Young Fathers - Teenage Love (1980s)

[Music] [Music] Every year in the United States, more than a million girls 15 to 19 years old get pregnant. About half of them give birth. That is one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the world. And hard though it may be to believe the rate is going up, not down. There have been repeated studies of why that should be true. But even after all the studies, there is no one answer. About all we seem able to do is make the best of it. And in most communities, that has meant trying to help the teenage mother that ignored a group that may need as much support. Teenage fathers. Rebecca Soil reports. This teenager, Chick Crow, became a father at 17. Charles Mitchell, he became a father at 16. Scott Brown, a father at 17. I wasn't going to give him up. I didn't want to at all. Couldn't see me not being with my child. Sad about him being my kid. And, you know, I didn't want to give him up. More and more teenage fathers are fighting to stay close to their children. This prenatal class is one of the few new counseling programs available to unwed teenagers, both girls and boys. Up until now, most programs were only for teenage mothers because people assumed young fathers didn't want their babies. I think what we need to keep in mind with teenage fathers is that when they find out that they're an expectant father, they're just as scared as a teenage mother. It's just as much of a crisis in their lives and it's harder for males to reach out for help and yet they need the help just as much as teenage mothers do. Many of these kids are not very realistic. Uh they're teenagers, they're kids. Uh the future is very rosy to them. They don't necessarily see the problems that they're getting into. I think after the baby comes, if they, you know, re remain involved, I think that that's when the realities again start to set in. Um, but I think early on they're not very realistic. Those realities set in in some unexpected places, not just the ghettos. Teenage pregnancies occur in cities, suburbs, to all kinds of people. This neighborhood in Salt Lake City is middle class, a community of families. And the head of one of these families is a 17-year-old boy. It's really hard to have all these responsibilities. Sometimes I feel like I don't want this anymore. I just want to go away and live in the mountains, be my own person, not have to worry about anything. [Music] Chick Crow, an all-American boy. He's a high school senior. Played on the football team. Loved it. He can't play anymore. Besides helping with the baby, he has to work full-time now after a full day at school. His parents redid the basement of their home so the chick could live there with his girlfriend AJ and their baby son Christopher. And the worst part is that I feel like, you know, I'm making so much money and we're always broke. We don't have any money because it's all going to to Christopher and stuff. And I feel like I sometimes feel if we hadn't had Christopher just think, you know, we would we'd have so many things we want. and I'd be able to buy a nice car, have nice clothes, and I feel like, geez, why did we have him? But I'm I'm glad we did. I have no regrets. We didn't have sex. We made love. And we we're paid for the consequences. You naturally hope that your children will be celibate until marriage. How many children are nowadays? They're they're surrounded and bombarded with all this stuff. It's much harder now for them than it was for me. We were really scared. We didn't know what to do. And then once we started telling people, then it wasn't so bad. Then I got excited about it. So when they decided that they were not going to abort and they were not going to give up for adoption, we let them make that decision and then respected that decision and tried to help as much as we could. Could you have stood by AJ and stood by the baby without the support of your family? It would have been really hard cuz without my family we would have been all alone. You would have had absolutely nothing. No friends, no nothing. And the my family really helped a lot. Hello. AJ doesn't believe in abortion. She does believe in family. Maybe because she doesn't have a good relationship with her own. Her parents moved to Oklahoma when she was 15. She chose to stay in Salt Lake. And except for Chick whom she met at 14 when she was just a freshman and he a sophomore. There's really been no one for support. Daddy Christopher wants you. AJ got pregnant. They kept the pregnancy a secret from friends for 3 months. As long as they could. When your friends found out, what happened? I lost all of them except for a few. They just really wouldn't associate with me anymore. Every night, Chick goes to work at a data processing firm. It's a tedious job and combined with school work, a relentless schedule. The pressure never lets up. I'll go to work at 8:00 at night and I'll work till 4:00. I'll come home and I'll sleep till 7. Then I'll go to school till 12:30. And from 2:45 till about 7:30, I sleep. and I got to work at 8 again and it starts all over again. He has taken on an enormous burden. He's missed out a lot. You know, he can't go out with his friends. He has to stay here and take care of the baby. He's very willing to help AJ. He's very, very good with the baby. And I love to see them together. But the disappointment about his possible career and what we had hoped for him is is hard to take. I had I had big hopes of going to college, you know, on a scholarship and