A
female
age
30-35,
*urnNburn
writes:Hey, I'm 16, and out of school.. And I want a baby, I have for a few years now.. I have a steady relationship that I have been in for a little over a year.. I make alot of money, I have a steady job, and I am my own boss, and I also make ALOT of money from barrel racing.. When I lived with my mom and personal family incident happened right after she had the baby, and they were at the hospital and stayed in that town for a few weeks because the hospital was 2 hours from the house, and they didn't want to waste the gas, but I took care of the baby the whole time, and I loved it (:my bf is a very trusting guy, and he wants the same thing, and he wont just dissapear ever..what do you guys think on this situation? and what do you think is right?
View related questions:
money, want a baby Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 December 2009): to be honest, i think you seem to be looking at your situation through rose-tinted glasses because that's how you want everything to appear.
16 is so young and so naive. no matter how much you think you want this, the reality is that your situation can't be as ideallic as you describe at your age.
personally, i think you should wait a while, you've got your own life to live, when you have a baby things'll never be the same again.
you're only young once, why waste it?
A
reader, anonymous, writes (8 December 2009): As soon as you fall pregnant you would have to give up barrel racing as no matter how good you are or think you are, one slip of the hoof and you will be endangering a life!!
I dont believe that you are self employed and earning so much money at 16 also at 16 you should still be enjoying life not wanting to tie yourself down with a child.
You mention twice how much money you have/make.... in my experience whenever someone goes on about how much money they make it is generally an indication that they are living in a dreamworld and infact do not have as much as they make out!
...............................
A
female
reader, vanilla-cutie  +, writes (8 December 2009):
your finacial situation seems sorted but your still young and so is your relationship, alot of my friends have had babies an they have all said that if they have the choice be4 an they knew how hard it was going to be they wouldnt have gotten pregnaunt so young, i also really want a baby but i think the best thing to do is wait until your certain thats what you want. take care x
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 December 2009): Hell NO! There's so many things involving babies that at age 16, I am positive that you do not know. I know a lot of kids your age who have had children and have gone broke and been left by their boyfriends no matter the money or how strong a relationship. I think you need to date for a loooooong while more (like, 5 or more years at your age) before you can even discuss children/marriage/whatever. You probably won't really know what you want until you're older anyway. I say this out of experience.
Do your family support this anyways? Would your boyfriend's family support this? If you work a lot, how are you going to care for the baby? If your boyfriend is out of school too (and by the way, are you done with school permanently or are you going to college later?), will he work to help out you and the baby? Do you plan to have a life? Because your life will revolve entirely around this baby, and it will be draining and exhausting and you may never see your friends again because you'll be stuck taking care of the baby. For the next 18+ years. You'll be 34, and who knows if your BF will be around for that long.
But it's not actually about you or your boyfriend. It's about the kid that you want to have. Because, it is what matters. And if you can't devote/support/care for this kid and sacrifice your whole life to it, then you are not ready. You may make good money now, but what about in the future? What about the boyfriend? As steady as you say he is, they come and go at that age, and as Beauty and The Beast puts it, 'Well, there's the usual things: flowers... chocolates... promises you don't intend to keep...' If you split up, will he be a gentleman and provide support and act like the baby's father or will he decide to ignore it?
In short, you're very young to be thinking like that and well, if you really want one nobody can stop you except your parents and his. But trust me -- Don't have a kid yet.
...............................
A
female
reader, k_c100 +, writes (8 December 2009):
 Basically the answer is no. This question is asked a lot on this site, by many girls aged between 13 and 18. So this is pretty much what I say to all of them:
First of the all the reason you "want" a baby is because of puberty - your hormones are running riot in your body at the moment and they are designed to make you think you want a child. As soon as you start your periods technically your body thinks it is ready to have a child, so this is an instinct that has long been built in to our bodies. The whole point of life is to reproduce, so as soon as we physically can reproduce our bodies start urging us to do so. So what you are feeling is normal however it is a phase - and you will grow out of it! Just because your hormones are raging it does not mean you have to follow them; medicine and society have come a long way and we know it is not a good idea for teens to have babies.
Here are just a few reasons why:
1. Teens have a much higher risk of complications during a pregnancy. You would be particularly susceptible to have small/underweight babies (due to your body not being developed enough to allow the baby to grow properly), premature birth and high blood pressure. Small babies are 60% more likely to have health problems and even die at birth or in the first few weeks of their lives.
