Baby-faced boy Alfie Patten is father at 13

Here's the article.

He looks younger than my 11 yr old... creepy.

Original Post by loriklorik:

And people said i was crazy when i thought we should make everyone sterile at birth and only reverse it when they were ready to have children and applied / went to a doctor. But wouldnt that solve ALL of the worlds unwanted pregnancies??

 YEP!!  seriously.... people think i'm crazy when i say that too, hehe

It is a weird/sad story to me, but the creepiest part to me is after looking at him and listening to him, I wonder how the girl could be attracted to him sexually and want to do anything with him! That gets me. It's the same thing with all of these weird teachers sleeping with their students. There's a story on the news in America with some thirty something year old teacher who performed orally on two boys, 15 and 16. Now, I'm sure the teenage boys just got a kick out of it and were bragging to their friends, but what the heck is a grown woman thinking when she does that stuff with boys? Don't you want a MAN? Jeez!

This is nuts.  I start reading this and thought: "Where the hell were the kids parents in all this, didn't anyone think to knock some sense into their heads and get her to abort or put the kid up for adoption.  After all, they're both minors."?  Then I read:

"Chantelle and Maisie were released from hospital yesterday. They are living with Penny, Chantelle’s jobless dad Steve, 43, and her five brothers in a rented council house in Eastbourne. The family live on benefits."

So this girl has five siblings, the family is on welfare, and in her world there are no consequences to popping kids out left and right.  Big brother will provide by stealing from the productive people out there who actually wait till they're fiscally and emotionally ready to have children. 

I'm sure this is only one of many kids to come for her.  And then the anti-abortion nuts hold them up as courageous heroes.

*Shudder.*

Bizarre... I can't imagine why the girl wanted to sleep with him!

As for all the people saying it's an indictment of sex education, I say no, this is exactly why sex education has to start early, BEFORE kids get themselves into an almighty pickle like this. Then again I'd also say that this case is so exceptional, it hardly merits questioning the value of sex education in the first place... Given it's a far more effective contraceptive than abstinence only education ever was.

oh my goodness, makes me wonder what Chantelle's life at home was really like before she got pregnant--especially with an unemployed father, five brothers all under one roof and on welfare.  That doesn't particularly add to a stable home environment & makes me wonder because I'm sure Chantelle wasn't a virgin before she slept with that young boy.  Just saying.  (well, the article doesn't say how old her siblings are, but I just find it very odd that she would choose to have sex with a 13 year old who looks even younger).

Um. That's not disturbing.... Not at all. o.O *runs away*

Edit: I don't even know how/why she would've slept with him, I would've felt like I was getting jiggy with my little brother or something. Creepy!

I wouldnt be opposed to this if alfie didnt look so much like an 11 year old, its just disturbing and his girl friend isnt very attractive either, and  maisie is a terrible name,

I could go on, but I am a little jealous, for some reason I want to be a teen parent , but that dream is fading quickly,

P,s I think a paternity test should be issued , who here actually believes he is the father, chantelle looks like the type to have multiple boyfriends,

This is a pretty shocking exception, of course, but the underage pregancy issue seems to be a big one.  Children have always been able to get each other pregnant. They're perfectly capable biologically once they hit puberty.  We've got laws of consent that make sex sub 16 illegal (but they only seem to apply when one party is well over 16.)  We've got sex education at school.  Parents are meant to protect and educate their children. However, realistically, the only thing that stopped this in the past was a combination of family expectations/standards and social approbation... shame, if you prefer.  Babies put up for adoption and taken away at birth, girls sent away into dodgy institutions like the Magdalen Laundries, 'shotgun weddings', the prospect of extreme poverty.   Mothers saying their daughter's baby was their own just to avoid awkward questions.  Barbaric, certainly, but a serious disincentive to casual underage sex.

It's nonsense to argue that we should go back to those days but what we have now is a situation where there are zero adverse consequences - material or otherwise - to siring children, any age, any situation.  So if the child has no personal standards or self-respect it's just a shrug of the shoulders... nothing to be worried about.... wait for the 'support' to come rolling in.  

From an MSN article:

"I will talk to him again and it will be the birds and bees talk," he (the father)  said. "Some may say it's too late but he needs to understand so there is not another baby."

What is it with people not even trying to sound semi-intelligent around the media?  SOME MAY SAY IT'S TOO LATE - gee, Ya think???!!!

Original Post by loriklorik:

 But wouldnt that solve ALL of the worlds unwanted pregnancies??

Considering a good portion of the world doesn't have access to basic health care like immunizations, or even potable drinking water, a sterilization program may be slightly superfluous until other issues are funded.

"Baby-faced and only 4 feet tall, the boy, Alfie Patten, was just 12 when he impregnated Chantelle, now 15"

So she slept with a 4 foot 12 year old.

