41 piped up to “Thirteen Year Old Becomes A Dad…”

1. Nonny Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 10:05 am

   1 It’s sad, but nothing new. I have a good friend who had sex when he was thirteen, and he was only a bit over 14 when the baby was born. He’s now somewhere in his late 20s, and that has… seriously impacted his life, but I think he’s done well for it. He’s one of the best dads I know, honestly. Note that I am not saying I support kids having children in any way… but my friend turned out all right.

2. Emmy Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 10:52 am

   2 Where the heck were the parents when this kid was playing wet willie?

3. katiebabs Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   3 Now I heard that the 13 year old may not be the father.

4. vanessa jaye Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

   4 The girl’s mom let them sleep together in her house (at least I think that’s what I read somewhere.) Not having a clue about kid’s natural curiosity I’d guess. (obviously she probably didn’t play doctor as a kid) Nor thinking about how each succeeding generation has been more sexualized or bombarded with sexual images they don’t realistically understand the ramifications of(clothing, music, tv). Sadness, for these kids. The lion’s share of the burden will be on the (grand)parents.

5. Mandy M Roth Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

   5 I remember being 12 and a girl in my class ending up pregnant. WTH, holding hands was a big deal then. I couldn’t wrap my mind around someone doing something that could leave them pregnant. Even now, in my early 30’s, the shock hasn’t worn off. I read this post and my gut clenched. Babies having babies.

6. AReader Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   6 There are two more boys in today’s paper claiming to be the father.

7. Angelia Sparrow Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

   7 Not at all uncommon in some places. There are places where Mom is a graduating senior and her first child is a kindergartner. Her second usually starts school the next year. Yes, some of those kids are gotten by boys the girls’ own age. They aren’t all the products of daddies, uncles, older brothers and friends of the family.

8. anny cook Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 4:06 pm

   8 I agree with Angelia. Unfortunately not at all uncommon. In my granddaughter’s neighborhood, ten year olds are having sex, giving blow jobs, having babies. Where are Mom and Dad? Working, trying to feed and shelter the kids. Who’s watching the kids? An older brother or sister who is busy playing video games or watching TV.

9. kirstensaell Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

   9 When I was in grade 6, I was shocked and appalled to learn that Lori and Reg were having sex. I mean, yeah, they’d been “going out” for more than a year, but still, they were only 12 or 13. I was shocked and relieved when Lori told me one day she had to stop at the drug store to buy condoms. Thank god they were halfway responsible about it. I think that’s what surprised me the most. You can always count on kids to be curious. Not so much with responsible.

10. Karen Scott Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    10 Kirsten, who are Lori and Reg?

11. kirstensaell Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    11 Some fellow grade 6 students I knew. Sorry, could have been more clear.

12. West Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    12 This is absolutely nothing new to me. Hell, in junior high, most of my friends got pregnant. Five had the kids, two had miscarraiges, and one had an abortion. All were 12 or 13. It’s amazing how many of my friends have not just children but teenagers. So it really is nothing new to me. I considered my friends lucky and smart if they managed to make it to 17/18 before getting knocked up, or knocking up their girlfriend. As for “where were the parents?” Same place all my friends parents were. Either too busy to be home and paying attention (most of my friends got pregnant after school while they’re parents were at work), or too naive to believe their children would have sex- therefore, not paying attention to what they were doing, and never talking to them about safe sex and responsibility.

13. KCfla Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    13 I have to say- I’m not surprised. Depressed, but not surprised. Last year, My son’s middle school ( 6th through 8th grades) had a series of bomb threats. Because of this all back-packs were searched before the kids could enter the school. He came home after the first day and said to me,” Mom- you would not believe the pile of condoms on the ground next to the guy(s) doing the searching!!” Blew me away.. BUT! This was a perfect opening to a frank talk about condoms

14. vulcan girl Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 6:58 pm

    14 I think most (if not all) of the dismay is at how YOUNG he looks. This kid seriously appears to be 8 or 9, and hardly pubescent. If the girl appeared to be that young with the boy appearing years older, it would make people wonder what the boy saw in a girl who appeared so young

15. AztecLady Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    15 It’s depressing–and more so because I also read somewhere that there are now two other kids–both younger than the girl–claiming they could be the father of her baby. On the “babies having sex” I’m probably on a different wavelength than most. Long personal history, but I started talking frankly to my kids about sex and its potential consequences (from STDs to pregnancy) when they were much younger than this boy. I also talked with them about addictions–from smoking to alcohol to hard drugs. As far as I’m concerned, there is no shielding them (let alone truly protecting them) from what is going around them the moment they step outside my door, so I chose to arm them with knowledge. So far *knocking on wood and lighting candles* it seems to be working. I can only hope and pray it holds. Obviously, YMMV

16. Lori Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    16 Yeah. Scary shit out there. We had to have the condom talk with our freshman son at age 13. Who I might add, was truly appalled with is for even having the newrve to think he might already be having sex. Thank the good lord above. But it’s apparently never too early. Srsly. Once they know it’s down there (happens at birth), and they find a girl who knows what they’re supposed to do with it somewhere around middle school)? It’s all over.

