Being someone who has just waved goodbye to 23, the last thing I can imagine is being a
. In all seriousness, I am nowhere near mature or responsible enough to look after a child - and the idea of doing so makes me feel slightly nauseous. However, while I may not be in a position to have my own infant, I know plenty of people who seem to be enjoying their life with their screaming, snotty and red-faced bundle of 'joy'.
Given my apprehension at being a parent, you can probably imagine my shock at finding out that not only are plenty of people ready to play mom and dad at my age, but some people are also playing to role of
.
Yep, just when you thought TV shows such as Jerry Springer had covered it all when it comes to teenage
and underage
sex, stories like this appear. A woman, who was 23-years-old at the time she made the claim, is the world's youngest grandmother.
Ridca
Stanescu of Romania, gave birth to her daughter Maria when she was just 12 years old. While she wanted 'better' for her daughter, and had hoped that the little girl would go on to live a different life to her, Maria also became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy at the tender age of 11.
Ridca
is a Romanian Gypsy and claims that marriage is common at a young age among the community. According to the granny, she had married jewellery seller Ionel Stanescu when she was just 11 and he was 13 due to fears that her father wanted her to marry another boy in their village of Investi, Romania.
Despite her repeated attempts to persuade Maria
to stay in school, the youngster decided to wed when she was just 10 years old and gave birth to her baby boy, Ion, six months later.
Speaking about the bizarre circumstances, Ridca said:
“I am happy to be a grandmother but I wished something else for Maria – and something else for me,” she said. “I did not try to stop my daughter getting married because this is the tradition, it's what happens."
To put this into some sort of context, the average age for a woman to have their first child in the US is 28. Not only has Ridca
gone through this barrier in terms of having her own child, but she is also a grandmother before most people have their first kid - something which seems completely insane to most of us. On top of this, Ridca's
mother, who is also called Maria, had her daughter at just 17, meaning she became a great-grandmother at the ripe old age of 40.
I'm really not too sure how I feel about all of this, as having kids at the age of 11 seems both unnatural and dangerous. Still, though, next time you're fretting about acting too old for your age because you chose a night in over a night out, remember that some people are grandmas at the tender age of 23.
