The mother-of-14 without a husband who wants another baby to compete with her pregnant 15-year-old
When Joanne Watson learned that her 15-year-old daughter was pregnant earlier this year, she confesses to feeling shock and disappointment — but not for the reasons you might expect.
Never mind the struggles that her daughter would face as a teenage single mum; Joanne was jealous that it was her daughter expecting a baby and not herself.
‘I’d just done a pregnancy test of my own and it was negative. I came downstairs and that’s when Mariah said she had something to tell me,’ Joanne says.
‘I somehow knew immediately that she was going to tell me she was expecting a baby, and it was the last thing I wanted to hear after doing my own test. I said: “I don’t want to know.” But there was no avoiding it. We went to the doctor’s and she was eight weeks gone.’
Mum of Britain's biggest family Joanne Watson, 40, left, stands at the head of her 14 children at their family home in St Martin, Guernsey: From left to right, Indianna, two; Tallulah, three; Armani (known as Arnie), five; Nerilly-Jade, six; Lilly-Arna 7; Charlie, nine; Febrianne, 10; Brittany, 11; Caitlin, 12; Georgia, 15; Mariah, 15; Shanice, 19; Bradley, 20; and Natasha 22
An astonishing response? Well, yes. But then Joanne, 40, is no ordinary mum. For including Mariah, she has 14 children, ranging in age from 22-year-old Natasha to two-year-old Indianna. Oh, and since her divorce three years ago, she’s a single mum, raising them all (you guessed it) on state benefits. Shocked? It gets worse. For Mariah is not the only one of the brood to have become a teenage mother. Her two elder sisters beat her to it.
Natasha got pregnant with her son Branford, now six, when she was 16, while Shanice, now 19, gave birth to a baby boy at 17 and recently had another son.
Now Mariah has followed in their footsteps, making a hat-trick of gymslip mums.
So does Joanne feel culpable for allowing her three daughters to embark on motherhood while they are still children themselves? Not a bit of it. It turns out she’s far too busy continuing her quest to expand her own brood, and is actively trying for another baby with her part-time lover.
When I suggest that some people may think this highly irresponsible, she responds with an angry snort of derision. ‘It’s not my fault I’m in the situation I’m in,’ she says. ‘I have my children because I love being a mum — not for the money.
‘It makes me really cross when people accuse me of sponging or having children for benefits. I get pregnant very easily and I could never have an abortion — it’s just not something I agree with.’
Another baby, Augustine, tragically died within hours of her birth in the mid-Nineties.
All of these children were born in wedlock to the same father — 46-year-old John, a lorry driver with whom Joanne used to share her four-bedroom council house on the island of Guernsey.
But their marriage broke down in 2008 after a series of bitter rows, and for a time Joanne appeared to resign herself to life as a single mother who had completed her family.
That was until last year, when she met a new beau, local delivery driver Craig Le Sauvage, 35. The couple discovered she was pregnant within three weeks of their first encounter, but Craig pledged to stand by her and, after proposing to her in October, was all set to become a stepfather to her gigantic brood. ‘The bravest man in Britain!’ ran newspaper headlines at the time.
Ten months later, it transpires that Craig was not so brave after all. When Joanne lost their unborn baby at 20 weeks in November, he responded by calling off the wedding.
‘To be honest he was embarrassed that I had all these children and didn’t want to be seen in public with me,’ says Joanne now. ‘He was really worried about what other people would think. Sometimes if we were going out, he would want to go separately in another car and drive behind us.’
But that’s not quite the end of the story. For by her own admission, Joanne was so desperate to get pregnant again that she continued to have unprotected sex with Craig.
‘He sent me a text telling me it was over but that he might see me later for sex,’ she says blithely. ‘I didn’t mind because, in my own way, I was just as bad. We had a very physical relationship and I wanted another baby.’
The pair have been enjoying ‘no-strings’ relations ever since, with Joanne increasingly frustrated that she’s failed to conceive. ‘It’s obvious something’s wrong, because having had all these babies, for me not to be pregnant again by now in all this time is odd. If anyone knows how to get pregnant it’s me.’
Hence the jealousy when her 15-year-old daughter Mariah revealed her own little secret.
It’s the sort of dysfunctional family scenario that would leave Jeremy Kyle Show audiences salivating.
