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9 Responses to “What about the problem of teenage fathers?”

1. pan says:

   July 19, 2010 at 5:30 pm

   “love” i believe boys look for that love through sex. i don’t think these young men are out to have babies, but when it happen they have something to give their love to. girls also want to be love but at least they got the babies, that the young man go and find a next girl because they only want to be love and be respectfully to be somebody. sometimes having a baby drive them away because it that that kind of love they looking for , it like they want to be the baby to the women to get that love that all human being.. i feel that all these long days in school should be teaching the young boys about their feeling for love or need to be love, and tell these boys that girls are not their machine to give them the love they so badly need.
2. jo bent says:

   July 19, 2010 at 10:41 pm

   Its about time this matter is addressed,we at times fail our boys, men in so-all high positions, rum bars, dance halls even some in churches give the impression that its okay for the young boy to wet his whistle, and yes drink a beer on that This is our culture.

   Our mothers used to protect their daughters (not many do anymore) while it was okay for the boys to be out there sexing someone elses
   daughter.
   Have the boys/men of Ja been truly loved? yes a few, too many grow up with no fathers, and themselves become missing dads and this cycle continues.
   In our culture if a young girl was not interested in boys or get pregnant early they
   used to say she’s a mule, today they refer to her as gay, our society has to stop that we have to halt this thinking and confusing directions to our youths, and there’s ppl from all socio-economic levels that promote that kind of thrash, as in the dance halls, this causes our young girls to try and out-do each other sexually, doing with whom-ever as our culture now promotes debauchery while young ppl lose morals and self pride.
   Jamaica is very lax with molesters and tend to
   sweep a lot of sexual deviance under the rug,
   when a 30 or 40 year old get a girl pregnant before age 19 they ought to be locked up, I know there are precocious young girls but these men needs to take the higher road and put them in their places, look at Malvo a teen and a grown man was his parents this older man left her with a baby, this misguided young(Malvo ended up brained washed and molested bringing him to a life sentence, he lost out and love and seeked it from the wrong man.
   I think young men should be encouraged to go to
   prenatal with these girls,and add a one hour parenting class stressing the boys importance in that baby’s life, and show them movies regarding. family, love and even mention some famous ppl whose father was not in their lives and now regrets it, some of these young men don’t know how to love only how to have sex, only our men you hear talking about killing it,stab it, agony for it, murder it what is it love or war?
   I say give our boys more love, look at how many now turns to other or older men isn’t it something they lacking or is it something in the water? I have nothing against ones preference although I believe in one woman/one man but it seem there has been an
   explosion of our young men confusion and disrespect when it comes to sexuality.
   Lets not forget the youths mimics what they see
   and adults are partly to be blamed, none of these young men think about marrying with a family and the girls don’t think they’ll get anyone to marry them because they see the adults with 5 baby mamas and baby daddies.
   Lets reign in our boys and love them teaching them to love their children and stop this cycle Jamaica . Men stay in your children’ s life,teach your son responsibility, don’t be a sperm donor be a father, women allow our men to be a part of their child’s-0.07 life if they want to, that is responsibility on your part.
   mi done
3. Jordache Wilson says:

   July 20, 2010 at 11:20 am

   While i agree with you, there is not real anyway of holding a teenage father responsible for his unfortunate role. I use the word unfortunate, simply because teenage pregnancy is hardly every planned or wanted. Unless the guy is of ‘working age’, employable or educated, there is no part he can play is the pregnancy process. It is therefore dependent on the young girls to take greater care of themselves when engaging in sexually activities. Fatherhood by tradition is mainly about providing financial support and to a lesser extent emotional. For females, pregnancy is more of a physical, emotional and biological development, therefore the responsibility is greater on their side. It is therefore my opinion that unless there is a grand freak invention that allows teenage fathers to share the pregnancy process, there is no mandatory way of getting these young men involved. More needs to be done to educate them and building there maturity level so that they can be in a position to make better decision and be committed fathers to their teenage baby mothers.
4. victoria says:

   July 20, 2010 at 3:59 pm

   I am from the old school where a girl was taught to respect her body and not to be loose. Today young girls and sexuality is a game. Girls no longer wait to be asked for sex they are practically demanding sex. They are hot and these boys/men don’t care. The male species always think with his penis, it time girls/women learn to respect themselves and keep their virtue. Sex is too free today and no one seem to look at the end result babies or sexual
   diseases. When will they learn or get responsible.
5. jo bent says:

