Topic : 07/07 A Teen's Pregnancy: Brittney's Decision

My husband & I watched yesterdays show and were COMPLETLEY shocked. I had my first son at the age of 20 yes a little older but i was still very young. I became pregnant with him at age 19 my family... well they were "disappionted" in me. I just started college. i had so much ahead of me. But they got over the anger by that evening and supported me & They said i had no options i WAS having this baby & it was going to be a part of this family. Days & months went by & my father the one who was the most diappionted was calling me every 10 min to see if i felt like today was the day. Then at 21 I had my 2nd son who was born with many complications. he was born with 5 heart deffects. But hes doing wounderful. I look @ my parents with my boys & see how happy they are & how close they have brought us. I wouldnt have ever thought of abortion with my babies. they have changed my life & made me a better person. I love them with all of my heart. I just can NOT beleive her family is trying to talk her into giving this baby up or terminating it. YES as women we have CHOICES but for a parent to push that descion on a 15 year old girl is just wrong. I feel like they are showing her the BAD parts about having a baby! WHERE in the heck is the positve things about being a parent!! I dont think girls that young should have children and i dont support them having sex so young but it happens and her family needs to stand by her side she NEEDS them right now!

I was in your exact same position when my daughter was 15.  She is 21 now and my granddaughter is almost 5.  They both still live with us and we do help alot.  I wouldn't have it any other way though.  It was not what we planned.  She was my youngest daughter and I thought I was "done".   I read the last few messages and I agree with all of them except the one who gave her baby up 21 years ago.  How sad to only hold your child for a moment then be left to wonder about him until he shows up at  your door after a lifetime of wondering about you.  Perhaps there will be a reunion on the Dr. Phil. show and he can meet his grandparents and his siblings who look like him.  

Please back up and take a look at the big picture.  Britney made a mistake.  Alot of teen girls and boys do.  I know she dissappointed you but you have to move forward and make the best of it.  Not just give the baby away and pick up with your lives and plans that you had.  It couldn't be the same.  I want to tell you what a joy you will find in your grandchild.  You will find love and strength you didn't even know were there.  I listened as you said you needed time alone to get to knoweachother again.  Wait till you see one another in grandparent roles together.  You will fall in love w/ eachother all over.  My husband and I go for weekend or overnight getaways as often as we can because we cannot get privacy at home.  We cannot imagine life without our granddaughter though.   

I wish you all the best of luck.

I have a son who is now 28 years old, married and has given me a beautiful granddaughter!  He has many friends who have had to make various choices concerning the births of their children.  When he was in high school he asked if a girl that was 17 and had just become a new mother could move in with us.  She had moved in with the father of the baby, after her mother kicked her out of the house, but they argued so much, and both had several domestic charges brought against them, (in fact, we rescued her from the city jail the day we allowed her and her baby to move in with us).  She stayed with us for four months.  In that four month period, she refused to help around the house, refused to get a job and refused to take care of her baby.   I tried to help her learn how to take care of her baby, but she would rather have my family take care of her child.  Local agencies offered me services to help me handle the costs of taking in the young girl and her child.  Our family finally came to a decision that we could no longer allow her to live with us.  I contacted out social services with my concerns of this young mother raising her child, but was told the only thing we could do is kick her out, they could not find resonable cause to remove the baby from her custody.  It was very painful to see this poor baby leave with her mother, a mother who could not, and would not raise her own child, a child that she chose to keep.  With all her good intentions and thoughts of raising her child in a loving home on her own, she could not take care of the baby.  And Phil, my sons school did the robot baby course for 3 weeks, and this young girl felt it would be no problem taking care of a living and breathing baby.  Unfortunately, we lost conatct with the mother after we kicked her out.  I could only pray that the child could and would survive.

A problem that I see with my sons friends now, is that they keep saying they "accidentally" caused a pregnancy.  His one friend, who refuses to use condoms, now has two such accidents.  The second by a girl that he dated for only two weeks.  They both decided to keep the baby, but her mother is rainsing the baby more than they are.  They are taking time out for themselves to see if they have a possiblity of a relationship.  The majority of his friends are receiving welfare and food stamps because they cannot financially afford all their "accidents".  None of these friends are idiots.  They have in their lifetimes used contraceptives or condoms, so to call these children 'accidents" is appauling to me!  They are children, and they knew when they had sex that they could conceive a child not an accident! 

It is difficult as a parent who worked very hard 24/7 to raise my children in a society that made it difficult  then, and more difficult now, to see these young people having babies that they think they are ready to raise. 

I work in a mental health facility for children and I am witnessing more and more the results of children not being raised under stable conditions.  I've always light-heartedly joked that it was job security for me, but the demands for more and more of thesse facilities because parents are finding out too late that they cannot raise their children, is becoming a scarey reality of what is to come.

Brittany will need the support of her friends and family, and her family need to set boudnaries and limits to help Brittany raise her child, if she so chooses to raise the child.

It's tough being parents.

I too have been where Brittney is. At 15 I found out I was pregnant and struggled with those choices that she now needs to make. I lived with my mother and 3 younger sisters and was verry much a good student and stayed out of trouble for the most part. I was supprised when Dr.Phil asked if Britteny planned to get pergnant by deciding not to use birth control, and realized that I guess I too planned my unexpected pregnancy. I was a poster child for the "it won't happen to me" excuse. I decided, much to my parents dislike, to keep my son and rasie him.

