My son is younger than my grandson — and I breastfed them both

This UK grandma is hip and young — and so are her children.

Jane McNeice, 47, became a grandmother in her mid-30s when her daughter Laura, now 27, decided to become pregnant at 15.

Author and businesswoman Jane was already in an unusual spot as an exceptionally young grandma, but the family dynamics got even more extraordinary when she got pregnant with her second child at 37.

That infant, a boy named Oliver, is now 9 years old — making him two years younger than his 11-year-old niece Evie — Laura’s daughter.

Just a few years after both Evie and Oliver were welcomed into the world, Jane and Laura discovered they both were expecting at the same time, welcoming Jane’s next son, Ben, and Laura’s daughter, Bella — both now 7 — into the family.

“At one point, Laura and I were pregnant together. I was heavily pregnant. She was newly pregnant,” Jane told Caters News Agency.

She also shockingly shared that because of the timing, there were occasions when she would breastfeed her grandkids.

“I think that’s quite extreme and that won’t feel comfortable for everyone,” Jane said. “There will be some people who think that is amazing and a complete privilege. And there will be other people who are making sicky noises at that.”

When Jane, from Doncaster, first found out that Laura was pregnant at a young age, having been a young mother herself at 18, she was “absolutely devastated” — and even asked her to terminate the pregnancy.

“It was quite a shock,” Jane said of Laura’s pregnancy. “We had unusual circumstances as Laura was planned, even though I had her young. But what we learned later was that Laura’s pregnancy was also planned.”

However, Jane believes there may be a reason both she and her daughter chose to have kids at such a young age.

“We are both autistic,” she shared.

Jane spent a lot of time trying to figure out her “identity” prior to her diagnosis.

“My career is testimony to that search. I have a first-class honors degree in criminology. I searched in the criminal fraternity for my identity and, fortunately, didn’t find it there,” she said. “Then I spent the last 15 years searching through my work in mental health.”

The mom of three said it took “pretty much my whole life” trying to figure out “what I felt was wrong with me,” including unsuccessfully getting a correct diagnosis.

But at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, when Oliver was 6, he started to show behavioral issues, so the parents joined parenting Facebook groups to seek guidance.

“I was scrolling through the page on Saturday morning and I just came across the post titled ‘girls with autism’ with symptoms listed around, and I literally just went, ‘Tick, tick, tick.’ I knew straight away,” Jane recalled to Caters.

By the time Jane went to get assessed, Laura also speculated she might have 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.”

Jane said that the string of diagnoses reflects how autism can be genetic, and while she was initially upset about her daughter’s teenage pregnancy, she’s now been able to realize that neither of their lives would ever be similar to those of neurotypical people.

“I bought into the neurotypical ideals — that your child does well, they go off to university, and they get a great job. They get married, they have two to four children, a nice house, a nice car. Now that we know we’re autistic, we’re able to say, ‘What is normal for us?’ It’s a different standard to what is normal for a neurotypical family,” Jane said.

Jane even wrote a book last year about being diagnosed with autism later in life, titled “The Umbrella Picker,” and thinks that anyone who might suspect they have autism probably thinks so for good reason.

“Look at literature out there, read other stories and connect with them. If you’ve got suspicion you are, I generally find that most people are pretty accurate with their own suspicions,” she said. “The decision to seek assessment is an individual choice and, for me, one of the best decisions of my life.”

But Jane sees advantages to their family situation, which she sees as a “variant, not a fault,” including that the young ones always have a friend around.

“Autistic people struggle to make friends,” Jane admitted. “We are simply different. The biggest challenge is we live in a society that does not accept difference and is highly judgmental of it in many cases.”

For Jane, another perk of being a young grandmother is that she could be around her grandchildren for a much longer time than most grandparents.

She only sees one downside — not being able to spend as much time with her grandkids as she’d like to because her own children are still so young.