When I was born, one of my grandmas was 63, and the other one was somewhere in her 50s. Typical grandma age, nothing exciting there. I knew some people had younger grandparents than I did, but nothing compared to what I just read on Monday.
Apparently, the youngest grandmother on record has just been revealed. Rifca Stanescu from Romania has become a grandmother at the age of 23. 23!!! (Great Grandma is elderly by comparison, she is 40.)
Can you imagine that? Rifca eloped at the age of 11 and had her daughter Maria at the age of 12. The reason she eloped so young was because she was afraid her father was going to force her to marry someone else that lived her village, so she took matters into her own hands. Anyway, Rifca had higher hopes for her own daughter, but instead, daughter Maria got married at the age of 10 and had a baby 6 months later (when she was 11). Doing some basic math, that leads me to believe she got pregnant first and then got married.
Yikes.
I cannot imagine being pregnant at 10. For one thing, I am not even sure if I understood how babies were made when I was 10. If I did, I certainly was not interested in participating in that activity. I think I weighed about 65 pounds when I was that age. I can’t imagine the toll a pregnancy would take on such a small body. Then of course, the physical and emotional toll of caring for a baby.
What kind of future do these people have? At the age of 10, you have an elementary level of education. Does this mom ever have a chance of getting a degree or having a career? What kind of role does an 11 year old husband take on? He can’t bring home a paycheck I don’t imagine. It is playing a child’s game of ‘house‘, but it is for real. This whole concept is so foreign to me, I wonder how common it is in other countries. Not to mention how ridiculous it is that children are allowed to get married at such a young age in the first place.
Where I grew up, some teen girls did get pregnant, but at least they were in high school. I had one friend whose mom was a teen mother- my friend was born when her mom was 16. My friend then became pregnant herself at 16 and laughed how her mom would be a grandma at 32. ha ha ha ha. Actually, it isn’t funny at all. I think babies are wonderful, but the teen years are the not the ideal time to be having children. It is a serious situation and not something to be taken lightly and laughed about. Gosh, her son would be 27 years old right now. I wonder if she is a grandma by now. I wonder why these cycles repeat? You would think that the struggles of young parenthood would be a common topic of conversation in these households and that the kids of young parents would wait extra-long to get pregnant. Or, is it ‘well my mom did the same thing, so she can’t be mad at me’?
So, out of curiosity, how old was the youngest grandma you ever knew of? Did you see many teen pregnancies when you were in high school?
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That is quite the age to become a grandma – I cant believe it. I even have a hard time with the fact that when my parents were my age, they were married and had 1 kid! I’m not even married! I couldnt imagine having a kid with a kid at my age. there were a few pregnant girls at my high school, but not all that many.
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We had a special school that the pregnant girls got shipped off too, not sure why. The school was generally for the slower kids in the district, and pregnant girls. Odd combination now that I think about it.
I think it can be hard to imagine being a parent at any age since it is such a life-changing (but wonderful) event.
At the Sun newspaper website, there is a photo of the 23-yr-old granny. She must have lived a hard life, as she looks a bit older than 23.
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Oh my gosh, when I saw that picture, I thought that she was like 50. Goes to show what having kids and being married so young will do to you.
How sad.
Not many teen pregnancies where I grew up. I suspect abortions were not unthinkable.
Where DH grew up, teen pregnancies were very common. Most of his relatives fit in that group. By the time we graduated from college, all of his friends from his town had gotten married, divorced, and remarried.
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So is your husband’s hometown getting any better over time, or worse?
My son was playing a soccer game against the school I went to a couple years ago. After the game, a boy from the opposing team (my hometown) ran up to a young girl holding a baby, and he grabbed the baby and was playing with him. I assumed that was his child. It was so strange to view a 17 year old as a proud dad. But hey, it is good he seemed to love the little guy.
I don’t know if it’s getting better over time or worse. DH’s family seems to be getting a little better, but we still hear about plenty of teen pregnancies from other families whenever we visit.
