**Helen**]

This may sound really stupid, but what if you got a dog?

Doesn't sound stupid to me - and as SCC said, getting a pet when she was 18 really helped her to overcome broodiness.

Princess Slash, you sound like you want to do the right thing and I think it's great you've come and asked for advice about this. You may find thesite's article on should I have a baby (http://www.thesite.org/sexandrelationships/safersex/unplannedpregnancy/shouldihaveababy) useful as it outlines the pros and cons in a way that's easy to digest. You'll probably recognise some of the feelings it describes too.

You might also find it helps to talk to a counsellor at a Brook tel: 0800 0185 023 about how you're feeling. Take good care - and come back if you need more thoughts on the subject ;)

[Teagan]

i do know about finacial issues etc etc, and i know it wouldn't be the best thing for me. But I want it so badly its tearing me apart. all the time if im in a situation im thinking "where would the baby be?" "what would he/she be doing?" "i'd love to be holding him/her right now" etc.

Remember babies are babies only for a short while .. then they are 'terrible' toddlers ... then 'bratty' kids .. and ultimately, 'awful' teenagers who will think you are soooooo uncool even if you are in your late twenties or early thirties and won't wanna know you.

Babies are not puppies so while you are having very real feelings about wanting something to hold and love, I think the reality will be a harshly different 'cos they dont just lie there smiling all the time ... think crying, sleepless nights, vomit, smelly nappies, teething etc etc

And most of all, children and babies are not cheap. You will want to be in a position where you can offer it financial security as well as just love ...

I imagine most mothers who have children at 16 probably wish they had waited four or five years ...