Short lived relationships & resulting babies

trisher I would add that there are women who don't want the father around but still expect him to pay maintenance. I spoke to a policeman whose brother was in that situation and committed suicide. Yes, of course men should pay towards their children's upkeep but some women are very controlling.

Germaine Greer once suggested a solution to all unwanted pregnancies. She said men should be given vasectomies when they reached maturity having first deposited sperm in a sperm bank which could be used when they really wanted a child. Bit extreme maybe!

I was pregnant before we married, I wasn’t drunk or been out partying it was just lust at first sight. We married and after eight years I left him and brought both children up as a single parent. I received no benefits, just a small weekly payment weekly from ex husband Nd I worked. I was happier, as were the children, on my won.

So if a woman lies and says she is on the pill or declares she has a medical condition that means she can not have children would you blame the man when she became pregnant Saetana?

GabriellaG54 - there is nothing wrong with "casual sex" so long as the woman is on an appropriate form of contraception and the man wears a condom. This is the 21st century and many young women are just as eager as young men to "sow their wild oats" and there is nothing wrong with that. I don't do double standards.

All I will say is that I would not trust any man who said he was on the pill - why on earth would men trust women who say the same thing? I scared my second serious boyfriend (now husband of nearly 30 years) on our first sexual encounter with - "you didn't ask if I was on the pill" - I was of course but he had no way of knowing that and didn't ask! If men do not want an unwanted child then they should always use condoms! I never wanted an unwanted child (or any child, come to that) and went on the pill before indulging in sexual relations with any man. It takes two to make a baby, and men often forget this.

Over the last 20 years, the teenage pregnancy numbers in the UK have more than halved. The improvements in sex education and the ease of obtaining contraception are working well.

Responsibility on both male and female is the answer. Sorry but I have no sympathy.

These days contraception is so easily accessed, plus they are educated at school in a lot more details than we ever had .... but there are still so many unplanned babies, it just makes you wonder sometimes .... especially when so many couples have to resort to expensive and painful IVF.

Hm999 you have lived a sheltered life. There are many instances where a woman will decide before the baby is born, soon afterwards, or when the children are in school that she doesn't need the father around anymore. I don't think this is wrong providing they make adequate provision for the father to see and care for his children, unfortunately some women take the attitude that because they now dislke the man who fathered their children he should have no rights over them. It takes a really dedicated and strong father to stand up and keep insisting that he has contact no matter how difficult the mother makes it. Imagining that there aren't sometimes faults on both sides is so wrong.
I have a friend who was married to a man who was abusive, she left him but always kept her children in contact with him. So it can be done.

My adopted daughter's Mum was 17, and engaged, when she fell pregnant in the 60's. Her family broke up the relationship and made her have her daughter adopted. 50 years later it grieves me to think that they probably still mourn for their much-loved child. I wonder, too, if the father renewed the relationship, and perhaps they may have married and had more children.
My daughter has learned from this. When my GD started a relationship she took her to the doctor's for 'the pill.' She also allows them to share a room, as do his parents. In my old-fashioned way I find myself disapproving, but realise that times are different now. At least she won't suffer an unwanted pregnancy, or a lifetime of regret for a lost child, as her 'birth Granny' has done.

Newnanny, my son actually did bring home one of these virtual babies for a week-end. It was for a class, something to do with 'Families', some sort of what would have been Home Economics.

I read that, in this age of casual sex, it is with the presumed assumption, on both parts that the girl/woman will "take care of it" either by ending the pregnancy or taking care of the child. Young people look at sex, pregnancy, and marriage with a different set of values than 50 years ago. And, society permits it.

