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Teen pregnancy perfectly natural, says Hilary Mantel
The Wolf Hall author has attacked the political consensus that teenage pregnancy is a bad thing
The Booker prizewinning novelist Hilary Mantel has challenged the consensus in British politics that teenage pregnancies are a bad thing by saying she might have had a child when she was 14 if society was more women friendly.
Last week, the government admitted that, despite a 13 per cent fall in the number of teenage girls falling pregnant in the past ten years, it had failed in its target to cut the rate by half. Schools secretary Ed Balls spoke for most when he said of the slight fall in teenage pregnancies: "It is not enough. I'm still worried about it and there is a lot more to do."
His attitude suggests little has changed in the way the political elite sees the issue since Tony Blair, launching the £280m campaign to halve the rate of teenage pregnancies in 1999, called the 46,000 girls who were falling pregnant every year "shameful".
But in an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, Hilary Mantel, who won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall, suggested that far from being shameful, having a baby in your teenage years is entirely natural.
"I was perfectly capable of setting up and running a home when I was 14," she said, "and if, say, it had been ordered differently, I might have thought 'Now is the time to have a couple of children and when I am 30 I will go back and I'll get my PhD.'"
Mantel suggested that society is too male-centric and that it is men who want to have children when they are older. "Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society's timetable," she said.
Mantel's intervention was met with near-universal criticism, with Sue MacDonald of the Royal College of Midwives telling the Daily Telegraph: "Having a baby is a life-changing experience and 14-year-olds have enough to cope with just being 14."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Teenage parents and their children are more likely to suffer health, emotional and economic problems than their peers."
However, one person who may agree with Mantel is Jasmine Guinness, a model and heiress to the Guinness brewing fortune. On BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live at the weekend, she described her mother, who was 17 when she was born, and her 19-year-old father as "the most fun, amazing parents". Apparently she also remembers her mother's 21st birthday. These are the perks of being the child of an (admittedly very wealthy) teenager that the politicians have so far overlooked. ·
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I also do not believe the state has a right to dictate at what age a person or couple chooses to get pregnant and have a baby. However, that person should not expect any additional support from the state, having made the choice. If you're responsible enough to have a baby, you should be responsible enough to support it.
I agree with Hilary. The main problem is that a teenaged mother can expect no support from society, her family and the father and his family unless the couple agree to contract to spend the rest of their lives together. The contract between all these parties should be to cooperate to raise the child, come what may, putting their own jealous egos second. It should be accepted that the couple probably will not stay together for life but the child is for life. Its biologically better for women to have children young and it puts an end to this miserable extended adolescent hedonism that our society seems to think is the peak of our existence as human beings. Having children makes you grow up in so many ways. There is also no need to own a house or be able to buy all the expensive paraphenalia tat we are encouraged to save up for in order to 'afford' to have a child. The child's most important needs are for love and attention. Yes I know I am living in cloud cuckoo land, but I have a dream.
For most of humanity's exisitence, 15 yrs was the normal age for first pregnancies. Edward II mother Elanor was 14 when she married and 15 when he was born.
Hilary Mantel, like most of the feminists, seeks to view everything concerning women, including child pregnancy, from the perspective of challenging male-centric social order. If a wider understanding of women's health and capability to build a family, let alone the problems connected with child weaning, are taken into account, the feminists writers could get a clear, pragmatic and holistic idea about the problems of child pregnancy. It may be a recent phenomena in the west but in the third world, especially in countries like India, Govt. is taking strong measures to discourage maariage before age 21, keeping in view emancipation of woman in general. Writers like Mantel should refrain from encouraging certain social order with a short sighted feministic idealogy, lest they may fail to do justice to their international stature and human responsibility.
Teenage pregnancy is natural?? It is maybe because there are large number of teenager who got pregnant. It is a big responsibility. But I have some friends who have already there child, the similarities that I have heard with them is that having a baby is really fun it releases the stress of the family. But as a teenager you cannot do the things that you wanted to do. Some have a
payday loans just to sustain the needs of their child. But I think this is just normal.