17. Another Lori Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    17 My daughter is 7 and while we haven’t talked about sex yet, we’ve talked about smoking and drugs. When I was 7 (another lifetime ago), it would never have been necessary. What left me gobsmacked most though was a 13 and 15 year old talking about making the decision not to have an abortion. Trust me: if my child was pregnant, I would be making the decisions. And she would not be having a baby.

18. West Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    18 @Another Lori- I understand your way of thinking, but you can not force anyone, even a minor, to have an abortion. It’s not only illegal, it’s unethical. You could refuse to support your child financially, basically forcing her to give it up for adoption, but you can not make someone have an abortion.

19. Emmy Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    19 The other part that gets me is that two other boys are saying that they may be the father too…was this chick a little slutling or what? Next stop: octuplets.

20. Las Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

    20 That girl has to have something going on mentally. There’s only a 2 year age difference, but that’s pretty big at that age and he just looks so much younger. What’s the attraction? I doubt he’s even hit puberty yet (the article I read mentioned that his voice hasn’t changed). And if I have a daughter who gets pregnant that young, I might not FORCE her to get an abortion, but I will strongly suggest it.

21. Cherrie Lynn Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    21 That boy is so young and adorable, it just breaks my heart. He has no idea. He looks younger than my eleven-year-old (who is never leaving the house without me now). I’m with vulcan girl; what is the deal with this fifteen-year-old? She likes baby-faced little boys? All the girls I knew who were doing it at that age wouldn’t have looked twice at someone so young. The whole thing is messed up.

22. Nonny Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    22 I wondered that about the girl myself, but it’s possible that when she initially had sex with him, she looked younger herself as well. Keeping in mind that a pregnancy is the better part of a year, and girls can have major growth spurts / body changes in a short amount of time.

23. kirstensaell Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 10:40 pm

    23 Yeah, when I was 15, I wouldn’t have spit on a 13 y/o boy if he was on fire. It’s hard with the financial/family realities people have to face these days that turn their children into latchkey kids. My mom went back to work when I was 11. I was good compared to most, but I still got up to some hijinks between 3 and 6 PM that would have turned her hair greyer than it already was if she knew about them. Nothing like having sex with a boy who looks like he’s only 5 years out of diapers, tho.

24. Las Posted: Feb 16th, 2009 at 11:47 pm

    24 I don’t think this is a “latchkey kid” issue. It’s an issue of parents not teaching their kids responsibility and what’s appropriate behavior which can absolutely be done without kids needing 24 hour supervision, and those same parents not having a bit of common sense (co-ed sleepovers after the age of, like, 5, is just really fucking stupid). I don’t even have a problem with kids that age doing some sexual experimentation, we’re sexual beings, it’s natural. Those of us who did things that would have freaked out our parents weren’t doing it because of a lack of supervision, we were doing it because that’s what adolescents do. But to go from making-out and touching to full-on sex requires a serious lack of proper guidance.

25. alisha rai Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 12:05 am

    25 The game controllers in that picture freak me out. Look ma, no hands! I’m already ignoring my kid! I worked a high risk area once where twelve year old moms were pretty common. As far as we know, at least this baby is not crack addicted or HIV positive. That’s something. Scary world.

26. kirstensaell Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 12:08 am

    26 I can just see the reporter putting those game controllers in their hands to make the picture controversial (not saying it’s not true to life). I do wonder what parent would let their kid pose for a newspaper photo like that. Another lapse in judgment.

