My son is YEARS younger than my grandson

A young grandmother has explained how her granddaughter eventually outgrew her son.

Jane McNeice, 47, from Doncaster has a nine-year-old boy and her daughter Laura, now 27, has an 11-year-old girl.

To complicate matters, Jane – an author and businesswoman – also has a seven-year-old son, who is the same age as his niece.

The author and businesswoman had become a grandmother for the first time in her mid-thirties when her Laura became pregnant at the age of 15 – on purpose.

As an exceptionally young grandmother, this resulted in an even more unusual situation when she gave birth to her second child, Oliver, now nine, at the age of 37 – making him younger than his niece, Evie, now 11.

The grandmother of four further revealed that after Laura’s first pregnancy with Evie and her pregnancy with Oliver, the couple got pregnant at the same time just a few years later.

This saw Jane welcome Ben and Laura, Bella – both now seven – into the family.

‘I was heavily pregnant. She was newly pregnant,” Jane said of the experience.

Therefore, there were times when she breastfed her grandchildren.

“I think that’s pretty extreme and it won’t feel good for everyone,” she admitted.

“There will be people who think that’s great and a great privilege. And there will be other people who make sick noises while doing so.’

While Jane is now thrilled with her family situation and enjoys spending time with her grandchildren while she’s young, Laura’s teenage pregnancy was “quite a shock” to her at first.

The mother-of-three admits she was “absolutely devastated” when she first heard Laura’s announcement, having also chosen to become a young mother herself when she became pregnant at 18.

She had even asked her daughter for a layoff at first – which Laura didn’t go through with.

“We had unusual circumstances because Laura was planned even though I had her boy,” Jane explained.

“But what we later learned was that Laura’s pregnancy was also planned.

“What we’ve discovered in recent years are reasons why we may have chosen motherhood quite early on. We’re both autistic.’

Jane, who described autism as an “identity,” said she had tried a number of ways to find this sense of identity prior to her diagnosis.

The author, who also has a first-class degree in criminology, initially sought her sense of self in the “criminal fraternity” community – but thankfully “didn’t find it there.”

Jane subsequently spent “the past 15 years sifting through her mental health work.”

The mother-of-three said that, looking back, she spent “pretty much her whole life” trying to figure out “what she felt was wrong with her” — and this included trying to get a proper diagnosis and “understanding ‘, which ‘failed’.

However, the unexpected answer she was looking for came from Oliver, then six, who exhibited defiant behavior during the initial Covid-19 lockdown.

Jane’s husband then speculated that he suffered from ADHD, and the parents were directed to various Facebook groups.

She said, “I was scrolling through the page on Saturday morning and I just came across the post titled girls with autism with symptoms nearby, and I literally said, ‘Tap, tap, tap.’

“I knew right away.”

Jane was then formally assessed as soon as possible, a process that eventually saw her wait a year for diagnosis.

It was then that Laura, now a mother of four, also began to suspect that she had autism.

“I was diagnosed within five minutes of being in the room,” Jane said. “And then, two months after me, my daughter was diagnosed at age 26, and three months after that, Oliver was diagnosed.”

The grandmother explained that this is a reflection of the fact that autism often runs in families, and while she was initially unhappy about Laura’s teenage pregnancy, over time she realized that their life path would never be the same as that of neurotypical people.

She also admits that her initial fear of Laura’s pregnancy stemmed from “neurotypical ideals” she had “bought in.”

“Your kid is doing great, they’re going to college and getting a great job.” They’re getting married, they have 2.4 for kids, a nice house, a nice car,’ she summed up.

Now that we know we’re autistic, can we say what’s normal for us? It’s a different standard than what is normal for a neurotypical family.’

The grandmother, who also has grandchildren awaiting autism assessment, said there are some great benefits to their apparently abnormal, normal, which she now “sees as a variant and not a mistake.”

For example, her youngest children and grandchildren are ‘never without a friend’.

“Autistic people have a hard time making friends,” she said. ‘We’re just different. The biggest challenge is that we live in a society that doesn’t accept differences and in many cases is very judgmental about it.’

For Jane, there’s only one real downside to being a young grandmother.

And that is not being able to spend as much time with her grandchildren as she would like because her own children are still so young.

She wrote a book about her experiences with late-diagnosed autism, The Umbrella Picker.

“Look at the literature out there, read other stories, and connect with them,” Jane advised for anyone curious if they’re neurodivergent, too.

“If you’re suspicious, I generally think most people are pretty accurate with their own suspicions.

“The decision to get evaluated is an individual choice and for me one of the best decisions of my life.”