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Like I said in another comment, my girlfriend’s sister had 2 moms that were in her graduating grammar school class and one of them had 2 kids. Yeah, unfortunately I’ve seen it.
I also used to babysit when I was 11 and I cringe when I remember how horrible I was. I did not discipline the kids at all, I didn’t read any parenting books. I would have been a horrible parent at that age. I feel for the children of really young moms. Hopefully they have some adult support systems to help them deal.
I saw a picture of that 23 year old and she looked about 40. I’m sure she had a tough life.
I was totally thinking back to being 11 when I read that story and realized how awful I would have been as a mom too, had I even survived the birth.
That grandma did look awfully weathered, that is for sure.
2 kids while in grammar school???? Yikes!!
Wow, that story about the Romanian women is quite odd. 10 and 12 are really young to have children since they are children themselves!
My husband’s mother became a grandma at 49. She had my husband just shy of her 20th birthday and her daughter (three years younger than my husband) had her first child at 26. She is the youngest grandma I personally know. However, her friend became a great-grandma around the age of 50!
Of course, here I am pushing 40 and I still don’t have kids. I won’t wait too much longer as I don’t want to be the oldest mother ever. Those records are strange, too.
Great grandma at 50- that is quite young!
It can be hard to decide when to have kids. But there is a certain timeframe that is probably easier than others. You will have kids when you do. It can be a hard decision, that is for sure.
I never saw a pregnancy in my high school! I went to a boys prep school. Now, I teach in high school, I see at least one pregnant girl in my class a year. If that is not startling enough, there are single mothers and fathers in every class. I had a single mother who was 14 yrs. old in my class. She had her child at thirteen. Some as you would expect have low self esteem, many are good kids who made a mistake. I try to stay positive and encourage them, but you know their life will be more difficult because of their choices. Most of their grandparents are younger than me (64).
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Krantcents, that would have been very unique if someone had gotten pregnant in your high school!
I am sure that many of these kids are really good kids. It is just too bad they got involved in an ‘activity’ that can have lifelong consequences.
Friends of mine from high school got married while in college (not all that unusual 30+ years ago) and had a daughter at age 21 & 20. She is their only child. Their daughter got married while in college and had a child at 22, so my friends became grandparents at 43 & 42, and their daughter has had a second child. They’re very active & energetic people, so that’s certainly an advantage to starting fairly young.
You may recall that country singer Loretta Lynn was married at 13 and had four children by the time she was 19. I can’t remember if she was still in her 20′s when she became a grandmother, but it was pretty early in life – not much more than 30, I’m sure.
We had a couple of teen pregnancy cases back when I was in Catholic high school, but I didn’t hear of any cases at my kids’ high school when they were in Catholic high school. I’ve heard that there are 4 or 5 pregnancies each year in the public middle school (of about 1,000 kids) that serves our neighborhood, but I don’t know what the rate is for the public high school (about 2,000 kids) – I would guess it’s at about the national average.
Wow, that would make me a grandma if I followed the same path as your friends.
I had completely forgotten about Loretta Lynn!
It is shocking that 4-5 middle schooolers get pregnant where you live. Oh my gosh!!
I saw that article and it made me a bit sick to my stomach…
Teenage pregnancies aren’t common in my neck of the woods (or at least at one time they weren’t). Now with MTV’s teenage mom, I heard that it’s starting to happen more and more often. What a sad trend…
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MR, I really haven’t seen many teenage pregnant girls around either. Although when I was on vacation down south, I saw quite a few.
Do you have a link to the article? That is pretty crazy. Couple of teen pregnancies at my high school, nothing too shocking.
Here you go: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/gypsy-wife-becomes-worlds-youngest-grandmother-at-23/story-e6frfhk6-1226017492261?from=public_rss
Scarily enough, the grandchild is now two, and is already engaged to an 8 year old.
Heaven help us.