27. JulieLeto Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 1:41 am

    27 Is it just me, or does the, “well, that’s not very unusual” bent of some of these posts contribute to the idea that “hey, everyone’s doing it” so that it’s okay? Because it’s not okay. I’m not afraid to say that, either. Where is the shame? Why are the parents putting their children in the newspaper/media? Making little celebrities out of them so that lonely little girls and boys will think, “Wow, if I get pregnant, I can be in the paper, too?” My mother worked. She still works and she’s 70 years old. I have three brothers and we were ALWAYS supervised. We had family and grandparents. Hell, when I was 16 and went with a school group to San Francisco–my first trip away from my family–I ended up meeting my aunt, uncle and two cousins in Chinatown! I couldn’t go anywhere without people reporting back to my parents EXACTLY what I was up to. They say it takes a village…I believe that. And part of the responsibility of that village is to say, “THIS IS NOT OKAY!” Those people are on “benefits.” That means welfare, right? Which means the British taxpayers are paying for that baby for 18 years. Why is this not causing more outrage here? BTW, kirstensaell, you made me laugh. I “swore off” “younger men” when I was fifteen. I will say that when I was 18, I announced to my parents that I was going to date a guy who was 25 and they put a stop to it right quick. Yes, I was 18, but that didn’t matter. And I’m glad it didn’t. He ended up dating a friend of mine and was a real creep.

28. veinglory Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 1:53 am

    28 I think a mother letting an unrelated boy share her daughter’s bed overnight alone in her room on multiple occassions is pretty damn unusual.

29. Nonny Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 2:42 am

    29 Julie, my comment about it not being unusual was not meant to suggest that it’s okay. It’s that the tone of some other comments is like this has never happened before, and that’s not true. It’s been happening for years. I strongly believe if there were better education for kids, it would happen less. As it stands right now, sex is a forbidden subject, yet kids are bombarded with sexually charged media. It’s sad, but I don’t think the “Let kids be kids” and subsequent ignoring of sex education by many parents is going to work in this day/age. I’d much rather see my theoretical 13 year old outside playing on the swings and getting into trouble than screwing around with kids. Realistically, that’s not the way it works in many cases. :-\

30. West Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 3:03 am

    30 Julie, I don’t believe anyone here said it was okay. We were merely stating that it is not shocking to us, since we’ve seen it happen so often. The truth is, this is a fair amount of the norm these days. It may be sad, it may be irresponsible, but it is the way things are for so many teens.

31. kirstensaell Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 3:48 am

    31 A friend of mine had to deal with this last year–her thirteen year old daughter asked her for a ride into the city so she could get an abortion. The mom wasn’t sure what she was more horrified by–that her daughter needed an abortion, or that if she hadn’t needed a ride, the mom might never have even known she was pregnant. I think many kids make the choice to terminate without ever telling their parents, while people in health services probably see it all the time.

32. Dawn Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 9:52 am

    32 I was shocked when I read about this, but only because the father is so young. These days you more hear about the young mothers. But it is still completely wrong. I am surprised that the girl is older – at that age, girls are just so much sexually mature than boys – doesn’t seem like she’s emotionally mature though. I wish them the best. God knows they’re going to need it.

33. Marianne McA Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    33 I read – somewhere – The Observer, perhaps? – that his sister had had a baby when she was 13 too. (They were obliquely making the point that it’s only a story because the boy was 13 – if he’d been 15, and the girl 13 – that wouldn’t have been news.) Anyway, you’d think after the first pregnant child, the parents would have thought things through a bit.

34. anny cook Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

    34 Nope. I would NEVER say/believe that it’s right for kids this age to have sex, let alone babies. Unfortunately, it IS happening, though. As for supervision, clearly from the story, these parents have a few screws missing. But there are many parents with no nearby family resources to help. And it’s a hard thing to have to decide between food and shelter or supervision for your pre-teen.

35. JulieLeto Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    35 Hi, all. First, I knew people weren’t saying it was okay. My question was more related to the way those type of attitudes contribute to the idea that this type of behavior “happens all the time” and is therefore, inevitable and in a way, accepted. There’s a double-edged sword to society becoming more permissive. On one hand, people can live their lives as they see fit. (Something I have very little problem with, btw.) On the other hand, we have people who make very bad choices and end up getting a ton of publicity and sympathy for it: ie, the octuplet mom in California and then this kid in England. I think that taxpayers should be up in arms! I mean, some of us who work and pay taxes are struggling to take care of our own children. I have friends who have decided not to have children until they are financially stable. And yet you have these other people who abuse the system and no one says, “enough is enough” because of personal liberties. I guess it’s a Catch-22. I believe in personal liberties and I don’t believe in any government interference in procreation. But damn, it still frustrates me when such bad decisions are held up as special from all the media attention.