In many schools they have a virtual baby that can be programmed to act like a real baby. The girls often get to take baby home for weekend. That teaches them to use contraceptives. Boys should be sent home with virtual baby too. They would learn useful skills. Baby wakes up about 4 times each night and takes 15 mins to sooth if picked up if just left cries continuously.

wellwalked yes, but I wonder if these young people really listen to their parents and don't just think they are too old to know? I remember listening to one DS talking to his younger brother about drugs etc and putting it brilliantly including 'you won't listen to parents'. Pretty sure it was much more effective than if I had said the same things. I suppose we need people nearer to their age to talk to them, perhaps those who feel they got it wrong?

Trisher
The only women I know who threw him out, and decided she could do it all on her own were either with drunks and men who abused.

PECS asks if we (individually &/or societally?) are 'training' our young people about the consequences of sexual intercourse and resultant pregnancies - I suspect not but as most of us, am swayed more by my own experiences than statistics that don't agree with what I see in the real world.
However, I do suspect we all need to address our attitudes in the round, not just picking out the physicality of sex but how emotions can hijack moments in time that affect more lives than the 2 engaged in that 'moment'.
If young people were 'trained' in alternative 'emotion, thought, action' scenerios (akin to mental health CBT) before deciding on risk-taking behaviours, there might well be 'pause for thought'.
Is this a parental responsibility or an establishment/societal one as PECS suggests? A lot more of both, perhaps?
It needs us all, GN'ers, to not just wish it different but to do something about it. That brilliant series 'Icons' is showing that individuals really do make a difference.

Plenty of fathers who were married to the mothers don't want to take any responsibility for their children. And that's not restricted to the younger generation, it's our generation too.
And as for courts favouring the mother - really?

My daughter's husband left her at Christmas. They have a 7 year old and a nearly 2 year old. He went on dating sites and found someone he preferred to my daughter. She never expected to be a single parent. He did the same thing to his first wife too, leaving her with three children. I'm disgusted with his behaviour.

Frankly, it shocks and annoys me that young people don't stop to buy contraceptives! It is no longer shameful to do so, nor are unmarried women turned away from GPs or clinics, as we would have been /were in our young days.

Condoms also have the advantage over other forms of contraception that they protect against the HIV virus., syphilis, chlamydia etc. etc.

Certainly love or lust can overrule years of training, but perhaps a new campaign for planned parenthood would be a good thing.

Grandma 2213 a mother can only register the father on a
Birth Certificate if they are married. Unmarried couples must both be present to register the father's name.

Annsixty, I think someone should go above the young woman's head and tell her mother. She is scared to do so herself, but I am 99% sure will be very relieved once it's been done. I have heard of girls committing suicide because they think (wrongly) that their mothers will "kill" them. Not having experience of being mothers themselves they are not aware just how supportive their mothers will want to be, after the initial shock. It's therefore best to tell the parent without the young girl present, so there is time for the shock to subside and the caring instincts to kick in.

My DD is a single mum through no choice of hers. Her partner of 5 years, to whom she was engaged, decided that he couldn't cope with the responsibility and was unhappy - so he left. There was a great deal of upset - but they are working through it. He sees his daughter weekly, and Face Times her most nights. They are both much happier apart, They tried so hard to make it work, but they were 'flogging a dead horse' as the saying goes. She has met someone else, who also has a daughter, and they are on the same page with their future plans and expectations. She so much happier. Ex has had a relationship that ended, because it got too serious, but has admitted he still loves my DD. He has excepted that they just didn't work though. They are both still pretty young. He is 25, she is 23 and DGD is 3. She grew up with the arrival of DGD, he just couldn't.

Sadly, it's still the case (at least in the UK) that the birth rate spikes alarmingly at the end of August/beginning of September - 9 months on from Xmas and the party season.

Careless over birth control? Too much to drink? Can the young ladies caught up in the debacle even remember having sex and who it was with?

I was one of those girls unmarried and pregnant in the sixties. The father and I did marry and it lasted 20odd years.
I agree there is much more availability of birth control now but things still go wrong. I think too much emphasis is placed on relationships now and not enough said about responsibility and how difficult it is to raise a child well. I'm not sure about the father thing, I never knew my birth father and feel no loss about this.