I had my first kids from age 18 & my next 3 in my 30s, but being a teen mum was easier – the last year has been savage

The Sun

16-05-2025

A WOMAN who had three kids in her teens and three in her thirties has insisted being a young mum was a lot easier.
Carla became a mum for the first time at the age of 18, and went on to have another at 20 and another at 23.
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Then there was a 10-year break, before she had a son at 33, quickly followed by a daughter and then another son who she conceived when her daughter was seven months old.
But as her youngest son Ace prepared to turn one, Carla, 38, reflected on tackling motherhood at two different ages, and insisted one was much harder than the other.
"It has been the most savage year of my life," she sighed in a video on TikTok.
"Having the three older boys when I was younger was so much easier.
"I don't care what anyone says about teen mums. But having the older boys when I was younger was so much easier."
She added that she thought she was going to be "living my best life" in her late thirties, before life "came in at me hot".
"But moral of the story is, this last year has been absolutely savage," she said.
One of the biggest challenges she's had to face is one of her son's being diagnosed with autism, before having to go through the process of getting an EHCP and a disability funding grant.
"So if anyone else has been doing that, wow," she sighed.
"Anyway, maybe have kids young, guys!"
I was a teen mum & people said it would be my biggest regret - I proved them wrong
Carla further expanded in another video as she marked Ace's first birthday.
"I think when you're 18 or a young teen mum or younger mum, you're so not worried about other people's opinions," she mused.
"Like now I find I've got worry, I've got anxiety, I get the worst mum guilt."
And it's also the fact that we are now living in "a completely different world", with parents having to navigate "social media pressures" among other challenges, such as having a neurodivergent child.
"I also don't know whether because I have one girl and the girl is the two and a half year old, that maybe that has made it become a bit of a s**t show," she continued.
"Because girls are absolute feral beasts!"
Carla went on to say that the majority of the comments she'd received on her first video backed her that being an older mum is harder than being a young one.
"When my youngest started nursery, I would have been 21, I had a mum ask me, 'Oh, how old are you?' And I was like, '21', to which she said, 'I'm old enough to be your mum!'" she recalled.
"And I wish now that I'd have said something, I wish I'd said to her, 'Not my problem, babes, that you decide to have kids when you're nearly a nan age!'"