i've noticed a few girls on this site that are around the same age as my younger sisters, and i have a question for you guys...
my little sisters are 11 and 14, we've always been pretty close and i've always been the middle ground for them even though i'm the oldest, making a bridge between tomboy and girl-girly, and taking them out so the 3 of us could hang. we were raised in a christian home and my mom has always been strong in her faith and morals- our mom was a teen mom too so she has been 100% supportive of my pregnancy since i told her. but premarital sex and young pregnancy wasn't something that we were ever taught to be okay- we weren't told it wasn't okay either, but mom never talked to us much about herself, so we let mainstream society take us along.
i was wondering though, how you younger girls (and other girls here too) viewed teen/young pregnancy before you became pregnant? were you just as accepting of it then as you are now? or was it like seeing swamp thing crawling towards you while shopping at the mall? and if you used to view it negatively: if you were back in that time, would you view your pregnant older sister as still the same person, or would she become the embarrassing swamp thing of your family?
i'm asking this because although my 11y/o sister seems okay with it and still loves hanging out with me, and now with my fiance too, she still seems confused about it- premarital sex and baby. my 14y/o sister shows interest in my baby- naming it, doing goofy stuff with it, etc- but i still feel like she's embarrassed when her friends come over or i take her shopping.
i'm just curious of how other girls would view teen pregnancy if it wasn't them with the baby, but their older sister.
When I was 11 or 12, I had negative views of teen pregnancy and sex in general because I believed what my father told me. I cringe at the thoughts that I had around that age. As I got older, I realized that sex is a natural thing, and that a mom can be great at any age, mainly because of maturity reasons and also because I started listening to my mom more :) she is pretty progressive, where my father is extremely and religiously conservative. I don't have an older sister, but if I did at the time I probably would have been embarrassed or worried to tell the truth. But I am sure that if she was anything like most of the women on this site, I would have realized that what I thought about teen pregnancy was myths.
On another note, when I got pregnant my sister seriously hated me for my entire pregnancy. I never really knew why, and the only time i really ever talked to her all she ever would say is that I am going to be a horrible mother and that i am an embarrassment to the family. She was 15 when i found out I was pregnant, and 16 when I gave birth. I think she was honestly embarrassed because of the attention our family was getting (even though I live in a large city the neighborhood we live in is small townish and there is a lot of gossip) and I think she was jealous because I was getting more attention from my parents and she is used to attention. Eventually, once Eric was born, she did come around slightly and after a pregnancy scare this summer we have become a lot closer because I think she finally realized that you don't have to be stupid or irresponsible to get pregnant.
I know this wasn't exactly what you were looking for but I hope it is helpful.
Well, I'm older now. But, every since I was about 13, I've had friends with babies, although they were older than me they were still teen parents. I always looked up to them and thought that they were pretty awesome people. I enjoyed hanging around with them & spending time with their kids, and I was always offering to babysit for them.
Where I grew up, teen parenting didn't have as much stigma attatched to it as it does in most places. Most of the women in my family that have children were teen parents, or not much older when they had their first child. My mom had my brother at 19.
I don't have any sisters, but I think I would have loved to have had a little niece or nephew, and I wouldn't have been embarassed about her teen parent status.
I think my little sibs all are fine with it because I'm sweet to them and they see I'm a good mom. Some of my older sibs get embarassed, but they don't really know me or spend time with me.
my little sister was 13 when i had my son, and she was seriously embarrassed of me. she thought it was "sick" that she was an auntie at such an early age, and never held or cooed at my son after he came into the world. she started telling her friends i was "the wild one" (when in the context of my family, that is hardly the case, i just couldn't really hide it like the others did). she also swore off motherhood, and would say pretty rude things about my body changes when i was in early postpartum and having a tough time healing and breastfeeding and stuff. every time i've tried to talk to her about it she gets really dismissive towards me, but has hinted that i am not a very good big sister role model (just like your thread suggests). i've made it clear to her that i would consider a woman who has worked so hard to have a good life and done a (i would say) damn good job making it through circumstances that not many people consider to be a good time, to be an excellent role model. she rolls her eyes at me.
its been 5 years since i had him (6 ish since i found out) and i'd say shes starting to "accept" me again, but only minimally. i think she just can't deny that i rock the shit out of my life sometimes, "despite" those easily pitied circumstances of accidental young pregnancy. as for me, i got over it. i mean it sucks because i always saw her as someone really important to me, especially for me to "watch over," but i couldn't deal with her embarrassment or pity after a while.
good luck. do lots of talking and sharing of feelings and stuff otherwise things get pent up and multiply unnecessarily because no one talks about whats actually goin down.
well, I don't have any yet, but I belive that there is nothing wrong with teen pregnancy...if anything, teen parents are stronger becuase they deal with the usual stuff PLUS some. And obviously younger age doesn't mean failure--every young parent I've ever met seems to be doing better than alot of the older one I know ^^
I was 13 and my sister was 16 when she was pregnant with her first. I was always pretty good with it, didn't care much either way as bad as that sounds, more like "Oh, okay!". I loved my niece and babysat a ton. It didn't really effect me either way though, I wasn't super excited nor was I angry, it was just another aspect.