2. You are still a child yourself and dont have much life experience. Think about why your parents are great and the good things about the way they brought you up - I bet a lot of it has to do with the wisdom and knowledge they were able to pass on to you. They only gained that wisdom and knowledge through experiencing life for all it has to offer, not giving up a large part of their childhood to raise children! At 16 you are just starting out in the world, you have so much left to learn and so much more growing up to do. So if you dont let yourself learn and grow fully, you wont be able to pass anything on to your children because you just havent experienced enough to know anything about the world! Surely you want to be able to offer your child as much as possible, so they grow up in an enriched environment and they become intelligent, successful people? You will be severely limiting their chances at this if you have a child now.
3. Finances. Where do you think you are going to get the money to have a child? They cost more money than you can ever imagine - even for a couple with 2 good incomes a child still drains all their money and they struggle for cash. I mean I dont want to sound rude but at 16 you are your own boss? Doing what exactly? I have no idea what Barrel Racing is but is doesnt sound like an appropriate job for a mother to be! You cant rely on your family for financial support either - is it fair to ask your family to spend all their extra cash on supporting you because you decided to get pregnant when YOU want, not when is BEST for everyone? You cant rely off benefits from the government either - what they give you is a tiny amount and you will be wasting taxpayers money by becoming just another teen mum. Before you have a child ideally you need your own house that you own, you should have a full time job and a partner with a full time job (both with career progression opportunities). Otherwise you are going to struggle financially and I'm sure you will want to be able to give your child everything it wants/needs - so surely waiting is the right thing to do?
4. Your boyfriend. A child needs a mum and a dad to raise it properly, it is not fair to bring a child into this world without a dad that wants to stick around for the rest of its life. And even if you do have a boyfriend, the chances are he wont stick around if you get pregnant! The amount of times on this site I have seen young teenage mums come on complaining that after having a baby, their boyfriend's have left them or started becoming more distant/lazy. Every one of them always said "during the pregnancy he was really happy and couldnt wait for the baby to come" and then after it is born they are left wondering what went wrong while they are bringing up the baby alone! I know you might think that your boyfriend would stick around, but men are much more immature than girls during the teen years and when responsibility hits them, they get scared and run a mile! Men technically have no obligation to the child - whereas you carried it for 9 months and have an intense bond to the child, men dont really have any physical or emotional bond to the child. You are too young to handle this strain on a relationship that a baby brings. If you have a boyfriend and are still together in 5-10 years time then hell yes you can be sure you will be pretty fine once you have a kid. But right now, you both are still maturing and growing (they say men are not fully mature until the age of 30!) and you will change a lot as people over the next 10 years or so. So if you do decide to have this baby be very prepared to be a single mum and raise this child alone - and then struggle to meet anyone in the future because no man likes a woman with baggage (especially another man's baggage!).
5. Your social life. I am guessing you have lots of friends, and you like spending time with them right? I bet you like having fun at the weekends, going to the cinema and just hanging around with them. I bet you are looking forward to getting a bit older so you can start to go to clubs and bars and just have lots of fun. So are you ready to wave goodbye to all of that just to have a baby? Are you ready for your friend's to start ignoring you and you will be left with pretty much no-one? Are you ready to spend the next 18+ years of your life looking after one person, with no money to spend on yourself, no time to go out and enjoy yourself? Having a child is amazing a lot of the time, but only when you know that you have lived your life and had fun. Part of growing up is spending time with friends, when you get to 18 (or 21 in the US) it is all about going out into town clubbing or going to bars....all of this you will completely miss out on! You wont have the money nor the time to leave the child and go out with friends, so for the next 18+ years you will be spending most of your nights at home with the child. While the child will be an amazing thing, you will resent him/her for taking away your opportunities to have fun.
6.Housing - where do you live? Do you have your own house (that you own rather than rent)? Do you have your own car? Does your boyfriend live with you and have a full time job?
I think you know deep down that waiting until you are in your 20's is the right thing to do!
At the end of the day you will want to give this child the best possible life, and give the child everything it wants/needs. But you cant do that while you are still a child too, and while you still have so much life yet to live. Finish school, go to college/University - get a good education and then a good job. Enjoy being young and being free - life gets so much more complicated as you get older so you really should just make the most of your teenage years as you will never get them back. Think about this - what would you think if you had a daughter and she came to you at 16 and said "mummy I want a baby" - I'm sure you would try and talk her out of it because you will know how precious being a child is, and how precious life is before responsibilities kick in.
After all, what is the harm in waiting a few years? What is the big rush to have a baby? Do the right thing, wait a while and you will be so glad you did wait.
I hope this helps and good luck!
...............................
|
