Once upon a time gymslip mums would be covered in shame - now they're revered as celebrities. But what about their lost childhoods.

THREE sisters have babies at the ages of 12, 14 and 16. Their mother blames the school and the Government for the lack of sex education, and is demanding a bigger council house for all the children. Rent free, of course.

And instead of getting on with their lives quietly, the sisters - and their mother - tell all on television and in the newspapers. Probably because it's a chance of fame and celebrity. Hard to know whether to laugh or cry, really.

But while we shake our heads in disbelieving despair, maybe we should also spare a thought for those girls, the younger two especially, rushed into motherhood when they are still children themselves.

What sort of lives did they lead? What sort of home did they have? What sort of childhood - however brief - must it have been if it made them think that having a baby at 12 years old could make it better?

Think back to when you were 12 years old with your whole life stretched out before you. Would a baby than have been just what you wanted?

Exactly. So you imagine what these girls' lives must have been like.

No ambition, no dreams, no plans, no hope.

Meanwhile, the boys, the fathers of these babies, seem to have got away scot-free. Not for them the broken nights, the disrupted education, the stares in the streets. Not for them the shared joy and the sheer hard grind of bringing up a child.

They don't even have the responsibility to provide for their little family. That's been taken away from them. Whether they're 14, 18 or 30, they've been made to feel redundant. Pointless. Irrelevant. That's not going to do much for their self-respect and sense of responsibility.

Of course, there have always been daft young girls and daft young lads - human nature doesn't change that much. But in the past, a concerned mother would want to keep it quiet, be more likely to pretend that this unexpected child was hers, not her daughter's. Amazing the number of babies born in the past apparently to menopausal mothers with teenage daughters.

Forget secrecy and shame. Now those mothers are more likely to worry about the TV rights.

TO celebrate her 87th birthday, Mary Lambert from Newcastle did a 13,000ft parachute jump in aid of charity and landed, laughing happily, in the arms of her co-diver.

Now that's what I call growing up in style.

Published: 25/05/2005