Anyone’s child get pregnant during college?

[Anonymous]

Just chiming in that my husband had a baby at 18 - and put himself through school with the loving childcare support of his parents, sisters and by cobbling together with babysitters. Baby's mom had substance issues - don't want to get into details here, he was the one who was more of a steady presence, and had a more stable family network to provide care for baby. They successfully parented with joint custody until she was in elementary school; then he had primary and she is now a successful adult. With family support to increase access to stable housing and good quality childcare baby and mom can be successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title IX protects her housing through her pregnancy.

The Housing office can help with housing after that.

She will qualify for WIC and SNAP.

I assume you were planning on paying room and board while she is in college. Off campus housing could be cheaper and she can apply for WIC/SNAP, all of that money can go towards her child's food and diapers.

As a single mother she can supplement WIC/SNAP with local food banks. (https://www.foodpantries.org/)

The school can help her find cheap/subsidized daycare or she can check this website for subsidized daycare (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/resource/ccdf-grantee-state-and-territory-contacts#M)

Not being snarky— I think it’s great the people are being reassuring for OP. But it IS a big deal. Raising a baby will limit her kid’s future chances and make her a lot harder than it otherwise would be.

And it’s great to point out resouces. But let’s get real. How many of us want our kids and grandkids on WIC/SNAP, not always able to afford milk and healthy food, plus whatever the foods has when that funds it 2 weeks into the month? To have our grandkids raised Secion 8 housing? To have our grandkids in cheap childcare— which is almost always substandard.

I work with low income populations. And there is a social safety net. But despite the rhetoric, it is not luxurious. And there are a lot of holes. And the piece that would concern me the most is that good quality child care is $$$$$. It just is.

I don’t mean to be discouraging. But OP and her kod need to get real about the financial and time commitment involved with raising a kid below the bare minimum, subsistence level. Because none of us would want our grandkids eating bologna and hotdogs for days on end or our kid living on ramen, because cheap. Or going to a sketchy daycare.

They need to be realistic now, while there are still options. And I’m not just saying while she can have an abortion— although realizing how much she would have to sacrifice might make Op’s Kid rethink. For example, maybe Op’s Child needs to not go back to her school, to transfer, live at home to save money, and work and save as much as possible before the baby comes. If there is a daycare at her school, it probably has a long waitlist, and she needs to apply immediately. She can’tait until spring, and assume it will all come together somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I would have had an abortion but my daughter said she cannot do that - need to respect her choice even if it is a different one that I’d have made.

Your daughter is making the right decision. You would have aborted her?

[Anonymous]

Why can't she have an abortion? I'd respect her choice of course, but also make sure she has correct information about fetal development and the legions of women who have safe abortions with few issues after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I also know someone this happened to. Thier daughter got pregnant in her Sophmore year and gave birth in her Senior year. She finished school and is working now while raising the kid with the baby's father. Like others, the parents did get together and got married after the baby was born. They are very young parents but they are making it work. Both finished school and have good jobs. They did live with parents until they got a bit more settled but now they have their own house in the burbs.

How was the gestation period so long?

[Anonymous]

Father lives 1200 miles away? Yikes. She's awfully young to be dealing with split custody and such. Or is she planning not to tell him?

I know you respect her choice, and you're doing it better than I would. I would probably ask her why she's set against abortion in this case, and point out how complicated this is likely to be. She now knows she's fertile. She can get pregnant at literally any future moment.

This kind of thing makes me sad about how effective the pro-life propaganda has been on women under 30. Even pro-choice women think of a 5-week-old pregnancy as a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immediate PP. Same holds true if she wants to put the baby up for adoption -- as the birth father, he may be able to contest that adoption. He has just as much of a parental right to decide the baby's future as your DD does. There have been cases where birth fathers have contested adoptions and won the right to their biological children even if those children have been living with their adoptive families for months or years. Think about the trauma involved in that scenario.

Again, you and she need to talk to a family lawyer well-versed in custody, child support, and adoption law to understand the ramifications of either keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption.

These cases are few and far between except I hope more happen. Most of those are shady adoptions where they didn't ask the birthfather and went to a state where birthfathers have little rights or have to do things in order to have rights (except they don't know the woman is pregnant or they hide her so he cannot find her).

Yes, I'm guessing right now the daughter assumes she won't tell the birth father. Someday, though, she'll have to tell the child something. There are no truly closed adoptions anymore even if she goes that route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Title IX protects her housing through her pregnancy.

