A 29-year-old man is set to become one of Britain’s youngest grandfathers when his 14-year-old daughter gives birth this summer.
The man has been accused of trying to “cash in” on his daughter’s pregnancy after it was claimed that he contacted a number of media organisations before selling his family’s story to a Sunday newspaper for tens of thousands of pounds.
The man, who claims he is keeping his identity a secret to protect his young daughter, said: “It’s like history repeating itself.” He admitted that he became a father at 14 back in 1996.
Tough
He said he is “fuming” that his daughter, who has just started studying for her GCSEs, is eleven weeks pregnant.
“I know myself how tough it is being a teenage parent and now she has to go through the same thing”, he said.
The man will be 30 at the time of the birth, making him only slightly older than Britain’s youngest grandfather, who was 29 when his son, 14, fathered a child in 1997.
Shocked
In this latest case, the grandfather-to-be revealed that his mother, who is 47, was originally shocked to hear she was becoming a great grandmother but is now excited by the prospect.
He added: “Her own mum is alive, and so too is her grandmother, who will become a great-great-great grandmother.
“There can’t be too many families with six generations alive at the same time”.
Concerns
The schoolgirl is said to have became pregnant by her 15-year-old boyfriend, who she had been seeing for a few months.
This latest story is likely to heighten concerns over the problem of teenage pregnancy.
The Labour Government showered over £300m on measures to reduce teen pregnancies, which included pushing sex education and contraception to teenagers, but the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has been slammed as “absolutely disastrous”.
Pregnant
In September the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued controversial guidelines encouraging schools and colleges to hold antenatal classes for pregnant pupils.
Harriet Sergeant, writing in the Daily Mail, blasted the guidelines, asking “is it really the job of a government body to make out that schoolgirls having babies is so normal and acceptable that we should be paying for classes for them?”
She added: “We are meant to look after children. That should never mean encouraging children to have children themselves.
Chuffed
“Surely schoolgirls will see these classes and presume that the message from the school is: It’s OK to get pregnant.”
In 2009 press reports revealed that two 13-year-old boys had got their teenage girlfriends pregnant.
One of the boys, from Manchester, said he was “chuffed to bits” to be a dad at 13.
Promiscuity
The other boy, from Dorset, also hit the headlines after getting his 14-year-old girlfriend – who attended the same school – pregnant.
Family campaigners argue that children should be encouraged to delay sexual activity.
Norman Wells of the Family of Education Trust said in 2009: “The Government’s teenage pregnancy strategy with all its emphasis on sex education and making contraception freely available to young people is creating a climate in which teenagers think it is normal to be sexually active under the age of 16.”