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The teenage mums who become nightclubbing, 30-something grannies
Daily Mail ^ | 4/28/08 | Jenny Johnson

Posted on 04/28/2008 9:58:55 AM PDT by qam1

There was a day - in a different world, granted - where becoming a grandmother for the first time meant a trip to the shops for some knitting needles and pretty pastel wool. How traditions change. Tracey Smith did come over all creative as soon as she qualified to use the title 'Granny' - but she sought out a very different type of needle-craft to mark the momentous event. Pulling down her skinny jeans, she bared all for her local tattooist, who etched her new granddaughter's name, Aliya, right across her hip, where it now vies for attention against some serious belly-button bling. Welcome to the world of the thirty-something granny, a place that is more about Heat magazine than hymn sheets, and where the only baking that gets done is with a rather garish fake tan product called Fake Bake. Tracey is 36 and a grandmother twice over. On Monday, she features in a rather jaw-dropping documentary called Britain's Youngest Grannies, which peeks into the lives of those who are embarking on grand-parent-hood at an age when many of us are still wondering whether we are mature enough to own a cat. She isn't actually the youngest granny who has agreed to let the cameras follow her 'glamorous' - according to the publicity material - life. Pauline Huntingdon, from Peterlee, Co Durham, was 34 when her daughter, Leanne, then 15, fell pregnant and made her a granny to Casie. At first, she tried to convince Leanne to terminate the pregnancy, but when Leanne refused she reckoned she had two options: she could buy a rocking chair and let retirement beckon; or she could hitch her skirt up just a little more, and hit the clubs - night, rather than golf - defiant. "Now I get called a GILF," she says, with less embarrassment than you would expect from a woman in her position. What's a GILF? "It means Granny I'd Like To F***", her daughter gleefully explains, offering the sort of information you probably don't get in Saga Magazine. "Some of the lads in the clubs call me that when they find out what age I am," says Pauline. "I suppose it's a compliment when it happens - some young lad giving you the eye can be quite nice, but it's a bit difficult, especially when I'm out with my daughter. "It's Leanne's fault they know I'm a granny. It's not something I shout about. But she's always telling everyone that I've got a granddaughter. The lads can't believe it." It's hardly surprising, really. Pauline is still only 38, and a pretty young looking 38-year-old at that. Once or twice a month she and Leanne, now 20, go clubbing together. They are never short of male attention, and invariably it is assumed that they are sisters - until Leanne puts them right. Now, though, by letting the BBC cameras follow her, Pauline is shouting about her grandmother status, and is anxious to distance herself from the scones/twin-set/tea-with-vicar image. Perhaps she goes a little far. She invites the cameras into her bedroom as she gets ready for a Saturday night on the town, volunteering fashion tips that she almost certainly didn't get from her own granny. "If I have my legs out I cover my boobs up, but if I have my boobs out I cover my legs up. Or that's the idea," she giggles. Still, even she seems demure next to the granny who goes under the most un-grannylike name of Tara and is filmed 'on the pull' in her native Norfolk, teetering along the streets in an impossibly short skirt with bunny ears on her head. It is a successful night for Tara Bailee, if success can be measured in young men snogged. Her conquest is celebrating his 21st birthday, and doesn't seem in the slightest bit perturbed to discover that she is not only a mother of four, but a grandmother of one. "I thought she was about 26," he says, which boosts her ego in a way that no number of blue-rinses could ever do. So what possessed these women to offer themselves up as examples of a new trend of modern matriarchs? And, sniggers aside, is being a grandmother in your 30s really something to celebrate - in bunny-ears or not - or to find deeply, disturbingly, shameful? Leanne Huntington always looked younger than her years, which made the sight of the pregnancy bump on her 15-year-old body all the more shocking for strangers. Mostly, they said nothing, but sometimes the tiny tuts turned into nasty comments. "She got very upset in a shop once, but didn't tell me why until later," says Leanne's mum Pauline. "Someone had looked at me, then looked her up and down and had a go, saying something like, "kids having kids, disgraceful". "I wish she'd told me at the time. I'd have had a go. I'd have said: 'Who are you to judge? What do you know about us?'" Depressingly, though, the story of the Huntington family is all too predictable, at least on the surface. Pauline fell pregnant at 17, more of a scandal in those days, but still not something that was considered rare or unusual. She accepted her lot, convinced herself that her happy-ever-after would still happen, just be hurried along by early motherhood. Disappointment followed. She did marry Leanne's father, albeit after they had become parents, but the marriage did not last. A second relationship, which produced two more children, also failed. Now she, like her daughter is a lone parent. Pauline says: "Leanne's dad and I had been together all through school, what people call 'childhood sweethearts' which sounds romantic, but rarely is," she says, perceptively. At a time when other girls were thinking of university and holidays, Pauline was pinning endless washing on lines, and scrimping to make ends meet. She took on a string of low-paid jobs in shops and factories, and wondered what might have been. She told herself she would not allow her daughter to make the same mistakes she had, but when Leanne, then 15, said that she had something to tell her, she knew exactly what that 'something' was. "I knew. I just knew. I said: 'Oh God, no!' I told her she couldn't have it. She said she would have the baby. I didn't understand. "Why would she want to give up everything, when I'd been so determined she shouldn't have to make the sacrifices I'd had to? "I wanted her to live the life I never could. I thought she'd be cleverer than I'd been." The story is repeated in every family story featured in this extraordinary - or perhaps all-too-depressingly-ordinary - documentary. There is nothing unusual about the children of teenage mums becoming teenage mums, we are reminded. Those born to under-age mothers are three times more likely to become teenage parents themselves - even if those mothers spend their whole adult lives swearing they will not let history repeat itself. Trisha Brolley, from Essex, became a mum at 15, but by the time she reached her late 20s she had become involved in mentoring young women, warning them of the perils of under-age pregnancy. She was horrified when her own daughter came home, at 16, and announced