[blazey]

I have four friends currently with new babies and their childrens dads are all around supporting their ladies. One of those friends even has a mortgage with her fella. There are a lot of girls from my school year who have kids and I know at least one of the girls has two children.

I can't think of a single one of them who doesn't have a job though and/or a boyfriend with them who is working or training to provide for their family.

My point is that yes, young girls may be starting families at a young age but in my experience around here they're doing quite a good job of getting out and getting jobs and carrying on with their lives.

We're lucky that there are creches at college and support available for young mothers and fathers if they wish to make use of the services. I think the bigger problem is helping those who have grown dependent on the system get back into work if they've lived fine enough without.

I do personally find it quite physically sickening when i hear of another friend getting pregnant because I do wonder how they will cope when I see threads like this and people saying its a massively expensive problem, but luckily they've always either had their boyfriends working long hours to scrape by or they've decided to go out to college themselves and train to make something of themselves. Sometimes a baby encourages someone to not give up and life and learn to value the opportunities they're given.

And then sadly some don't, but I think those people are a select minority and when their 'benefit baby' grows up into a child that begins achieving things at school and so on then hopefully they'll at least learn to appreciate that its not just about the benefits but about love and pride and all sorts of other things too. And its those things that make someone bad or good in my opinion, how much love and pride they receive from their mothers as children.