5 kids hanging off your hips by 5 different fathers.The mantra given out by the less kind social workers.

Lily and Lauren

Having a baby, as a young person in care, or as a care leaver, is not a time of joy. Your baby is not seen as a beautiful gift of life. It’s seen as a problem. A big problem.

I got pregnant whilst still in care, aged 17. I knew that once social services found out, I would move from being the looked after child to a pregnant woman who was a potential risk to my baby. Why? Because I was in care.

Automatically, a risk assessment is ordered. I knew that I was considered to be unable to love my baby ‘right’ due to my childhood trauma and what I later found out when reading my files ‘attachment issues’.

‘Jenny over identifies with adults from a middle class background and seems unable to identify with people from her own working class background. As a result, Jenny struggles to build attachments with like-minded people’.

What does this mean? Damn right I didn't want to identify with what I perceived to be people who reminded me of my own parents impoverished life, devoid of aspiration and dreams. I looked up to and aspired to be like some of the adults

who worked with me, who were, as many social workers are, middle class. Of course, I understand class with the barriers and judgments that can go alongside it far better now, and don’t always associate poverty with class any longer. But, surely, it was far more positive that I found identification with people who did not remind me of my childhood?

So, I find myself pregnant, and know from many of the other girls in my kids homes, that girls in care have their babies adopted. Right?

This wasn’t going to happen to my baby, I was determined. I hatched a plan. Become invisible to anyone who was professional. Avoid any discussion about my history. Stay off radar.

My sadness as having to give birth. Alone, scared and in desperate pain, was deep. The memory of deep loneliness and fear is what I remember from my babies birth. Antenatal classes had been avoided. I was not prepared. I had no idea. This was, I thought, a small price to pay to keep my baby.

My daughter got pregnant at 16. The saddest thing about this for me was that I carried that judgment through to her. I judged her ability to be a loving and nurturing mum on the basis that I believed, if truth were known that I hadn’t been that. If you get told often enough that you are bad, you begin to believe it. Luckily, my husband didn't share the same views. He showed me how to wrap ourselves around our daughter like a comfort blanket, and to stay right by her side, lovingly, until she was ready to go it alone. Lily is 5 years old, a beautiful, confident and cheeky little 5 years old, with a mum who is just about to embark on her social work degree in social work. Funny what can happen when love is the main component in the relationship isn't it.

Lily, aged 5.