that yes, she too was pregnant. She is now grandmother to an 18-month-old girl, Keira. "I don't even look like a nan," she says. "I blamed myself. There I was, having gone through all the struggles, heartache and frightening times. "I didn't want that for her - but I didn't do my job properly. I was educating other teenagers about sex, but I let her down." Ditto Tara Bailee, 36, mum to Rickeita, 16, and grandmother to baby Lexie, eight months. (Where do they get these names!) And Tracey, of the tattoos. Neither "planned" to get pregnant so young, and spent much of their early adult life wondering what had gone wrong. Tracey missed out on so much of normal growing up stuff she went off the rails at a rather delayed stage - when her daughters were in their early teens - and started partying so hard they had to live with their father. Curiously, her girls - Lalah, 17 and Kay, 19 - seem to have had no desire to send their own lives in a different direction. Before they had left their teens they had both given birth to their own daughters, Aliya, seven months, and Tiyla, three months, and both of these pregnancies seem to have been planned. "They knew I got pregnant young," explains Tracey. "They must have thought I'd cope really well and it wouldn't hurt if they got pregnant. "I'm happy for them - I certainly don't think they've ruined their lives because they can have careers when the children are grown up. "My girls are different from other teenage mums. They've both got partners who work as shop assistants and live in housing association homes. "It's the ones on benefits who have six or seven kids and don't look after them that are the problem. "And there are a lot younger grannies than me. One of the girls told me there was a 24-year-old on the net with a grandchild. Others are 28, 30. I actually think I'm fairly old to be a grandmother." What's perhaps surprising in this documentary is that, behind all the flippant stuff of how great it is to be able to wear glittery eyeshadow when you are a granny, is some real honesty about what being a teen mum does to you. And none of it is remotely positive. Pauline says it turned her life into one big cul-de-sac, from which there is still no escape. She looks forlornly out the window and wonders what might have been, had she waited a few years for motherhood. "I would have done different things. I would have learned to drive. It sounds trivial, but money was so tight so there was never enough for lessons. And I've never been abroad. I'd love to have gone for weekends away with the girls, or even nights out. "I gave everything up for my kids. You just accepted it in those days, but now I think: 'What if?'" She was never desperately ambitious, not even for her daughter. "The things I wanted for Leanne weren't big. A good job. For her to go on holiday, to see a bit of the world, to spend £100 on a haircut once or twice in her life." Still, she feels she failed her, and perhaps she did. There is something infuriating about her vagueness when you ask how much she knew of her daughter's sexual activity. In one breath she says she knew Leanne was on the Pill at 15 - therefore 'safe'; in the next she says she was playing ostrich, with her head in the sand. "You don't like to think of your little girl being sexually active, so you block it out. I know it's stupid, in this day and age, but I did bury my head. "Now I think: 'God, how could I have been so stupid. Why didn't I just have that conversation?'" Tara's approach was even more breathtaking. She says she put Rickeita on the Pill herself as soon as she started her periods - "at 12 or 13". Why on earth would any mother do that? "It wasn't a case of giving her permission to sleep around but you can't lock a young girl in her bedroom 24/7," is the (feeble) explanation. None of the mothers seem to blame their daughters for falling pregnant, which is odd. One can hardly say sex education is lacking in schools these days. Without exception, they have been incredibly supportive about the pregnancies, and gone out of their way to help with childcare, even sharing parenting duties. Indeed, they have made it much easier, perhaps, than it might have been. Maybe that is part of the problem, rather than the solution. "I look at Leanne and think she has it much easier than I did," admits Pauline. "She goes out, maybe not every weekend, but there are people who can babysit. I do my share. At the beginning I probably did more than I should have. "She was a typical teenager living at home. You know - they expect the washing just gets done, as if by magic. "I'd come home from a day's work and find she hadn't made up the bottles, or done the washing, so I'd take care of it. There were a lot of rows. "It's so hard being the mum of a teenage mum. You want to help, but not interfere. Things were better when Leanne moved out. "We are much closer now, and she's had to assume much more responsibility." The mothers and daughters may boast of sister/sister type relationships, but the generation divide is patently clear. At one point, Tara is filmed slogging at one of the, again, low-paid cleaning jobs she has taken to make ends meet. She laughs that her daughter would never do such menial tasks. "Rickeita would never do this. I think she would rather die before she did this." It's a telling statement. For what has changed in one generation isn't so much attitudes to teen mums as expectations by teen mums. The older women accepted life would be a struggle from the moment they got pregnant. Their daughters, however, live in a world of benefits, council housing and continued educational opportunities. Leanne is studying psychology, and insists that she can still make something of her life. "OK she has had to accept benefits, but that is a short-term thing until she can get herself established. "She wants to better herself, and I think she will. She has more ambition than I ever had," says Pauline. Maybe it's understandable that, watching their daughters take their first (premature) steps in motherhood, the thirty-somethings here feel a certain nostalgia, both for the life they had and the one they lost. Tara fizzes with excitement when she takes her granddaughter to a mother-and-toddler group, but looks forward with equal relish to her monthly night out clubbing. She admits her new-found love of partying comes from one simple fact: she was so busy being a mum in her teens and 20s that she "forgot" to be a young woman. "I'm having more fun as a grandmother than I ever did in my teens," she says. Tracey, too, seems to be enjoying her grandchildren more than she did her own children. ("it's so nice to be able to give them back."). In the next few weeks, she'll be back in the tattoo parlour, having little Tiyla's name etched on that midriff. One hopes that her taut abdomen will withstand the rigours to come. Tracey's daughters are still only 17 and 19 - with plenty of child-bearing years ahead.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: genx
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To: RepoGirl