Growing up in India, the teen pregnancy we heard about were all due to rape/abuse or in much earlier generation, where they were actually married off at the age of 5-8! They stay with their parents until they were 11-13 and then after the men were able to make a living (the average age difference was 6-8 yrs), they start to live together. That was in our great grandparents generation. These days the legal age to marry is 21. I didn’t even know/think about how babies are made at the age of 10. And due to cultural restrictions, even people who eloped (rare in middle/upper class) did so at the age of 18~ I guess. So not many “planned” teen pregnancies… grandmother at the age of 23… scary!
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Yikes, being married off at 5. I am glad the legal age is 21 now though.
I have read about how some girls get pregnant from rape in other countries, and the poor girls are looked down on for it. So messed up.
I only knew of one girl who was pregnant when I was in high school, but I teach in the city now, and we’ve had several 7th and 8th graders have kids.
10 and 12 do seem awfully young, but their cultural context is completely different than ours, so who knows?
Why does it cycle? Because that’s what’s “normal” to them. The 2nd graders throwing gang signs at school didn’t choose the gang lifestyle after a careful consideration of the options — it’s the only thing they know.
My $0.02
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Heather, you see pregnant 12 and 13 year olds? Oh my! How upsetting. Are the parents of these young girls involved in their lives, or are these girls kind of on their own?
Some have parents around and some don’t. It’s not dozens of kids or anything like that, but definitely more than one.
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That is so sad. I feel really bad for the girls. They have no future at all when saddle with a baby at such young age.
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I wonder how much of a future girls have in general where they live. I am curious how prevalent this is, or if this family is very unusual.
Wow. I remember having a semi-meltdown when I turned 23 to my father on the phone, and he was like “Amanda, at your age I had three children under 5 and was running a farm”. It really put my identity crisis into perspective.
My family has this tradition (ugh@!) where the first born daughter has a child at 19. So it was with my sister and my cousin (both the firstborn children), and my mom, her mom, and her mom. Before that we were in Hungary, so I’m not sure then.
Thank God I am a middle child!
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Amanda, was this ‘getting pregnant at 19′ a requirement, or coincidence? I cannot imagine.
What were they thinking? Oh that’s right, they weren’t thinking!
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Well, the ‘grandma’ was trying to get out of a forced marriage. Who knows what was going on with the daughter. So very scary.
Ok, so when I saw this headline on google I thought for sure it was a joke. Seriously??? A grandmother at 23? Married at 10/11????
Well, I had my daughter when I was 16. I was married at the time as well & my husband was also 16 – we met at work (as if that fact makes alot of difference!). I had been living on my own in my apartment, going to high school and working full time since I was 14. So, yes..I’ve had those interesting life experiences and I can look back and say that I definately wanted better for my kids
And I can also say that the pattern has not repeated (thank God!)
My daughter is now almost 30 and a college graduate (and no I am not a grandmother)
My son is 21 this year and is in college with no kids (thank God!).
As for me, I put myself through college and have 2 degrees & have owned multiple businesses. Its all what you decide to make of your life. I have learned that the present circumstances do not dictate what happens a week from now, a month from now or years from now. If one decides to live differently then there are ways to make that happen without compromising ethics and morals
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I should have added…..
Would I have done it differently given a choice? Absolutely!!!!! But we cannot look backward and move forward at the same time. We accept the choices made and move forward with the knowledge that is gained by the experiences.
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This young lady looks way beyond her years. Very sad but true, as someone who grew up in the Caribbean child pregnancies were not uncommon, around the same age as this Romanian girl. Lack of education, violence and rape combined is a fact for many of these babies/girls. Looking back, now I know why our families were very protective. Unfortunately the cycle continues.
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I just can’t imagine one of my child to become a parent at a soooo young age. I mean, they are KIDS! Are they not supposed to still play with dolls at that age? Are they not supposed to still think “girls” or “boys” are evil?! I freak out when I see a 12 years old dressing up like a 18 here, imagine if I saw this same girl carrying HER baby! To me, it is child abuse.
