The grandma, 42, on a mission to help teen mums

A grandma aged 42 has been inspired by her isolating experience of having a baby at 18 to help teenage mums in her town.

Jodi King is using TikTok, handing out flyers in Greggs and running the support group Teens with Tots to help young parents in Shrewsbury.

“I think there's just so much stigma attached to being a young mum and a teenage mum,” said Ms King, who now has three children and one grandson.

Her group meets every fortnight and she hopes it can be a place for mums to “just offload” with other young parents.

“I wish I'd had a group like this when I had my little one,” added Ms King, who runs it in her spare time alongside her job as a youth worker.

Ms King had her daughter Jae just after she turned 18 and she found it “very isolating” at times, even though she had supportive friends and relatives.

She recalled going to baby groups that “weren't very welcoming and we were just sort of left, really”.

She added that her daughter faced similar issues when she became a mum aged 20.

Teens With Tots meet-ups, which are open to new and expectant mums up to the age of 22, have been held at venues such as The Grange Youth Centre and Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery's cafe.

Ms King puts out toys for the babies and hot drinks for the mums. She has worked with local charities to put together “goody bags” of food and nappies for those who attend, plus she organised free massages at a session last month.

The group won a £16,000 National Lottery grant in September.

The number of teenage mums has fallen in recent years, with the latest ONS data showing mothers under 20 accounted for 2.44% of live births in England and Wales in 2022, versus 4.63% a decade earlier.

The overall trend is for women and men to become parents later in life.

Shropshire mirrors this national picture, with figures showing mothers under 20 accounted for 2.27% of live births in the areas covered by Shropshire Council in 2021, versus 5.31% a decade earlier.

There have been similar drops in the parts of the county covered by Telford and Wrekin Council.

But campaigners say this small group must not be overlooked.

There is evidence that mothers under 25 have a higher risk of mental health issues, partly because they often face stigma, a lack of money, and isolation from child-free peers, according to a 2023 report co-written by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance.

Ms King has started posting about her meet-ups on TikTok, with help from her 16-year-old daughter.

“She was like: ‘Mum, nobody goes on Facebook…You need to be on TikTok.’ ”

Ms King said today’s young mums risked becoming particularly isolated, because the Covid pandemic had left many teenagers “out of the habit of being with people” so they were “relying on their phones and parenting through their phones”.

Ms King is now navigating being a young grandma. She picks up her three-year-old grandson from nursery once a week and looked after him for two days a week when he was younger.

“I see it as a superpower that I’m his nan. Everyone thinks I'm his mum and that makes me laugh,” she said.

She hopes to expand Teens With Tots to other towns in Shropshire during 2025.

“You really need to be with those people who are your peers, until you find that confidence to then go into the wider world,” she said.

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