You and me both when it comes to “parents as friends.” That has to be one of the most disturbing trends I’ve seen over the last 25 years.


21 posted on 04/28/2008 11:19:55 AM PDT by stylin_geek (Liberalism: comparable to a chicken with its head cut off, but with more spastic motions)
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To: scan59
I grew up in an isolated suburb of Houston in the 70's-80's. Almost every girl was put on birth control "to control her periods". But, at least to my knowledge, it wasn't done until they were 15 or so.

Some girls had sex, some didn't. What they didn't have was babies. My entire high school experience, in a school with over 2000 students, there was one pregnant girl (top ten in her class, got married to the father).

When i see these pregnant teens today, often with a baby already, i think "my god, how can you be too lazy to take birth control?". Sadly, it seems that pregnancy is just viewed as a condition, and a child is something you deal with rather than something you cherish.

22 posted on 04/28/2008 11:21:50 AM PDT by jdub
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To: qam1

WOULD NEVER HAPPEN WITHOUT WELFARE.


23 posted on 04/28/2008 11:26:02 AM PDT by ikka
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To: stylin_geek
Bring them on, this is all the ‘old gals’ HAVE GOING FOR THEM. I wonder what is going to happen when Grannie gets pregnant, and they wants her daughter to baby sit for her?

These people have no moral scruples, and the British Welfare state has made it possible to sleep all day and party all night. Nice work if you can get it. Me I would rather have a nice neutered mama cat for a companion.

24 posted on 04/28/2008 11:26:46 AM PDT by BooBoo1000 (Some times I wake up grumpy, other times I let her sleep/)
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To: BooBoo1000

Well, how about when thirty something mom brings home mid-twenties boyfriend...and daughter steals boyfriend....


25 posted on 04/28/2008 11:37:57 AM PDT by stylin_geek (Liberalism: comparable to a chicken with its head cut off, but with more spastic motions)
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To: qam1

My wife turned 39 in March and I turn 39 on Friday...Yieks). Our oldest just turned 10 so we cannot relate to this thank goodness. lol.


26 posted on 04/28/2008 12:00:49 PM PDT by napscoordinator
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To: ikka
WOULD NEVER HAPPEN WITHOUT WELFARE

Gosh, if I were a leftist, I would be at a loss as to how the two relate. After all, people really don't rationally respond to incentives, so any incentive created by any liberal program couldn't actually cause people to act differently. /sarc

27 posted on 04/28/2008 12:03:39 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: qam1
What say you all?