The Housing office can help with housing after that.

She will qualify for WIC and SNAP.

I assume you were planning on paying room and board while she is in college. Off campus housing could be cheaper and she can apply for WIC/SNAP, all of that money can go towards her child's food and diapers.

As a single mother she can supplement WIC/SNAP with local food banks. (https://www.foodpantries.org/)

The school can help her find cheap/subsidized daycare or she can check this website for subsidized daycare (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/resource/ccdf-grantee-state-and-territory-contacts#M)

Not being snarky— I think it’s great the people are being reassuring for OP. But it IS a big deal. Raising a baby will limit her kid’s future chances and make her a lot harder than it otherwise would be.

And it’s great to point out resouces. But let’s get real. How many of us want our kids and grandkids on WIC/SNAP, not always able to afford milk and healthy food, plus whatever the foods has when that funds it 2 weeks into the month? To have our grandkids raised Secion 8 housing? To have our grandkids in cheap childcare— which is almost always substandard.

I work with low income populations. And there is a social safety net. But despite the rhetoric, it is not luxurious. And there are a lot of holes. And the piece that would concern me the most is that good quality child care is $$$$$. It just is.

I don’t mean to be discouraging. But OP and her kod need to get real about the financial and time commitment involved with raising a kid below the bare minimum, subsistence level. Because none of us would want our grandkids eating bologna and hotdogs for days on end or our kid living on ramen, because cheap. Or going to a sketchy daycare.

They need to be realistic now, while there are still options. And I’m not just saying while she can have an abortion— although realizing how much she would have to sacrifice might make Op’s Kid rethink. For example, maybe Op’s Child needs to not go back to her school, to transfer, live at home to save money, and work and save as much as possible before the baby comes. If there is a daycare at her school, it probably has a long waitlist, and she needs to apply immediately. She can’tait until spring, and assume it will all come together somehow.

I understand your point. But girls like OP are not the population that you deal with. She is a UMC educated girl who got pregnant. If OP can just mourn the loss of the imaginary future she thought she could have she can still support her daughter through college without much more money than she is putting out now.

OP's daughter will graduate with a 3 year old who will qualify for Head Start. At that point she can start getting child support and if the father's parents are not freaks she will never have to buy clothes ever.

She won't need to use sketchy daycare because there are grants to help with that.

She needs to GRADUATE! That is the #1 priority.

She is not aborting. I am pro-choice and that means when somebody chooses not to abort we accept that.

BTW if she wants to be a nurse she can get a scholarship and also there are so many scholarships for single moms.

Stop saying what if, we know she is having a baby, now get everything in order for her to get back to school Fall of 2019 with 3 semesters left to go.

I am sure OP's daughter was moving home after graduation anyway like every other kid in the world. You are going to say NO now she has a child, don't be daft.

It's hard but it's not really that hard.

[Anonymous]

All this advice for the OP to sit down and firmly plan out how she will and won't support are totally missing the emotional connection she will have with the child as their grandparent. It's nearly impossible to set and stick to these limits once the baby is here and you all fall in love. It seems daunting and complicated now, and I'm sure it will be very complicated along the way, but somehow the baby makes it all worth it. My sister got pregnant in college. My parents were pissed. They probably threatened to not support her and she did get her own apartment, but once that baby was here, all bets were off.

Tell your daughter you will help her figure it out along the way, to the best of your ability.

[Anonymous]

When I was in college (in DC), 2 friends, at 2 different times, became pregnant. Friend #1 finished the semester, dropped out, married the baby's father. They've been happily married and living in Kansas City (near his family) for more than 2 decades. 3 kids total and she is now a breast cancer survivor. Friend #2 had an abortion. Finished school, got a job, now happily married mother of 2.