Anyways, the youngest grandma I know was one of my aunt, she was 38 or 39, something near 40 but not yet. My cousin then had her baby at 16. And, even though she had always been a good mom, it was at the time a big taboo in the family. Fortunately, her daughter is now 19 and is not pregnant yet. Hope it stays that way for a couple of years! I mean, she still needs to live the life of a teen. My mom was in her early twenties when she got pregnant, but times had change. Most teens are not living the same way they did 30 years ago.
That’s insane in the membrane.
As for my experiences, not sure about the youngest grandmother, but I ran into someone that was a young grandfather. I was getting an oil change, and the guy was talking to his coworker and mentioned his grandchild. The guy didn’t believe him, and he swore with a serious face that he was a grandfather. The other guy asked how old the young grandpa was, and he said 27.
Yep – a 27 year old grandpa.
He didn’t seem comfortable with the line of questioning by his coworker, and changed the subject. That got me thinking that he was serious.
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I had a friend in high school who had a mother who was young enough that she was best friends with another of our friend’s older sisters. But that’s as close as I get.
I have a strange addiction to the MTV series Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant. Hopefully the show is having a positive affect on teens to make better choices.
When I was in school, safe sex messages were all over the place as a result of AIDS. I think as the problem lessened, the messages stopped, and the younger generations aren’t hearing them as much.
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LM – I haven’t seem 16 and pregnant, but I do watch “I didn’t know I was pregnant’, which features teen moms quite a bit.
I remember learning all about AIDS my freshman year in college. We were inundated with pamphlets on how to prevent it. I do know where my kids go to school, they are quite educated about safe practices. However, I am sure the quality of the education varies by school.
All I can say is wow to that.I couln’t imagine her life being in adult situations so now her daughter having a baby at 11. I was playing with Barbies at that age.
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My parents had an arranged marriage at age 13. It wasn’t their choice; the marriage was arranged by their parents (my grandparents).
Fortunately, my grandparents — half of whom were illiterate — also prized education, so although my parents were married at 13, they went on to become the first generation in my family to finish high school … and then the first generation to finish college (both parents!) And then, just for good measure, my mom got a post-graduate certificate in computers while my dad got a Ph.D.
It just goes to show: marriage and kids have the potential to slow you down, but education will lift you up.
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Oh my gosh, what a great story! Congratulations to your family- what a great example for you kids! You need to publish that story (if you haven’t already).
Grandma at 23? Wow. I really can’t imagine it either; even in ancient times I think people were at least 14 or so; at 10 you really are just a child and I can’t imagine the burden on the body not to mention the emotional toll and possible complications for the baby.
I was terrified when I read that article. Absolutely unbelievable. I recognize other cultures are different than they are in North America, but I can’t imagine being pregnant at 10/11 as being recommended anywhere.
Wow! I don’t know what else to say. I wonder how common it is to be a married mom as a teenager where she is from. My aunt (by marriage) was 14 when she had her first child (and 16 with her 2nd), and her oldest daughter got married at 14 as well! Her daughter (my cousin), didn’t have any kids in this marriage – the husband was 21 and also had a 65 year old wife that he spent the week with!
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So your aunt was a grandma before she hit 30, that is quite young too!!
Are you saying the one husband had two wives, or did I misunderstand?
No, you didn’t misunderstand! He was 21 and had a 65 year old wife, then he met my 14 year old cousin and they got married as well. Since my cousin was still in school, he lived with the “older” wife during the week and my cousin on the weekends. The marriage lasted less than 3 years (I don’t remember the exact numbers now)!
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I don’t think she’s interested in degrees and career, her greatest goal is to be a great-great-grandmother before she reaches 30!
Now that would be something
I can’t imagine having a baby at 16, much less 10 or 11!!!!!! My GOD!
The youngest grandma I ever knew was about 39. I thought that was young enough!
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