A few days before the birth of our son, I ended up temporarily living with my sibling after a parent bust up, my partner joined me and being together was great even through that difficult period. He was there from the start of labour, even though it began at 1am and he was asleep until I awoke him in a fluster. He was there for the birth, held my hand during and supported me throughout. We both took turns holding our son and I knew that he would be a great dad and I knew I would be the best mum I possibly could be to this beautiful boy.

   A few weeks after his birth, we moved into our own flat. The council was useless at finding us a place but we really wanted to do this ourselves and start a proper life together. This meant we had to opt for a private let, we pay our rent and bills with his wages and my maternity pay. We do receive child benefit like everyone does and some help in the form of child tax credit and working credit but that is it. Otherwise we do it alone. We are responsible parents and providing the best for our child.

We may be young parents, at 19 and 20, but we are a a success story so far. It may be early days but right now I am so proud of us both, so happy being a mummy and looking forward to the rest of our lives.

Although I am happy with being a mum, others do not share my joy. Even though things have changed in recent years, being a young mum does still get you a lot of bad press. But I am a good mother.

In my eyes age isn’t at all the main factor in how good a mother you are going to be. I have seen some older mothers who scream and yell at their children, who have smoked while pregnant, live off the society purely because they can. Myself and a few other young mums that I know and im sure plenty others can be responsible, loving parents. I paid for the majority of my sons stuff, his £500 pram and so on, with the money I earned when I increased my overtime in the early stages of my pregnancy. I ensured that me and his father were a strong couple and it remained that way, then we found ourselves a family home. A nice, albeit rather small flat in Aberdeen. I care for my son, he is my top priority, I try to teach him and help him grow as a person. I have put my hobbies to the side line, I stopped drinking completely when pregnant, unlike some people. I tried to keep smokers away from me and now hes born I drink on the odd occasion when his dad looks after him himself to give me time off, although I check up on them every hour or so. I pretty much spend 24/7 looking after him, I get out maybe once a month. I don’t mind though, nothing in the world matters more to me than my new little family. My son and my fiancé. We are trying to build a perfect great little life for the three of us. It infuriates me to see or hear stories about other young mums who have children so they can get benefits and a house or who have them to have something to do etc. And who have a terrible attitude to being a mother. It makes the rest of us look bad! I am different and I will fight against the critics. They can not bunch all young parents together, they do not know me, my partner or our life and until they do they have no say!