*vomit*

Edit: "Alfie's father, Dennis — who reportedly has nine children — said his son told him it was the first time he had sex. He was reportedly allowed to sleep over at the girl's house."

So she has 5 brothers and his dad has 9 children...

*brain explodes*

I think that he looks far younger than 13, even younger than 11 IMO - more like 8 or 9. I think it wouldn't be so disturbing if he were one of those 6-foot-tall 13 year olds who pass for 16 (or 18 with a baby face), ya know?

Wait till puberty, at least, kids.

She looks SO much older than him.

Sad story overall. Poor kid and especially poor newborn.

Original Post by gi-jane:

This is a pretty shocking exception, of course, but the underage pregancy issue seems to be a big one.  Children have always been able to get each other pregnant. They're perfectly capable biologically once they hit puberty.  We've got laws of consent that make sex sub 16 illegal (but they only seem to apply when one party is well over 16.)  We've got sex education at school.  Parents are meant to protect and educate their children. However, realistically, the only thing that stopped this in the past was a combination of family expectations/standards and social approbation... shame, if you prefer.  Babies put up for adoption and taken away at birth, girls sent away into dodgy institutions like the Magdalen Laundries, 'shotgun weddings', the prospect of extreme poverty.   Mothers saying their daughter's baby was their own just to avoid awkward questions.  Barbaric, certainly, but a serious disincentive to casual underage sex.

It's nonsense to argue that we should go back to those days but what we have now is a situation where there are zero adverse consequences - material or otherwise - to siring children, any age, any situation.  So if the child has no personal standards or self-respect it's just a shrug of the shoulders... nothing to be worried about.... wait for the 'support' to come rolling in.  

 

 

I don't agree with you here, jane. There are consequences to having kids early: not finishing school, not developing a career, not gaining financial independence, etc. When you have kids who grow up never expecting any of those things anyway, however, there are few disincentives. Which is why education dollars (not sex education dollars, just regular-old-education dollars) go further towards lowering birthrates than do birth control dollars. If you're expecting to live in the slums on welfare all your life like everyone you've ever known,  having a kid early doesn't derail anything - it's actually the quickest way to differentiate yourself as an "adult".

Back in the day it wasn't all teen mothers who suffered social disapproval - only those who were from "good" families - those girls still get pregnant these days, too, sometimes - they just get abortions because they want to protect their futures. In the bad old days they had to be shipped off to "visit their aunt in Switzerland" for a year. Birth control and abortion rights HAVE disproportionately benefited the better-off, because they have more motivation to use them -  greater "opportunity cost". Start giving everyone else opportunities, too, and teen pregnancies drop. That's why the socialist paradises of Western Europe have such low teen birth rates; affordable education, equality between men and women in the workplace, and everyone can have a shot if they don't screw up their lives on purpose.

Unlike in the US, where you mostly die the way you're born.

I hear there is now debate about whether Alfie is actually the father as the chick was sleeping with a fair number of other teenage boys, and two of them (one a 14 year old) have asked her to do a paternity test.

Either way, it's still...   ew.

I think the creepiest thing is the fact that that girl was sexually attracted to someone who looks like an 8 year old.

She's a future pedofile, obviously.

I'm surprised more people aren't outraged at the parents.  Where were the parents, I ask you!  Any parent who lets their teenage boy sleep over at a teenage girl's house should be shot...all of them.

In today's society it's unusual, but in agrarian societies of the past it wasn't at all strange for people to be married and popping out kids at the age of 16 and under.

Today we tend to put kids into a permanent state of adolescence that lingers for a long time, sometimes lasting well into their 30s. Back in the day, there were more clearly defined boundaries between when someone was meant to be treated as a child and when to be treated as an adult. Because those rites of passage are essentially removed now, there's a general perception that these proto-adults are still children until some arbitarily decided age.

... but back in the day, I guarantee you that 13 year old would have known every aspect of how to operate a farm, including how to populate it with some of his own offspring to help out.

FWIW, it's not unusual for 13 year olds to have sex. It's unusual for progeny to result as most young women recognize they're ill equipped to deal with a child.

Original Post by hatamoto:

FWIW, it's not unusual for 13 year olds to have sex. It's unusual for progeny to result as most young women recognize they're ill equipped to deal with a child.

 It's still pretty unusual in my world.  Most of my friends and even my younger sisters' friends at least waited till around 15-17.  I only knew of one 13 year old who was not a virgin, and hers was taken without her consent!

And furthermore, just because 13 year olds get the urge to have sex, doesn't mean we, as parents, should allow it.  Were they farmers?  Are they living in an agrarian society?  Did this child need to populate his farm to survive?  Nope.  We are past that time now. 

Once again, I blame the parents for not paying attention.  When I was that age, my parents knew where I was at all times.  And I certainly wasn't playing sleep-over with any people of the opposite sex.