GILfy Guilty Guilty GILfy


28 posted on 04/28/2008 12:04:57 PM PDT by OeOeO (Sic Transit Gloria Mundi... Gloria get me a beer,and hurry..)
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To: MrB
Gosh, if I were a leftist, I would be at a loss as to how the two relate. After all, people really don't rationally respond to incentives, so any incentive created by any liberal program couldn't actually cause people to act differently. /sarc

Oh, it's easy: just remove the moral component of any human activity and reduce them all, and their consequences, to the realm of "fortune/misfortune." As an example, the person who works hard, plans for the future, and makes himself successful is "fortunate." The person who squanders opportunity and makes excuses is "unfortunate" (or "less fortunate," or "fortune-challenged" if you REALLY don't want to offend anyone).

Now, on the surface, this philosophy seems very dehumanizing and degrading, but lots of folks seem to be OK with it.

29 posted on 04/28/2008 12:15:40 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass
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To: qam1

30 posted on 04/28/2008 12:19:44 PM PDT by krb (If you're not outraged, people probably like having you around.)
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To: qam1

31 posted on 04/28/2008 12:20:32 PM PDT by krb (If you're not outraged, people probably like having you around.)
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To: Trailerpark Badass

I’ve summed it up in the two undeniable truths of “liberalism”.

1) Modern liberalism is nothing but making those who make good decisions pay for the consequences of those who make poor decisions.

2) Modern liberalism promotes no individual freedoms outside of those relating to sexual behavior choices.


32 posted on 04/28/2008 12:25:49 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: Bear_Slayer; stylin_geek
My own brother gave his own kids much more freedom, but he raised them with maturity and expected high standards from them.

That is the key, IMO.

Kids are Worth It!: Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline
By Barbara Coloroso, was very helpful to me.

Some of her quotes:

Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children's learning—to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline—an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child's learning and leave a child's dignity intact cannot be called discipline—it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.

Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family.

Our children are counting on us to provide two things: consistency and structure. Children need parents who say what they mean, mean what they say, and do what they say they are going to do.

More here.

33 posted on 04/28/2008 12:31:55 PM PDT by fanfan ("We don't start fights my friends, but we finish them, and never leave until our work is done."PMSH)
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To: jdub
When i see these pregnant teens today, often with a baby already, i think "my god, how can you be too lazy to take birth control?".

Well, since ovulation can still occur when on the pill (it's an abortifacient), perhaps they aren't "too lazy." Maybe they got pregnant despite the pill.

Conversely, when I see a pregnant teen, I think, "Wow, there's someone who chose not to have an abortion in our abortion-loving society."

You seem to confuse a lack of visibly pregnant girls at your high school with a lack of pregnancy. Perhaps the culture you lived in favored abortion over birth.
34 posted on 04/28/2008 12:40:54 PM PDT by Zechariah_8_13 (If our nation elects Obama, will we become an Obamanation?)
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To: Bear_Slayer

A few weeks ago I was a model for a hair show. One of the models was 18 years old, juinor in high school, going part time to a technical college, and worked part time. To look at her she would probably be judged as wild looking with her different colored hari (which is now a pretty red with blonde highlights after the show). We were talking about my children. She said she thought parents should give their children freedom, like her mom did with her. To talk to her further, she was very level headed, talking about a research paper she had written for school about ADD. She also said she had only gone on her first date in the last few months.


35 posted on 04/28/2008 12:43:52 PM PDT by HungarianGypsy
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To: qam1
Pauline Huntingdon, from Peterlee, Co Durham, was 34 when her daughter, Leanne, then 15, fell pregnant and made her a granny to Casie.

So...they finally figured out what causes it?

36 posted on 04/28/2008 12:57:44 PM PDT by gogeo (Democrats want to support the troops by accusing them of war crimes.)
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To: qam1

I once worked with a really attractive woman of 30 who had a 16 year old daughter.


37 posted on 04/28/2008 2:24:36 PM PDT by Clemenza (I Live in New Jersey for the Same Reason People Slow Down to Look at Car Crashes)
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To: MrB
I’ve summed it up in the two undeniable truths of “liberalism”.

1) Modern liberalism is nothing but making those who make good decisions pay for the consequences of those who make poor decisions.

2) Modern liberalism promotes no individual freedoms outside of those relating to sexual behavior choices.

Yep, liberals have managed to eliminate both sin and virtue, the interplay between which gave human civilization its richness and excitement.

Now, humans are reduced to the totality of their poorly-controlled biological impulses or, even worse, ignorant boors at the mercy of some mysterious controlling force.

In other words, liberals have managed to make human life on Earth pointless.

38 posted on 04/28/2008 4:31:27 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass
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To: qam1; Clemenza
"Now I get called a GILF," she says, with less embarrassment than you would expect from a woman in her position. What's a GILF?
39 posted on 04/28/2008 10:40:59 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
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To: Paleo Conservative

‘Grandmother I’d like to F**k’...


40 posted on 04/30/2008 2:52:39 AM PDT by the scotsman
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