Yet amid this tale of teenage mums, casual sex and irresponsible parenting, perhaps the most shocking element is that Joanne feels not a shred of shame about her expanding family.
Small wonder, then, that the legacy she has passed down to her daughters is a total absence of understanding about the enormous consequences — practical and emotional — of single parenthood so young.
The latest to become a pregnant teen, Mariah — complete with nose and eyebrow piercings to accompany her visible bump — has already moved out of the family home into council-provided accommodation for single mothers.
Today, though, she is back at Mum’s, sitting impassively on the sofa while around her Shanice’s two young sons, her nephews, run riot, only glancing up occasionally from her mobile phone. Not a particularly talkative girl, she is disinclined to share any particular details of her situation, other than to say that she is ‘not nervous’, because as far as she is concerned she is ‘no different to anyone else’.
So it is Joanne who tells me that Mariah had been dating the father of her baby for ‘ages’ (although this turns out to be less than a year) and that they are no longer together.
Joanne, of course, insists her daughter’s plight is not her responsibility. ‘Of course it’s nothing to be proud of when your young daughter comes and tells you she’s pregnant, but all I can do is support her,’ she says.
‘I don’t say to my kids “come along kids and have babies”, but what can you do? You can’t watch your kids 24/7. Every mum’s in the same position. Yes, I was disappointed, but there’s no point getting angry — what’s done is done.
‘I did take Mariah to the doctors when she was 14 to talk about contraception, just as I did with the other girls, but she said she didn’t want to take anything. The doctor said: “We can’t force her, it’s her decision.’’ If your daughter wants to have sex then she is going to do it.’
She also insists that despite becoming teenage mums, her two elder daughters are coping well.
‘Let’s get one thing straight: Tash had a baby at 16 but she went to college, passed her exams and now at 22 she’s got a good job, working for a local ferry, company and a lovely boyfriend. She pays her own way.
‘Shanice was 17 when she had her first baby and I look after both her boys five days a week so she can go and do her job as a carer in a nursing home. She has never received state benefits in her life.’
The same, however, cannot be said for Joanne herself, whose ever-expanding brood has long had to be accommodated in a council house. She pays a reduced rent of just £27 a week for her home — a tenth of the going rate — the rest being paid for by the State.
She receives £565 a week in benefits, comprising a total of £160 family allowance and £405 supplementary benefit, the maximum amount allowed under Bailiwick of Guernsey law.
‘Everyone wants to have a go at me because I’ve got loads of kids and they think I’m popping them out to get more money, but it’s rubbish. ‘I don’t get more money with every baby I have because Guernsey has a different benefits system to other parts of the UK. It’s capped so I get the same amount of money as people with five kids.
‘At the end of the day, if you like babies you like babies — it’s nobody’s business but mine how many I have.’
She is particularly indignant at suggestions that she paid for a recent breast enhancement operation from her benefits. ‘I paid for my boobs myself 15 years ago when I was married with money that I’d earned,’ she says.
So, I ask — more in hope than expectation — does her ex-husband play any part in his children’s lives? Joanne confirms that while he does pay maintenance, she refuses to say how much, he is not terribly hands-on these days.
‘He only sees the kids on a Sunday, even though he finishes work early most days and there’s no reason he couldn’t come over and help with bath and bedtime. So he’s not a great help.’
For aside from her on-off relationship with Craig le Sauvage, she is now actively looking for another partner. The trouble is, her huge brood and lifestyle are not exactly a selling point to potential suitors.
‘Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got plenty of offers, but most of them are just after one thing,’ she complains. ‘So the other week I phoned up a dating agency called Dinner Dating and asked if I could register.
‘The woman at the end of the phone asked about my circumstances — did I work and how many children did I have.
‘I said I didn’t work, I had this many kids and lived in a council house, and she told me that unfortunately most of her clients were businessmen and most of them wouldn’t want someone like me.
‘I was disgusted. They don’t know anything about me. I’ve realised I’d be better off with a single dad as he would know where I was coming from.’
Besides, there may yet be a final surprise. Although she says that, as of two weeks ago, she is no longer sleeping with le Sauvage, she confides there is a chance that she may be pregnant.
Naturally, she would be delighted if that was the case. ‘If I am,’ she says triumphantly, ‘I’ll send him a text just saying one word: thanks.’
It’s not a sentiment that will be shared by many.
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