Fatherhood sorts men from boys

Fatherhood can be the making of a man, even when the father is a teenager, says Masterton teacher and researcher Gareth Rouch.

Many boys pitched into fatherhood prove "acutely aware" of the responsibility and rescript their lives for the benefit of their child and partner, said Mr Rouch, who has written a book on boy-fathers.

"The young fathers displayed a deep sense of responsibility for their children, despite unplanned pregnancies and their informal family units," he said.

A dozen boy-fathers he interviewed had shown they were prepared to take on the obligation of a baby's life, despite the fact they had not been prepared to take charge of their own lives.

Mr Rouch once worked at a decile-3 school and was astonished to find four or five teen fathers among the 60 third and fourth formers he was teaching.

At the time he was adjusting to fatherhood, and he did not expect 14-year-old dads to perform well.

After canvassing 9000 male student in Greater Wellington he studied a dozen of them in depth for a master's thesis in psychology.

He has used the boys' own words to write Boys Raising Babies, just released by Barnardos New Zealand.

All 12 boys had become fathers before turning 18, five were with the mothers of their children and seven were living apart.

"These weren't 'nice' boys from privileged backgrounds. They went to fatherhood with very few personal resources and little money," Mr Rouch said.

"It is easy to be cynical, but fatherhood had a redemptive effect on some of them. It was not an overnight transformation but happened over three or four months."

Parenthood, and pending parenthood, could kick-start working-class males to find jobs and establish positive work habits, as the identity of breadwinner was central to the role of father for many adolescent males.

Mr Rouch said that adolescent fathers predominantly came from a section of society with high rates of alcohol abuse, drug use and criminal offending.

But the strongest factor in predicting who became a teenage parent was popularity with peers: this not only meant they were liked by girls, but could get away with "bad" behaviour.

Mr Rouch emphasised that although all of the boys he studied said they did not regret their experience of premature parenting, they would not recommend it to anyone else.

Some boys did not accept the responsibility of being fathers, but that was true of men over a wide age range, not just teenagers.

But in the dozen cases he studied, boys had risen to the challenge.

"Fatherhood actually had a profound effect on adolescent males ... The raising of a baby can be the making of a man, said Mr Rouch.

"It can cause him to re-evaluate his lifestyle and make significant changes for the benefit of his child."

One, "Koura", aged 14 when he became a father, said at the age of 18 that it was his daughter who had put him on the straight and narrow.

"I done all these real shitty jobs, and it all comes back to her [his daughter]."

As a father he was "an extraordinary man" and prepared to put up with lousy jobs to be the breadwinner, Mr Rouch said. "The birth of his daughter moved him from an unproductive and socially irresponsible peer group and led him to adopt a dutiful and pro-social attitude."

Becoming a dad impressed on Koura not only the duty he had, but the talent he also possessed and his need to use it. "When I see some of my friends, some of them are in jail. Some of them ... have potential. But yeah, some of them have had just a bit too much to smoke."

Stuart Carr, associate professor at Massey University's school of psychology, said teen fathers - like teen mothers - were often maligned, but Mr Rouch's study had shown how teenage fatherhood could, under the right circumstances, build resilience.

Barnardos chief Murray Edridge said he had published the research because people needed to know more about teen fathers and their potential to be effective, loving parents.

"That knowledge, rather than popular stereotypes, needs to inform social policy," he said. "Teenage fathers generally don't get good press."

"They're often depicted as irresponsibly 'sowing their wild oats', avoiding paternity by not having their names on the infant's birth certificate, and opting out of the child's life when the fun stops and the responsibilities begin."

- NZPA