ARE YOU READY TO BE A TEENAGE DADDY?

Caleb* is a seventeen year old high school candidate who is currently sitting his examinations to complete his secondary school education. He is also a father of an adorable one year old daughter. He will graduate high school with two feathers to his cap, but only two people in the world will know that.

Caleb met the Julie* during a sporting event that brought together local schools. She was in her first year of school and he was a year ahead of her. The two fell in love, the mindless teenage love that most adolescents go through that makes them think the world has come to a standstill.

They exchanged letters and since they didn’t live too far from each other, they planned to meet during the August school holidays. They spent a lot of time together during the holiday at a church event that ran for a week and continued to cement the naïve belief that they were destined to be together for life.

It took another school term and a bunch of love letters to convince themselves that they were ready to take the relationship to another level. In the month of December, with all the Christmas festivities, the two consummated their relationship. The young lady had just turned 15 and was a virgin. Caleb’s sexual experience was limited to two encounters with two older girls from his neighborhood. Neither of them even knew where to buy a condom.

The following April was one of shock and tears as his girlfriend revealed she had missed her periods since December and lost some weight because of a poor appetite. She was scared to the core and had nowhere to turn. Like deer caught in the headlamps in the dark, the two spent a tearful April holiday not knowing what to do. Caleb, being an orphan raised by his uncle could not breathe a word to anyone for fear of being kicked out of home, had no solutions to offer.

With no way forward, the two resumed school, unsettled and confused. By July, the cat was out of the bag and the school summoned Julie’s parents as the school term came to a close. Despite begging, pleading and even threatening, Julie would never reveal who the father of her child was. Her relationship with her father broke down and her parents fought a lot because of this. Thankfully towards the end of September, Julie had an uneventful delivery and had a beautiful healthy daughter. She was two months shy of turning 16 herself.

Like most stories of teenage motherhood, Julie spent three months at home caring for her daughter, both of them fully dependent on her family. The next year, she resumed school to complete her education. She was a different person; quiet, withdrawn and completely anti-social.

Throughout this period, Caleb was literally locked out of their lives. He was mostly away at school and Julie was unable to come out and meet him. She made it very clear that she did not want her family to know that he was the father because she was sure her father would kill him. He relied on the occasional letters and he had to wait for her to call him when he was home for holidays. He waited three weeks to know his daughter had been born and a further month before he could even see a picture. He first laid eyes on her at 14 weeks when Julie could take her to the clinic for her vaccinations by herself and he met them there.

Over time, with Julie’s social withdrawal, the two almost lost touch. Caleb thinks about his daughter often but rarely gets to see her. Even when he catches sight of her in church on her grandmother’s lap, he cannot hold her. He tried buying her a few items but it would take so long for Julie to get them that sometimes she would have outgrown them. His biggest fear as he finishes school is that going away to university might mean the end of the already non-existent relationship he has with the little girl.

As we talk about teen pregnancies, a lot of focus has been on the teen mom but no one talks about the teen dads. They are often painted as irresponsible young men who took off immediately they heard the news of impending fatherhood. In a society that deeply frowns upon adolescent sex, it is interesting that the boy child does not bear the brunt as much as the girl child. This is, in part, perpetuated by the fact that boys do not have to bear the burden of being pregnant, a condition that cannot be hidden from the public.

In some cultures, the boy is even applauded for embracing manhood as a rite of passage when he loses his virginity. In cases where he is faced with the acknowledgement of a pregnancy, his family will either join him in denying responsibility or will quickly take responsibility quietly to avoid publicity.

Rarely does anyone look at this boy as a parent. While the mom learns how to breastfeed, change diapers and soothe a cranky baby after painful vaccines, no one asks the young father of anything. Someone else will take responsibility financially, his mother may raise the baby in an arrangement where the baby is handed over but no one will expect this new dad to take his daughter to the doctor or give her a bottle.

In cases like Caleb’s, the little girl grows up like a sibling to her mom and unless Caleb puts up a legal battle, loses his daughter forever. He will immerse himself in his next life and move on, discarding a part of him that bears his DNA.

We need to change this narrative if we are to comprehensively address teenage pregnancy. Waiting for men to die and then have children crawling out of the woodworks claiming to be his at the funeral is dehumanizing. Our teenage dads must not only take responsibility for fatherhood but also be seen to do so. Having a culture where these young dads are allowed to do the right thing will help their peers actually appreciate the role they play in the bigger scheme of things.

If you are a parent to a teenage boy, this could be your reality, you could be a grandparent without your knowledge. Would you rather your grandchild never had a father?