[Anonymous]

I'm truly sorry to sound so harsh but all these stories have little relevance to today's environment. It's 2018 and very few excuses for accidently getting pregnant any more. Much better birth control and education than in our youth. OP's daughter doesn't sound mature enough to make the right decisions regarding raising a child responsibly. This is more than financial support. Are you prepared emotionally to raise another young child now as that is what this will ultimately mean until your daughter grows up. Yes I appreciate that you feel you have to appreciate her decision but make it clear that as the decision impacts you, you also have the right to weigh in with a no interest. Frankly you've already said you would vote for abortion so IMO you really don't want this. And your daughter depending on friends is very unreliable support. Unfortunately, she'll be living with the impacts of this for life no matter what she does. I had an abortion, I know. I also know that the quality life I could have supplied a child at that time would have been very emotionally substandard as a mom. Your daughter own brain is still in formation. There's nothing you can do if she insists but I personally would strongly encourage not going through this. Sorry, I know all of you have these lovely stories about great kids now however, it takes a village in those circumstances and villages are becoming increasingly rare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title IX protects her housing through her pregnancy.

The Housing office can help with housing after that.

She will qualify for WIC and SNAP.

I assume you were planning on paying room and board while she is in college. Off campus housing could be cheaper and she can apply for WIC/SNAP, all of that money can go towards her child's food and diapers.

As a single mother she can supplement WIC/SNAP with local food banks. (https://www.foodpantries.org/)

The school can help her find cheap/subsidized daycare or she can check this website for subsidized daycare (https://www.acf.hhs.gov/occ/resource/ccdf-grantee-state-and-territory-contacts#M)

Yes, although I was on SNAP when my son was very young, and we were in a liberal state with VERY generous benefits. We had plenty to eat just using SNAP, no WIC. As a mom with a child she will qualify for SNAP for a family of 2, even when baby doesn't eat much. My state at the time was VERY generous and we ate very well (I mean, no lobster and I had to budget, but we had enough and could buy fresh fruits - although not organic - and veggies).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm truly sorry to sound so harsh but all these stories have little relevance to today's environment. It's 2018 and very few excuses for accidently getting pregnant any more. Much better birth control and education than in our youth. OP's daughter doesn't sound mature enough to make the right decisions regarding raising a child responsibly. This is more than financial support. Are you prepared emotionally to raise another young child now as that is what this will ultimately mean until your daughter grows up. Yes I appreciate that you feel you have to appreciate her decision but make it clear that as the decision impacts you, you also have the right to weigh in with a no interest. Frankly you've already said you would vote for abortion so IMO you really don't want this. And your daughter depending on friends is very unreliable support. Unfortunately, she'll be living with the impacts of this for life no matter what she does. I had an abortion, I know. I also know that the quality life I could have supplied a child at that time would have been very emotionally substandard as a mom. Your daughter own brain is still in formation. There's nothing you can do if she insists but I personally would strongly encourage not going through this. Sorry, I know all of you have these lovely stories about great kids now however, it takes a village in those circumstances and villages are becoming increasingly rare.

This post is a bit of a mess, but I generally agree with it, particularly this point. OP is allowed to tell her daughter, who is making a very adult decision, what she is prepared to do to support that decision. In my case, I would probably tell my daughter that my version of support would be to never mention the word "abortion" again, though that would be my preference, to love her child as a grandchild, and to provide some modest additional support to help her figure out how to manage the next couple of years of her life. I would also tell her that I would not be fully financially supporting her little family, I would not offer to be child care, and that if she did boomerang home, while I would certainly help her out and care for her, she would have to be pursuing real goals toward self-sufficiency.

All of the things you can tolerate in a 20-year-old daughter, like a less-than-marketable major, poor choice in boyfriends, lack of firm plans for the future are predicated on knowing that at worst you'll be paying for a room in a house with a bunch of roommates. That calculus changes entirely when said 20-year-old might have a child in the mix, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Father lives 1200 miles away? Yikes. She's awfully young to be dealing with split custody and such. Or is she planning not to tell him?

I know you respect her choice, and you're doing it better than I would. I would probably ask her why she's set against abortion in this case, and point out how complicated this is likely to be. She now knows she's fertile. She can get pregnant at literally any future moment.

This kind of thing makes me sad about how effective the pro-life propaganda has been on women under 30. Even pro-choice women think of a 5-week-old pregnancy as a child.

But she's not too young to be having sex? Got it.

Huh? Clearly this particular woman is, because she isn't prepared to make a mature decision (which to me would be not having this baby -- I take it to you it would be to keep the baby).

[Anonymous]

Why is adoption not being considered as an option? If she is unwilling to have an abortion (which I totally understand), she still does not have to keep the baby. She will be condemning the both of them into lower socioeconomic conditions that it will be very hard for either the daughter or he baby to escape, unless the grandparents have a lot of money to pay for all the things the mother can’t.