Like skylar i live in a small town. After I started to tell people it had even gotten around the high school (and i had been out of HS for a year!). She was embarassed and I think upset because she had always been the baby. She got a lot of attention especially once I moved out. But bam! I got pregnant and moved back home which put a lot of attention on me. She made negative comments about my weight and borrowed a lot of my prepregnancy clothes telling me I was too fat to fit in them anyway so what did I care if she took them? Not always the nicest route to go.
I can admit I never looked at teen moms in a good light until I got pregnant. I was a snotty teenager and so really it doesn't surprise me. My sister is pretty supportive now and I think likes my kid more then she likes me lol. Most people don't like things or people they don't know much about or aren't very mainstream. So I think educating and showing them there isn't much validity in stereotypes is the best thing we can do. (my parents freaked when i got pregnant because they swore I wouldn't finish college. I graduated this May with a really high GPA and a kid on my hip. And I got accepted to a tough masters program. So for me the stereotype was a good thing. It pushed me to be tougher and to do better then others assumed I could).
My sister was 16 when I got pregnant and my other sister was 7 when I got pregnant. I think it both gave them light into looking at teen moms and single moms as still kick ass moms as anyone else. My sisters are now 21 and 12 and I think they've both grown from just my experience. And my 21 y/o sister is getting married to a guy with a 6 year old daughter. So she definately has the mother role.
I agree with Jenni on educating ... I wouldn't judge my 12 year old sister if she got pregnant but at least she knows how it can be hard ... and she LOVES lyric.
My mom and step-dad were always worried about how others would think ... but they didn't get embarassed by me having a kid ... especially unmarried, just turned 19, etc ... and we lived in a very small town. I honestly felt weird at first because I went to high school to visit a couple friends who were a year younger then me for them to see lyric and EVERYONE STARRED at me as I walked in carrying lyric in her car seat ... but oh well oh well ... i don't care what people think and honestly, that helps getting through those "stereo-typical" times or whatever you wanna say.
I never really thought about it at all, since I wasn't exposed to any teen pregnancies, until I was around 15 and my cousin got pregnant (she was 19 at the time) and then I picked up on my parents attitude of 'how could you be so stupid as to not use birth control'. It took me having a pregnancy scare myself and finding girl-mom to get a more positive attitude towards it, because I saw that it could happen to anyone, and took away the other-ness of the situation. I think if it had happened to my sister (as opposed to a cousin I barely knew and hardly saw) it would have done the same thing, to bring it into reality, and I would have come around quickly.
thanks for all the input ladies.
i see my sisters accepting my pregnancy, but i was just curious how others viewed it when they were young.
as for me, i'm guilty of having looked down on teen pregnancies before. the fact that my mom had my older brother at 19 and was unmarried at the time was never talked about in my family, it just was fact. when i became pregnant she and i could talk about it, and i think this has brought us the closest we've ever been.
last night i watched my sisters. the 11y/o is very quiet and reserved with hardly any friends, so my parents were glad that i moved back in because i guess when i moved she was heart broken because she thinks of me as her best friend. i don't think my baby has hurt our relationship, and she's coming up with lots of plans to make my baby an ewok for halloween, since i recently introduced her to the star wars force. lol.
my 14y/o sister is kinda wrapped up in her own world, being extremely social and always on the go. so i think me having a baby has her embarrassed because i can't do the "cool older sister" things for her and her friends like i used to- like late night ihop trips, movies, teaching them to drive, etc. but i think since she's 14 and spoiled by my parents, that she's a little selfish and my extra attention cutting into her social life ticks her off sometimes.
thanks again for all your input!
I have a 14 yr. old sister who is the most amazing aunt in the world. I'm very proud of her and I know that she has never felt ashamed of me or my son, not for one minute. I remember when i was that age, an older girl at my school was expelled because she got pregnant( I went to a private school). I remember being absolutely out-raged, and ofcourse nothing happened to the BD. That's a different story, but I guess it's because my mother raised both my sister and i to be caring, understanding people no matter what the circumstances.
ooo! that just burns me up! mom gets kicked out and punished and BD gets to keep going on his merry way...it's crap. *fuming*
Well as I am in the 7th month of my pregnancy my sisters 19 and 15 are starting to except it more. My 5 year old brothers arent to shore of what is going on while one of them is very excited he is going to be an uncle the other doesnt want to be a uncle but a brother. My 15 year old sister has her moods where at one time she is so excited to have a nephew on the way and at other times is fighting with me because i ruined the family and i am nothing but a screw up. but of course i am pretty sure its just because all the attention has shifted from her to me. with this shift she started acting out getting into trouble hanging out with the wrong people gettin brought home by the police. when asked why she is doing this she says because kasie is a screw up y do you expect anything diffrent from me. When I was growin up I looked very negitive at teen pregnancy. How could they not be careful or now they are going to be nothing in life. well at 16 and 7 months pregnant i see it diffrently. I look at all those teen parents out there and say well if they can do it i can too. it takes alot for teen parents to get through all the negitivity that people give them. Ill take my dad for example he calls my pregnancy a condition sayin that i am nothing but a screw up i am not going to be able to finish high school or go to college and i am going to be on welfare for the rest of my life. I try to get it past him that i am more then capable to take care of my child and get an education at the same time. what kills me the most is he didnt even go to college and he said it was excepted of me. But anyway getting back to the topic my sisters are supportive of me most of the time. my older sister cant wait to babysit because she can give him back and my younger sister cant wait to dress him up in all the crazy outfits she has bought.