This 23-Year-Old Is The World’s Youngest Grandmother

Rica Stanescu, a 23-year-old Romanian woman became the world’s youngest grandmother after giving birth to her daughter at just 12 years old. Her daughter, Maria, then became pregnant and gave birth to a son when she was just 11 years old. Although she urged her daughter to continue with her education she says that she is happy to be a grandmother.

 The World's Youngest Grandmother

According to The Newcastle Herald, the now 25-year-old grandmother said: ‘I am happy to be a Grandmother, but I wished something else for Maria — and something else for me.’ 

Rica says that it is a common custom for the Romani people of Romania to marry at a relatively young age. For a little bit of context, in the United States, the average age for a woman to bear their first child is 28.

Rica said that she married a jewelry seller named Ionel Stanescu when she was just 11 years old. Ionel was 13 when the pair got married and she said that her early marriage to her husband was due to fears that her father would force her to marry another boy in their village. The pair raised their daughter, Maria, in their hometown village of Investi, Romania.

 The World's Youngest GrandmotherVT

But when Maria was ten years old, she got married and then gave birth to a baby boy a mere six months later. Rica said: ‘I did not try to stop my daughter from getting married because this is the tradition, it’s what happens.’

 The World's Youngest GrandmotherVT

Rica’s mother, who is also named Maria, got pregnant and had Rica when she was just 17 years old meaning that she became a great-grandmother when she was just 40 years old!

So far, Rifca’s claims of being the youngest grandmother in the world have yet to be tested. The last record of the youngest grandmother was an unnamed 26-year-old British woman from Rotherham, Yorkshire, whose 12-year-old daughter reportedly gave birth in 1999.

 The World's Youngest GrandmotherVT

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