BTB - Young mothers

This post all came about while I was at work, a couple of weeks ago. I saw a girl walking through the store entrance, and I immediately recognized her. I'm usually quite good at remembering faces, but I couldn't put a name to a face. However, I remember seeing her in tagged photos of some friends of mine on facebook, and pieced together that she was either in the year below me, or 2 years below me. I'd find that out later. I wasn't friends with her, nor had I ever talked to her. However, I did recognize her. Then I saw a bump. A baby bump.

I later found out that she was 2 years below me at school, making the girl aged 16 or 17. The time that I saw her, was before her birthday, making her pregnant at the age of 16. Possibly amounting to her having unprotected sex at the age of 15, dates allowing. However, this is in-probable due to her having a quite decent sized bump at the age of 16, so if my calculations are correct she had unprotected sex at the age of 16. Excusing that, if contraception didn't work, she still had sex at 16. However, looking through picture of sonograms and bumps, and statuses saying that she was excited to have a baby, I began to question whether she did just want this child in the first place.

I was befuddled as to how someone, who looked so young and innocent, would feel as to going through pregnancy at such a tender age. 16 is no age to be pregnant, and 17 is no age to be a mother. How are you going to care for a child at that age? Is pocket money going to feed your child? Or are you going to rely heavily on the child's grandparents to help fund that child a decent enough life until the mother has some independency of her own. The latter, I assume. 

We're brought up in schools that beat you with a stick in regards to sex education, and the amount of information that you get given at such a young age, you really do have to be quite the idiot to get pregnant. Some want to get pregnant at a young age, which again I can't fathom. You're just entering into your teenage years, the best years of your life. Why would you want a baby now, meaning if you are to be the caring and nurturing parents that you ought to be, you can't go out and live your own life.

Sadly, this is the look of our ever changing nation. Stories will often arise in newspapers about younger and younger parents. One notably last year, in little Alfie who apparently got a girl pregnant at the age of 12. At the age of 12, I was playing out on my new aluminium scooter and chasing the ice cream van before he drove off. A stark contrast, if ever there was one.

There's students in my year, who at this moment in time have children who are more mature than me. If that's not a frightening thought, then I don't know what is. 

My next moan: Bruno Mars