‘WE’RE PROUD TO BE TEEN PARENTS’
TOGETHER, ELLA, 17, AND LOCHLEN, 18, ARE KICKING THE STIGMA SURROUNDING THEIR AGES TO THE KERB
Walking down the street with their baby boy, Nash, Ella and her partner, Lochlen, are used to strangers staring.
They are familiar with disapproving looks, hearing how they are too young to be parents and the words, ‘they won’t amount to much’.
But Ella, 17, and Lochlen, 18, are tackling the stigma surrounding teenage parenthood head-on. They are determined to build a bright future for their 7-week-old son.
“We couldn’t be happier,” Ella, from Raymond Terrace,
NSW, tells New Idea.
“We’d always wanted to have children young because we both love kids. It’s been physically challenging so far and we aren’t getting a lot of sleep, but he’s a pretty good boy and we are learning to recognise whether he is hungry or tired from the way he cries. So far, so good.”
Ella’s pregnancy was far from smooth from the day she found out she was four weeks along. After announcing her exciting news, Ella says she faced a lot of opposition from her family, who thought she wasn’t ready to be a mother. She also lost a lot of friends, especially when she dropped out of school at 16 to work full-time at Mcdonald’s to save money for a pram, cot and nappies.
“My stepfather and sister didn’t welcome the idea when I told them, but I stuck to my guns,” she says. “Mum was a bit disappointed, too, but she knew I’d always been good with kids and I wasn’t going to change my mind. Now they are all completely in love with Nash and we couldn’t imagine life without him.”
After leaving school when he was 16, Lochlen worked as a chef before recently landing a job as a mechanical fitter in a coal mine.
The proud parents are currently living with Ella’s family. Lochlen says they plan to use this time to save money to buy a home of their own in the near future.
While they have both copped a bit of flak from their friends who are out partying every weekend, they admit they have always preferred a night in front of the TV to a thriving nightclub.
“Even before Ella was pregnant and our friends were all going to festivals in Sydney, we preferred staying home and watching a movie together,” Lochlen says. “Some of my mates are pretty big on parties, but they also don’t have a fulltime job and a family like I do. I’m happy with where I’m at.”
Although Ella describes her birth as “traumatic” after delivering Nash, weighing 3.7kg, naturally following a 40-hour labour, she is still planning on expanding the family in the future.
While they are both used to the stigma and the stares when they walk down the street pushing Nash in
‘THE BEST PART OF HAVING A BABY SO YOUNG IS THAT WE’LL GET TO LOVE OUR BOY FOR LONGER’
the pram, Ella and Lochlen said they couldn’t be more proud of their baby boy.
“Every time I leave the house I remind myself: ‘Who cares what people think – it’s our life,’” Ella says.
“But we’ve been doing so well and we’re financially stable. Nash has everything he needs, probably too much. The best part of having a baby so young too is that we’ll get to love our little Nash for longer.”