I was a top student until I got pregnant at 17, now I’m a 41-year-old gran, some judge me but it’s not a death sentence | The Sun

AT THE age of 16, Jo Middleton, as they say, had her whole life ahead of her.

A straight-A student who had just been awarded the Headmaster’s Cup, Jo was every parent and teacher’s dream, rarely putting a toe out of line.

She was the last person anyone, including herself, would expect to experience a teen pregnancy and yet Jo says she is so glad she did.

Here the author and now grandmother, 45, reveals why she doesn’t regret a thing about her teenage pregnancy…

I was 16 when I found out I was pregnant. 

I remember feeling surprised, even though I’d had unprotected sex, because surely this was something that happened in magazines or soap operas, something that happened to other people?

Read More in Teen Mum

Teen mum slammed as irresponsible for having a fourth kid on the way at just 24

I was a teen mum, two of my boys have the same name, everyone thinks I’m weird

I’m aware of how stupid this sounds. 

It’s hard to admit because I consider myself a sensible person, a classic high achiever. 

Ironically, a few weeks before discovering I was pregnant I was awarded the Headmaster’s Cup my GCSE certificate presentation evening for getting the best exam results in my year. 

Perhaps at 16 we have a special kind of naive idiocy.

Most read in Fabulous

The next thing that surprised me though was that having a baby didn’t feel like the end of the world. I didn’t wail about the loss of my adolescence, I felt excited. 

I started scouring car boot sales for vests and I painted a border featuring every single one of the Mr Men around the corner of my bedroom that would house the cot.

I’d been led to believe by the magazines and soap operas that getting pregnant as a teenager effectively meant your life was over. 

Forget any dreams or ambitions you may have had, as a pregnant teenage girl you were doomed to a life with no career, no friends, living in poverty in the council house that you probably got pregnant on purpose to get.

I was in the privileged position of having close family to support me, both emotionally and practically, but I found that acceptance and support extended to other areas of my life too.

Friends rallied round, taking it in turns to fan me, eight months pregnant, sweating through my stretched charity shop Bob Marley t-shirt in the hot and crowded college common room.

I remember feeling surprised, even though I’d had unprotected sex

My lecturers happily let me reduce my hours and work in my own time to keep up.

That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of whispers about me, other kids at college with opinions to express, but I let them get on with it. 

My boyfriend’s parents were also very upset – justifiably as he was nearly a year younger than me and still hadn’t finished school when I found out I was pregnant. 

On reflection I can see how worried they must have been, but despite their concerns they were still supportive and of course fell in love with her as soon as she was born.

Fast forward. I passed three A-levels at grade A, went to university and got a first class economics degree, working part-time as a tutor to make ends meet. 

I got a graduate job, I juggled childcare and trains, I had a second baby at 24, life went on.

FABULOUS FIVER: SPEND £5 AND GET A £25 WELCOME BONUS

I’m not saying that things might not have been easier with some savings behind me, but looking back I honestly don’t think that mattered. 

We didn’t have a lot, but we had enough and I was happy. Being a parent gave me a sense of purpose and determination that I doubt many people my age had. I valued my time, I was decisive and optimistic. 

At 30 I became self-employed so as to create a flexible career around my family. That was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I’m not sure I would have done it had I not been a parent.

I look at friends having their first babies now, in their late 30s and early 40s, and feel grateful that I didn’t have the challenges that they do. 

I see them having to sacrifice their long-established independence and freedom, being sidelined in their careers, managing high expectations around standard of living and their own parenting – I didn’t worry about any of that at age 17.

I remember being told so many times “just think, by the time you’re 40 they’ll be leaving home and you’ll still be so young, your life will really be starting!”

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, perhaps I’ve wished time away sometimes, waiting for that day when “things will begin.”

I felt a visceral shift when I became a grandparent, as though I had moved up a rung of life’s ladder

Of course life doesn’t work like that. 

It happens regardless, it doesn’t only start once circumstances are right. We’re never miraculously free of responsibility and able to begin living. 

I still have a child at home for the foreseeable future and I’ve made the obligatory mum’s step into middle-age by getting a selection of pets to parent. And of course, there’s my grandson Joey.

I was 40 when I found out my daughter Bee was pregnant. I felt a visceral shift when I became a grandparent, as though I had moved up a rung of life’s ladder, and I had a sense of legacy that I’ve never felt before. 

I also found I had a sudden urge to say things like “oh we never bothered with that when you were a baby” – it turns out grandparents simply can’t help themselves there.

I’m thrilled that at 45 I am regularly mistaken for Joey’s mum rather than his Granny, that I have the energy to keep up, and that all being well I will be around to see him grow up and maybe have children of his own. 

Read More On The Sun

I’m a pregnant mum-of-2 and we live in a tent after our landlord kicked us out

BA stewardess makes huge blunder – costing airline £50k & forcing her to fly home

Who knows, if I’m lucky in 20 years I could be writing “I was 65 when I found out I was going to be a great-grandparent”, and what a joy that would be.

Fabulous will pay for your exclusive stories. Just email: [email protected] and pop EXCLUSIVE in the subject line

Source: Read Full Article