36. Jill Sorenson Posted: Feb 17th, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    36 I just can’t believe that boy fathered the child. He looks like a baby himself! I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else stepped up, and/or the girl admitted to being sexually abused. A very sad situation for all involved.

37. Lorraine Posted: Feb 18th, 2009 at 12:57 am

    37 I saw this in the news and was wondering if it was true. That boy looks like a baby himself. I find it hard to believe that he’s developed enough to have intercourse, let alone produce a baby. I’m with AztecLady…I started talking about sex ed to my kids at a very early age. I bring it up whenever I see something in the paper. I discussed this issue with my son, (he’s also 13). I was motivated by an Oprah segment wherein middle school girls talked about going to “rainbow” parties. At a rainbow party, each girl wore a different color lipstick and then performed fellatio on a line of boys. At the end of it all, the boy’s penises would have a rainbow of different colored lipstick…UGH! The girls didn’t think anything of it. They didn’t even think it was a sexual act. I’m lucky enough to get off work early so that I can pick my kids up after school every day. But a lot of working parents aren’t as fortunate. They might not have family nearby to help, they may have difficulty finding child care or can’t afford it. What are they to do? It’s an awful situation.

38. Michele Lee Posted: Feb 18th, 2009 at 5:11 am

    38 Julie, Not everyone has the support your family has been blessed with. My mother died when I was 9 and I was sent to live hundreds of miles from my with my father, who molested me. When I finally go out of his house, still not ready to face how I’d been raised, I was lucky enough to end up with a wonderful man, and I ended up pregnant (I was 20. A bit earlier than we planned, but that was the eventual plan.) Most of my family is not close enough to help, and almost as many side with my father in our estrangement despite that he has threatened to shoot my husband and kidnap our kids (and mind you when my parents were divorcing he tried to kidnap me, so I’m taking that threat seriously.) The only support I have is my husband, my sister, who doesn’t show up half the time I ask her to come over for a birthday or holiday party, much less to babysit, and my mother in law who last time she baby sat (valentine’s day) gave my 4 year old daughter a mullet, blamed me for her doing it, then left the house crying because we were being mean to her. (My daughter’s hair hadn’t been more than trimmed her whole life. It was glorious and long and beautiful and the woman made her sit down, even though my daughter knew it was wrong and chopped it all an uneven few inches except for the bottom of the back which she left. My daughter was devastated and so mixed up because she trusted Mamaw and only wanted to make Mamaw happy.) Some of us just don’t have a choice. I constantly hear people tell me I should get a job instead of staying with the kids so our family can be better off financially, but with no family support I don’t have the option of shifting the kids off to a grandma or an aunt. A lot of us parents out here don’t have that choice.

39. JulieLeto Posted: Feb 19th, 2009 at 3:52 am

    39 Michele, you’d never hear me telling you to get a job instead of staying with your kids. I’m sorry your life has been hard…but CLEARLY, despite all the ticks against you, you’re staying home and supervising your children and I don’t doubt instilling them with values that will help them make the best choices they can in life. Having a baby at 20 with a man you love is not the same as having one at 15 with a 13 year old boy who looks eight. That said, I’m NOT blaming the little girl. She clearly has issues. But I do think it is okay to blame the parents in this case. We can blame the media/oversexualization of children, etc, but it’s the parents who are ultimately responsible for their children. My daughter isn’t perfect. I’m not a perfect mother and my mother wasn’t perfect and my grandmother wasn’t perfect. But my daughter’s needs come before my own and that is something you CAN trace back in my family. I know how fortunate I’ve been. BTW, I am also very lucky to have wonderful neighbors who have become like family to me. I don’t know what I would do without them and vice-versa. We look out for each other’s children.

40. JulieLeto Posted: Feb 19th, 2009 at 3:55 am

    40 Lorraine, there are no easy answers. I’d say that parents who have to live in a latch key world have to work extra hard to make sure their kids can make good choices before they leave them alone. I know that in my neighborhood, the working moms have their kids in afterschool care (free care through the county) but if they have to leave their kids at home, they call me (because I’m working from home) and I keep an eye out for them and they know to call me in an emergency. It takes a village, that’s all I’m saying.

41. Jen Posted: Feb 22nd, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    41 This is sad, but biologically, teenagers are still mature enough to breed. A bit more than a century ago, and this would be on the young side of average. Biology hasn’t kept up with society on this one. That kid looks too young to father a child, or even really have much in the way of intercourse. But I wonder if he isn’t old enough to be covering up for someone who is…