I was born when my mom was 19.
She is a very ambitious, driven, loyal, hard-working person.
She just was not mentally ready to raise a child at that age, and neither was my 22 year old dad. They divorced after 2 years.
According to her, he didn't want much to do with me. Pretty typical Detroit dad, I guess.
According to me, as I can remember what my mom was like in her early 20s, she was a person without self-control. Every good quality she had was offset with a bad one, and as luck would have it being raised by this person I was gifted with similar attributes so I could talk about them at length.
People are biologically ready to reproduce at what most people consider a very early age. Why not, it is advantageous in a tribal society.
Here comes my point.
We obviously do not live in a tribal society. Today's world is complex enough nobody has quite enough time to properly mature into the type of person necessary to take account of all possible responsibilities before this desire to procreate emerges. What's worse, puberty seems to begin earlier today than 100 years ago.
18/19 year olds in general are not mentally mature. Very few people are at that age. By having a child at that age you are taking a huge risk, with the greater risk lying in the parents ability to
raise the child, not just feed it and watch it grow for 18 years.
My sister is 18, and according to an email I received from my mom, pregnant.
She does not have a decent job, she lives with her boyfriend who is of shady quality, she is a freaking pothead, she's a slob, she is lazy because her dad spoils her, she has no ambition, dropped out of high school despite having a gift for math, and when I asked her if she was going to keep it or not, she said "I dunno". I thought "This person can not
possibly be related to me." There is no way in hell this kid could turn out right without a massive family intervention.
On that note I will tell you about my Filipino friends whom I have known since high school. Their family structure uncannily resembles my own.
My friend's sister got pregnant and had a child at 18.
She too, was a high school drop out. Maybe she got her GED, I dunno, who cares. Anyway this girl's child is over a year old now and walking and
quite adorable.
This girl has not yet the single party life go.
She frequently drops off her kid to her mom and brother, whom are essentially raising her. Dad is in the Philippines, but they are not separated or anything. The child's dad is kind of a bum. He too, is very young. Can't be more than 20 and is certainly not in any sort of child-rearing condition. He does not "raise" his child. His baby's mama's brother and mom and sometimes best friend on occasion when this kid gets brought over, which is frequently, raise this child. Lucky for her to have such a supportive family as her mom prances around the night life in the Yukon she was given last year.
Now to the exceptions, we have the two other fili brothers, and my two older brothers. 3 kids to each side. My brothers are not much older than me, and are raising great kids at a young age. Not 18/19 young, but to me mid-20s is pretty young, which is why I have not committed to such a thing yet. They are doing great despite not having much luck financially. Hard times down in south Florida right now. My friend's brothers are also raising children at a young age, early 20s, and doing quite well from what I can see. One of then entered a relationship with a girl who already had a child at 17. They lived with me for a while and there was a lot of drama. The kind that drives people crazy, but in this case they stayed together and had twins, and I think found the right formula, and will be great parents though dad should turn off the X360 every once in a while.