Kaye's Days

Normally, if I make a post for commentary, it’s on a site article or blog post. This time, it’s on a response at Yahoo Answers.

On YA, a girl asked why people say not to become teen parents when many claim to have beat the odds and become successful. Most of the answers explain why and then, there’s this:

Why not? If you have a strong relationship, stable income, and the ability to finish school, there is no problem. I mean it. I’m planning my second child at eighteen. I’m a high school senior taking all AP and Honors classes. We live in a nice four bedroom home. I’m married to my daughter’s father. My daughter is a smart, happy, and healthy two year old. She’s learning English, Spanish, and Japanese. She can sing her ABC’s and count to ten in all three languages. We are a happy family with a flourishing business. We had income even when I was fifteen and he was sixteen. We’re smart and know how to bring in money (yes, legally). Why does that bug people? We are causing no harm to anyone. We aren’t harming our daughter either. We aren’t taking in benefits and instead pay sales, business, and income tax. We are productive, normal members of society.

The whole “go to college, buy a house, travel” thing is bullsh*t in my opinion because it’s not a requirement before an adult chooses to have children. Only 27% of Americans have a college degree. Only 60% own homes. 68% of children are growing up in a single parent household. 71% of pregnancies to woman 20-29 are unplanned.

In my opinion, if you can make it work, go ahead. It was our choice to be young parents. We planned out the rest of our lives when we were young. So far everything has worked as planned. I still want to study to become a doctor, he just recently opened up his shop. Our daughter is always ahead on her milestones. The expectations should be the same for both adults and teens. Age isn’t enough to determine if a couple can handle children or not.

Now, I realize I don’t know much, but this doesn’t sound very plausible to me for a few reasons.

1. She is supposedly 18 years old and her husband is a year older than her, but she claims to live in a four-bedroom house. Who would sell a house to a couple that young, especially when one of them is still in high school? Doesn’t that mean there’s a chance she was sold the house before she reached the age of majority? Is that even legal?
2. She claims she and her husband have a flourishing business and they had income even when she was sixteen and he was fifteen. Tell me, how can teenagers run a business?
3. This might be irrelevant, but where on Earth were this girl’s parents? I would love to know how they were able to allow their teenage daughter to run an actual business before she was even a legal adult.
4. She says she wants to study to become a doctor and her husband recently opened a shop. Unless he runs that shop from inside their home or takes their child to work with him, I’m assuming this kid is in daycare. She’s planning for a second kid. Unless she’s going to go to medical school part-time (is that possible?), who’s going to watch that second kid if her husband is working? Unless her or his parents are doing it for them.