I I wanted to become a child psychologist and get my PhD and everything. And I went, it was a great setback when when we found out and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to go to college right away. I have plans, things that I would like to happen, you know, where I'd like to be in five, say, five years from now. But you just have to deal what's happening to you right now. Are you in love with AJ? Yeah, I am a lot. This is North Philadelphia. Mostly black, mostly poor. Many women in this neighborhood have tales of love them or leave them, especially teenage girls who get pregnant because most teenage fathers don't want the responsibility. One boy in this neighborhood when he got his girlfriend pregnant was just 15 years old. His name is Charles Mitchell. He's 17 now. He lives with his mother, half brother, and sister and dreams of being a dish jockey. When Charles was growing up, his father was never around. At 15, he was smoking pot, dropped out of school, got his girlfriend pregnant. [Music] Charles daughter Casayiah is 16 months old. Charles and his girlfriend broke up during the pregnancy. They haven't gotten back together. But the day his daughter was born, Charles knew he wanted to be a father. When I had held my daughter at the hospital that particular day, I was like, well, I can't I can't, you know, just let her grow up, you know, and not let her know that I love her and that I want to be with her just as much as her mother does. You know, he loves the baby. He loves her. He doesn't want anymore, he says. But he loves that one. Are you surprised he reacted that way? Yes, because I didn't think boys care. He wants to see the baby. He wants to do for the baby. But I think his attitude towards the mother has changed. You know, uh they can't get along, but he's not letting that stop him from having a relationship with his daughter. Charles sees his daughter on weekends, but the complexity of being a father is just hitting him now. He says teenage fathers have feelings, too. The problem here is that Charles no longer loves his child's mother, but she's still in love with him. And when Charles dates other girls, she gets angry. She's doing a a good job as far as raising the child. But the only only thing that I object to as far as her having the child is that when she comes over and she brings the baby to see me, all right, we always get into an argument, which always ends up with her leaving the house and her taking the baby with her. And that hurts me. It hurts me a lot. What does squaring a number mean? Times itself. Times itself. All right. Surprisingly, having a baby has helped Charles. Instead of being a high school dropout with no future, he straightened himself out, is now studying for his high school equivalency exam, and has enrolled in one of the few programs that counsels teenage fathers. What are you going to multiply by? You know, he even found a lawyer to help him get visitation rights. And he took a part-time job working in a nearby store. He doesn't really make a lot on his job, you know. It's just like little small change, you know. I doubt if it's $30 a week. But if he can just get a box of Pampers or give her milk money, you know, he feels good about that. I don't have a lot to give, but what I do have to give, I feel as though that I can give my all. It makes me feel good when I lay down in the bed, you know, and I've been out and I've worked all day and I've come in and and and and or when I go over there and I see her and she goes, "Dad, she wants me to pick her up, you know, that I'm working for something, you know, and I I'm trying for some for I have a a purpose." What dreams do you have for your baby? Well, just like any other parent, I want her to be better than me. If it could be made possible, I wouldn't want her to have any children at my age, you know. Definitely. If you had it to do all over again, would you have a baby? No. Because takes away your youth too fast. You know, the little things that you want to do like go out to the parties and and and enjoy yourself. You know, you can't do anymore. That all that's gone. Now that now that the baby's here, I can't even look back on it. I can only look towards the future. The future may mean that more young fathers will want to stay close to their children even when they're not sure how close they want to be to their child's mother. Will they continue forever and ever? Anybody who says any relationship continues forever and ever is a fool nowadays. And we understand that. And we're not we're not going for that. Uh we're not going for the relationship between the young man and the young woman. We are going for the relationship that doesn't ever end. You are always that child's parent. More teenage fathers are realizing that can we see those chick planning to marry AJ this summer has also realized that those you love are worth struggling for here. You know you guys aren't going to make it. You're young. You're going to get divorced. I feel like no we're not. You know well at least give us a chance. No, I'd just like to prove him wrong. I've learned a lesson that everything just doesn't come quite so easy in life. You're going to have to work for what you want. I'm working for it. Some teenage parents marry and make it, but the odds are not good. Generally speaking, teenage parents are three times more likely to separate or divorce than those who marry in their 20s. Of course, the majority of teenage parents never marry in the first place. [Music]