A 15-year-old girl is much more mature than a 13-year-old boy. I would say she was wanting to "try sex," and she found a little boy to try it with. Maybe not rape, since she was not quite 16, but surely she took advantage of him (and ruined his life).

I knew what I was doing at 15 - but I was quite naieve at 13.

I was only responding to a post saying she must have raped him. Technically it was the other way around.

Stop it! What makes you think it was all her, it takes two to tango!

Carol

I bet she knew what she was doing, looking at her she looked a lot older, silly girl, you cant tell me she didnt know the consequences

Actually, at the point of conception, he was 12 and she was only 14 - but the same point applies.

If HE was 14/15, and SHE was 12/13, I bet the media (and the police) would be singing a very different tune.

The grandparents are on welfare, so they should be alright

I'd be asking for a DNA test, if I was the boy. She's getting on a bit, compared to the age of most of the pregnant teens I see. I am not joking.

Surprise, surprise - that's what the red tops were saying in the local shops just now when I went in to buy the Sunday paper.

I don't think you can just blame the parents. Bad parents have existed since the year dot and teenage pregnancies were unheard of then.

I think the whole of society have to take responsibility for force feeding our children with a diet of sex and glamour on TV, in magazines, through the media and in other major influential ways. Society has made sex 'cool' and kids have been placed under the pressure and left unprotected from someone having the balls to take a moral stance for far too long.
How can we be surprised now at the number of teenage pregnancies, blame the parents but say and do nothing about what they are exposed to outside of the home?

Sorry but I think that's rubbish. As soon as a girl reaches puberty, she is technically ready for children. In many countries she would be married and have several children by the age of 15. It's only in the last 100 years or so that Britain has considered it morally wrong for this age to have children, it was commonplace prior to this. Absolutely nothing has changed, regardless of the quality of parenting, regardless of the sex education and totally regardless of the media or society.

I don't care how well educated a girl and boy are, or whether their parents are on the 'social' or pillars of the community. How many amongst us can say, hand on heart that they didn't have sex earlier than they should have? How many of us have had unprotected sex after a heavy night out? How many have much loved children who weren't planned?

Whilst I don't and never would condone underage pregnancy, to label it a modern problem and blame society is totally wrong. It's a fact of life and always has been.

I think it's very sad that a child creates a child at such a young age but there are posters on this site (as well as in the 'real world' who did, who have a loving relationship with the father still, who have never claimed benefits, who have finished their education and got good jobs and who have very strong family units. They are not all out for what they can get and many are more than capable of being loving wonderful parents.

Did I say they didn't? What I said was, that the parents alone could not be blamed solely for the situation. The whole of society has to be responsible because that's where children are taking their influence from.
Years ago there was no media like there is today so children today are in direct contact with influences and ideals that they would not have had exposure to 100 years ago. Their lifestyles have been speeded up 100 times more than their predecessors by the information and messages they receive today. Therefore they act and mimic what they are exposed to and what they think is normal. If you took this away, from where would they draw their main influences???
Society encourages pregnancies today because it pays to have children. Years ago it was frowned upon so the incentives were a whole lot different then than they are today. We need a new rulebook and a whole heap of new incentives to send our children different messages.

My 'rubbish' comment mainly related to I still don't think that society and the media play a huge part. Kids at puberty have the hormones rushing and generally not much of a clue as to why or what to do. They are adult in body but not in mind. A few may see sex as cool and do it for that reason, I believe the majority are just going with what their body tells them and that is that they are ready to procreate and it feels nice so they do it.

Our society says it's wrong. The society in other nations says it's right and proper and don't understand why 'we' leave it so long.

Just out of interest, have you had teenagers? Have you been a parent? I have and am.
I also work in fashion and retail. I witness today's 'children' being over exposed to so many explicit influences that only a decade ago, they would never have seen.
Teenage girls are so over sexualised at a young age that it's not hard to wonder why we are seeing so many of them out there pushing buggies and on benefits.
Society has bred it's own bad situation by not protecting young people from influences that they just don't have the maturity to deal with. They may well be sexually advanced and have urges but they sure don't have the wisdom or the mental development to deal with the consequences.
I was never bullied at school into having sex and neither were my children. A lot of children today are. The pressures on kids today are enormous and mostly that's because they are a soft target directly rained on by the media for just about everything from fashion and food to sexual development and behaviour.

I have two teenage girls but I'm not sure what that's got to do with the price of eggs I don't think there are any more girls pushing buggies than any other time in history. Only difference is, in previous generations the girls were packed off to 'Aunty Jane in Scotland', had the baby and it was put up for adoption.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Yes the media does throw those things at us every day but as a a mother of 2 daughters, 1 close to being a teenager it is in my hands, not hers, as to whether she falls pray to that media hype. My niece is a similar age to my daughter yet her mother lets her have multiple ear piercings, colour her hair, wear slutty clothing, watch Home and Away and lets her stay out till all hours. I don't allow my daughter to do those things. I think parents have an awful lot to answer for in how the next generation of teenagers are growing up and what is deemed appopriate now just wasn't when I was a teenager. Morals and standards are different and not for the better IMO.