I have spent a lot of time over the years looking back at all the things I had to do as a mother, teen, student, and child and some of the realities that I faced. My family was insistant that they would not raise my son and that they would only help me as far as giving me the roof over my head. I was sure at the time that my son's father would leave since I didn't kow him that well (who does know their boyfriend well at 15???) and I was determined to do this on my own. I found a school in my area that taught pergnent teens and teen mothers and enrolled for the year that I had my son. This school was insturmental in my ablility to get through my education. They have a learn at your own pace structure so expecting mothers can get a lot done before the birth of their child. They also have "labs", for lack of a better term, allowing mothers to bring their child to school and every student is assigned a time in each lab to learn and care for the children. Mothers can breast feed, there are nursing visits weekly, nutrition classes, councilers, as well as all the regular accidemics. I spent one year here returning to my regular high school for my grade 11 year. I was able to graduate on time with my class in 1996

I had many struggles with finances. Although I finnished school, my husband (my son's biological father) dropped out to get a job to help support us. I knew I could not do this and go to school so I went to our social services department and signed my parental rights over to the provencce for financial assistance. This was by far the hardest thing to do as a teen mother. My son stayed with me and for all intensive purposes he remained entirely in my care however accepting the money allowed the government to take him at any time if I was not keeping up with the responsibility of being his mother.

I have been looked down on, shunned, and have not fit in most of my life since then. I only have 2 friends from high school and we have never been in the same places in our lives since then. I never went out as a teen since I had a baby to look after and I missed all the post graduation fun. As my children have grown I have found it difficult getting to know other mothers and connecting with my childrens friends families. Most of the time they treat me as if I am still a child and could not possibly know how the world works, they often do not encourage their children to make friends with mine, it is almost like they are putting up with us but hope we go away soon. Like teen pregnancy is some sort of illness they might catch.

I have been so lucky in my choices. I am now 31 with 2 wonderful boys. I am married to their father and have been for almost 11 years. We bought our home in 1998 and have both had the oppertunity to further our educations and now have good jobs. We are just a normal middle class family. I am so proud of how far we have come and know that we are without a doubt the exception.

I want Britteny to know just how much we have sacraficed and how hard it was to live with the choices I made 14 years ago. I can not say I regret my decissions and I have been so lucky to have a family that supported me with boundries and reality, however, I feel so compelled to make sure that other teen girls know the reality of teen pregnancy. I wish that as a society we would look at this as a real problem and treat it head on, not in the shaddows of the home. Thank-you Dr.Phil for bringing this to the frount of millions of minds accross the county, I can only hope that families take this oppertunity to understand that it can happen to them and stop it before it does. I wish Britteny all the best and hope her child has the furture it deserves.

Unfortunately, I have too much experience on the topic of teen pregnancy. When I was 17, I got pregnant for the first time. I was scared to death. I did a lot of thinking and talking to my mother about my choices and made the heartbreaking decision to have an abortion. I knew that I was not capable of raising a child at 17 years old getting ready to be a senior in high school. I also knew that after 9 months of bonding with my baby I would not be able to give it up for adoption. Not long after that, still 17 years old, I made the decision once again to have sex and risk getting pregnant. And I did. I got pregnant for the second time at 17, only this time I decided to keep my baby. A month and a half after I graduated high school I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. I was pregnant most of my senior year. I did not go to concerts with my friends, I went to parties and drank water or 7-up but didn't stay long because I was exausted. I was not able to go on Spring Break with all of my friends. I didn't get to fully enjoy what was supposed to be my best year of high school because I made a concious decision to have sex and risk pregnancy. I obviously knew it could happen because it had already happened to me. So, I didn't get to go off to college, enjoy my late teens early 20s, earn a degree, and get a good job. Instead, I got a job and worked hard to earn enough money to get out of my parents house and out on my own. It was not my parents job to support my child, to raise my child. It was my decision to have sex, it was my decision to have my child, so it is no one elses responsibility but my own to support her and raise her. It upsets me to hear from people young and old when they speak of getting pregnant as a surprise. It's not a suprise. You know it's a risk and yet you choose to have sex anyway...there is no surprise in that.  I have great admiration for Brittney for loving her child enough to give him to a couple who can take care of him and raise him in the way he deserves to be cared for. There is no shame in adoption, it is the most loving thing a parent can do. My daughter is now almost 13 years old and I hope and pray that she does not take the same road I took. I hope that my experience is also a lesson for her.

At age 35 I became pregnant out of wedlock and had to make this huge decision.  I decided that adoption was the best choice for both my and my baby's future.  There is no way I could have provided what I would have wanted for that child's life.  It was an open adoption, and the parents kept in touch with me over the years, loving me as well as my child.

Brittany is way too immature to care for this baby.  I can almost guarantee she will put the responsibility on her parents to raise the child.  They do not want that.  I think it would be in the unborn child's best interest to give it to parents who can provide the best future for the child.  It would be selfish for Brittany to keep the child.  If she relinquishes, she can go on with her life and have the kind of life she would really want, not saddled down with a kid.  It's really what would be best for all.  I hope she chooses adoption, but I also realize most kids today let their emotions rule and do not make the best decision for the child.

    I would just like to say that as i watched the show yesterday and saw how brittney had to take care of a robot baby.  She seemed to be taking that whole process as a complete joke! For instance like forgetting the baby at home when she was on her way for her job interview, also while her and her mother were picking out things for the baby. Nothing had seemed to be taken seriousley at all!. I have never agreed with teenagers getting pregnent. I think Brittney has no idea what she is in for the rest of her life if she thinks she can have it and raise it her own. She has no clue how to even provide or to take care of a baby and in the end her parents WILL be left with taken care of it !!