I was a teenage mom at 13 – now I want four kids before I’m 20
A teenage mother who became pregnant at age 13 says she wants to have four children by the time she turns 25.
Maddie Lambert-Crowley dropped out of school after becoming pregnant with her first child. She has since welcomed her second child and earned her first degree.
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Maddie did a Q&A on YouTube this week and candidly talked about wanting more kids with her husband Randy Crowley.
She currently has six-year-old Everly Joy with her previous partner and with Randy she also has a baby, Ryder James, who was born in March.
She shared: “Do I want more kids? Yeah, people think I’m crazy, but I think we definitely want at least two more kids.
“I know I made a crazy change; people think, ‘Oh, Maddie’s the smart teenage mom, she’s not going to have more kids right away.’
“But honestly, I want a big family.
“I want to fill my home with love.
“Although I am young, I am at an age where I can support my children financially and emotionally and give them a good life.
“I think those three qualifications make me more qualified to be older than someone who is 30.”
Maddie and Randy got married while she was pregnant with Ryder and tied the knot in an outdoor ceremony last September.
She added that she doesn’t think “age has anything to do with your ability to be a parent.”
Maddie continued, “Randy and I want a big family, and we’re so blessed to be in a position where we can have that big family and support them financially and emotionally. “Honestly, we’re just going to go with the flow; we’re going to see what happens.
“I love being a mother, it feels like my calling.”
Even though I am young, I am at an age where I can support my children financially and emotionally and give them a good life
Maddie Lambert-Crowley
Parenting courses
However, Maddie did admit that it was not wise to have children at such a young age.
She added: ‘I don’t recommend having children as a teenager because you don’t know the things you need to know to be a parent.
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“But I am certainly better informed, also scientifically, about different practices.
“Randy and I took a child psychology course together and we learned a lot about development and how we can help with that, which was great.
“I think I’m just a lot more informed now. Things like schedules, what we feed our kids and things like that have changed a lot since I grew up.
“Not really since I had another child; I feel like my parenting style has changed as I’ve gotten older and more mature.”
Maddie shared how passionate she is about her education and that she will be starting a bachelor’s degree in September, with the hope of doing a master’s degree after that, possibly followed by medical school.
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She added: “I’ve talked a lot about going to medical school, and I think that would be really fun. I do want to go to medical school, but I’ve also talked to a lot of medical professionals.
“I’ve spoken to physicians, residents and nurse practitioners and one of the biggest consensuses I’ve heard is that medical school equals debt and it wastes a lot of time.”
Cruel comments
The mother of two has previously spoken openly about the “hate” she received when she told the world she was pregnant at the age of 13.
“Whenever you see the media about teenage mothers, you see the TV shows, and they’re just really negative and show a lot of drama,” she told Truly.
“When I actually got pregnant, I was so scared of people’s reactions.
“I got a lot of negative reactions, a lot of hate.”
Statistics of teenage mothers in the UK
Since 2007, the number of teenage pregnancies in the UK has fallen significantly…
The percentage of conceptions under the age of 18 has fallen significantly since 2007, reports show Nuffield Trust.
Between 2007 and 2021, the conception rate among women under 18 in England and Wales fell by 68%, from 42 per 1,000 women to 13 per 1,000 women.
This resulted in 13,131 pregnancies under the age of 18 in England and Wales in 2021.
People told the then-teenager that she had “ruined” her life, with one troll even wishing her death.
“Everyone had something to say and they didn’t hold back,” she continued.
“People sent me the addresses of abortion clinics.”
Other girls at school made fun of Maddie and put sports balls under their tops to imitate her belly when she was seven months pregnant.
This made her decide to quit.
Maddie firmly believes that teenagers pregnancy is not something to look down on young girls.
She has openly admitted that she judged teenage mothers before she became a mother herself, but now she sees it differently.