   July 20, 2010 at 5:53 pm

   They have to be responsible, I was a teenage mother, sadly by choice (one in a mill)I say by
   choice because while playing I had a terrible fall on top of a stone, rushed to Children’s
   at age 9 and I over-heard the doctor tell my mom
   that from the X-ray it don’t seem like I’ll be able to have kids. I was in shock at that age The word MULE kept screaming in my mind, my mom
   never mentioned it but it was etched in my mind, at 14 I met my kids father he attended a prominent high school at at 16 after his begging, if u love me (young men games) I decided OK, my parent was so strict that I could not wave to a male outside of school I
   decided I want to get pregnant 2nd time we were together I did, and I have never regretted that. I now know that was a selfish act on my part, he did have a condom and I insisted that it be removed because it burned. My parents was livid, I was happy I was now put in evening classes I had to be out of my high school, he got a summer job, we bought all the things a
   baby needed and thanks to our parents they chipped in a bit, but it was up to us. We both finally got our degrees, he did first, I did 1991. our three kids are productive citizens never been arrested or in juvenile system 2 now also have degrees, my youngest the only one not married has one daughter then opted for a vasectomy, he wants no baby mama drama his daughter is his world, the other two has their own family.
   We have to stop promoting the jacket talk to our young men, talk to them about teen pregnancies, my kids had no teen pregnancies I constantly let them know if you wouldn’t stay with her, step out with her, don’t have sex with her. I talk to my boys about sex period and everything, how to treat a female and how to
   respect their own bodies. Today I would change nothing…..oh, we both ended up marrying different ppl, (LOL)we outgrew each other, we are still friends, my youth choice and his kids are so close ppl ask us how we did it, our answer love, responsibility, and the will also opportunities to succeed. Yes there were rough patches, youth jealousies, but we stuck together in parent mode.
   Young man if you don’t want to be a teenage dad if you do not abstain, protect YOUR own self and if the girl is pregnant stand by her……
   parents of young men should help them to do that and not encourage jacket rumors; like I told my boys “if u never been there your name
   won’t be mentioned” there’s also dna these days, but don’t walk away.
6. Ras Howard Henry says:

   July 20, 2010 at 6:45 pm

   There will be alot more teenagers facing the perenthood problems in the future,teenager who girls need to have stuff their parents cannot afford to give to them,as for the teenager boys they are mostly involved in the fast money making of selling drugs,making music or do anything that can produce some fast cash.

   As soon as they branish a little cash in the eyes of these teenage girls they are ready to take their under wears off only thinking of the moment and not the possibility of getting pregnant or what the expenses will be for many years after the sexual encounters/incidents.

   It seem as if education on those topics is not even worth giving to these teenagers who seem to just living for the moment and not thinking about longterm effects.
   Children having children prophecies are fulfilling,children calling children mummy or daddy,but how can we blame them when the politicians not doing anything for such preventions,they may encourage them to use protection,methods that creates problems as health harzards in the future for our teenage girls.Tie tubes,abortion etc,etc.
   One thing im sure of we just cannot pray and wait on god to come and solve our problems,people gots to realize that we are the ones who gots to find the solutions.

   Ras Howard Henry
   521 westmoreland ave
   syracuse new york
   13210
   315 863 1024
7. Jermaine Lemonious says:

   July 21, 2010 at 8:17 am

   Consent to sex does not translate into consent to sex on all occasions that the other party wants it, nor does it translate into consent to putting yourself at risk of an std (people should disclose their status if they know it and if they don’t and you get a disease then it’s a crime), nor does it translate into consent to love or a relationship – so why on earth should it translate into consent to parenthood?

   Womans body, womans choice. If she wants the baby she can keep it. If she does not want it she can get rid of it despite the wishes of the man. So if a woman can willingly inflict or remove a child from the life of the man, surely she should bear all financial responsibility for it. Fair is fair and many reading this may be incensed, but the simple fact of the matter is that women have all the power over whether or not a child will be born, and as long as that is the case they should also hold all financial and other responsibility.

   I do agree that men should take responsibility for their children when those children are a product of a loving relationship, because in those cases there is implied consent. But in all other cases women need to mentally elevate themselves into this age of equality and take responsibility for their own bodies, because they knew that when they consented to sex with that man that neither of them at that time wanted a child.

   P.S. – we need to legalize abortion.
8. jo bent says:

   July 21, 2010 at 10:09 pm

   @ Jermaine y r angry, a woman have the right to choose, but most time choose abortion due to the response that man/child and even his family will give her , as to the child needing love if they come from a loving relationship
   ……hello that’s y we need to let our boys know don’t get manipulated (that goes both ways)we not stressing STDs enough based on all the pregnancies; we see all who is riding bareback thinking they’re invincible.
   I really love hearing the dialogue from the men on this because I am still trying to figure
   out our men sexual thought patterns…. I hope they don’t start going to rehab too for addiction lol
9. gentle says:

   August 16, 2010 at 10:30 pm

   Teenage parents are always a concern of mine. I was 15 when i fathered my first child, and by age 17 i had my second. I could blame it on the lack of sex education, but i will not. It was the early 60′s and sex education was not something that was available to most of us. However; as a country boy i read quite a bit, and i knew about birth control. The problem was keeping my harmones in check, and staying away from promiscuous girls. It was a part of being a man, and who could get the most lay. Unfortunately it came back to haunt me. My first child’s mother kept threatening to write to my high school principal about our baby. Knowing that a few other boys were expelled for the same reason, i eventually left school, before she wrote to him. Boys take a lot of heat when their young girlfriends get pregnant, but we know that some girls always want to go all the way. They are the ones who play sick so as not to go to school, church,and say when you can come over so they can be with their man. These girls climb through windows, and leave doors open so they can get what they want, and most times we oblige. The blame should be on both boys, and girls. The girls know they are the ones who Will be saddled with the responsibility of a baby. The boys should make sure they do there part to prevent any unwanted pregnancy. At this stage ,sex is mostly for gratification. Having a child is not a part of the deal, but it could happen, then you are embarrassed because of whom you are sharing this child. Young men be careful, it’s not all girls you sleep with that are worthy of bearing your child, check the family before you are in that deep. The girls always know what they want, but they need to double, and triple check before falling head over. The system is quite different now, and allow for their education to continue after a baby.