Inter-professional Approaches to Young Fathers

Chapter 1

Contextualising the evidence: Young fathers, family and professional support

Jane Reeves and Frances Rehal

Dear Jude,

We have got ourselves in a bit of trouble but this baby is what I wont more than anything. You no I love you so so much and I would do anythink 4 you. I am trying to cut down on smoking I’ve only had 1 and its 2.30 so I am trying. But please tell me if you want to get rid of the baby, I would do it 4 you. We will have it for the rest of our lives but we will be together 4 ever any way, won’t we. It means so much 2 me when we have sex it ain’t just a bit of fun in my eyes. I’m going to have 2 do a test so we know 4 sure but I really do think I am. I will be so upset if I ain’t because I want your baby. Please wright back babe.

Love you so

f*****g much,

Tanya

(Reeves 2006: xvi)

Introduction

As the letter above indicates, teenage parenthood is complex. The purpose of this initial chapter is to contextualise and set out some of the key issues when considering working with or studying young fathers. Little is known about those who provide practical and emotional support for young fathers and this book aims to address this. Accordingly, this chapter will explore positive and negative influences on young fathers and set out features in family members and professionals which young fathers identify as being a hindrance or helpful.

Young relationships; mutually supportive or ‘bang, bang I’m gone’ (MacDonald & Marsh 2005)

Young relationships

Stereotypical and anecdotal images of teenage relationships often present them as transitory, with the ‘blame’ often placed on the absence of the young man, with the sound of the door slamming after him (Hudson & Ineichen 1991). Indeed, as the authors surmise ‘cupid’s arrow does not fly far for teenagers nor is it very robust for its effects do not last’ (Hudson & Ineichen 1991: 71). MacDonald and Marsh (2005) in their study, report that popular views of young fathers saw them as ‘fearful of adult responsibilities of parenthood’ (2005: 139). Other, contradictory evidence, albeit from the perspective of the young woman, suggests that rather than young men leaving when they become fathers:

More fathers appear to be pushed out than drop out. Young mothers did not want them in their lives with their additional demands, smelly feet and useless offers of help. They had nothing to offer except an increased workload.

(Corlyon & McGuire 1997: 85)

It does appear that representations of young men whose main motivation is to be sexually promiscuous and irresponsible in the face of fatherhood may be more complex. Indeed, as Robb (2007) points out there has been a particular absence of research on the intimacy of young people’s lives and specifically what teenage relationships mean for young men. However, as he suggests the current generation of young people are increasingly exposed to the discourse of love and romance by the mass media (Robb 2007) which perpetuates images of romantic love which many young men may not be able to cope with. Indeed, as Firminger (2006) highlights through her analysis of teenage girls’ magazines, teenage boys are often presented by two contrasting discourses: on the one hand as shallow, highly sexual, emotionally inexpressive and insecure, but on the other as potential boyfriends who may provide romance, intimacy and love. If a teenage relationship is accelerated by the birth of a baby there may not be time for these two contrasting discourses to be reconciled. We simply do not know enough about the profiles of teenage relationships from the perspectives of young men prior to the birth of a child.

Indeed, in terms of parenting literature generally, it is often reported that the first year of any relationship following the birth of a child is arduous (Oakely 1979). In teenage relationships, however, what we mostly hear about is that young relationships with a child often flounder during the first year (Allen & Dowling 1998; Tabberer et al. 2000). Consequently, as professionals considering the needs of young parents and who may be the first professionals with whom these young people have had contact, we have a responsibility to engage with them in a way that is meaningful to them. As Chapter 3 indicates, sexual health services are often meaningless to young men as they often feel the focus is on young women.

The involvement of fathers in teenage pregnancy

Involvement of fathers

‘Part of the problem lies in simply being male.’

(Hudson & Ineichen 1991: 164)

It is suggested that the involvement of fathers in teenage pregnancy and beyond is complex, particularly when considering descriptions by young mothers (Reeves 2003).

In the study of 24 young mothers in the care system, it was found that the older the father the less supportive and more exploitative he was likely to be, for example, openly living with another woman or in another relationship and providing little financial or emotional help.

This is particularly pertinent as Harner (2004) points out that it is estimated that two-thirds of teenage pregnancies are fathered by adult men. Her study identifies that ‘the incidence of domestic violence was twice as great among teenagers with older partners than those partnering with males of a similar age’ (Harner 2004: 317). She identifies, in terms of age profile, that the oldest adult males are the fathers of the youngest teenagers’ infants, which may have ethical implications for professionals working in sexual health services. The research also points out imbalances in educational and social status as well as economic contributions between older fathers and teenage mothers.

By comparison, the younger fathers in Reeves’ (2003) study who were living with young mothers were more likely to be described in positive terms as contributing to a greater degree financially and emotionally and with the baby.

Bunting and McAuley (2004) also studied the role of fathers and the support they offered to teenage mothers. Analysing social work literature in both the UK and the US they emphasised the intricate and changing landscape of support relationships for young mothers and the specific role of young fathers, biological or cohabiting, in this. They argue that teenage mothers experience significant changes in their social support networks following the birth of a baby. Family support has been indicated as being extremely helpful in ensuring the ‘success’ of teenage mothers managing their babies. In particular, Tabberer et al. (2000) and Allen and Dowling (1998) point out that mothers are vitally important to their teenage daughters prior to and following the birth of a child, often helping in the process of normalising and ‘capturing’ the pregnancy within existing community and social relationships. Indeed, for some mothers and daughters the pregnancy and birth of a child has been shown to be a ‘healing’ factor between them, helping them move forward in their relationship (Reeves 2003). As Hudson and Ineichen (1991) remark, ‘the most significant person in the pregnant adolescent’s life is not always the baby’s father; it is usually her mother’. However, support from the young woman’s mother has been shown to decrease over time and it is consequently the support from ‘partners’ which increases in importance. Bunting and McAuley (2004) argue that the presence of a ‘man’ or ‘partner’ or ‘romantic interest’ becomes increasingly important as a mechanism of support, perhaps tying in with recent data from the US which suggests that women who become teenage mothers at a young age are more likely to go on to multi-partner when their initial relationship breaks down (Raneri and Weinmann 2007) as they need continuing support from another adult. In Chapter 6 Rosa Panades-Blas considers the stresses and strains that may exist in teenage relationships for young fathers and the implications this may have on the relationship between the young man and his child and how professionals can recognise these tensions.

Good Practice Box

Consider the nature of the teenage relationship

1. All relationships may struggle after the birth of a child.

2. Can you identify the strengths in the teenage relationship?

3. What is the age of the father and what does he contribute in terms of social, financial and emotional support to his partner?

4. Are there opportunities to further encourage his involvement?

‘A bit of poo and sick?’

Young fathers in the domestic arena

The domestic arena

Dominant discourses on young men do not often present them in a caring role; indeed constructions of young, white, working class masculinities often problematise young men as risk taking (Lloyd & Forrest 2001), for example, engaging in smoking, drinking, binge drinking, and sexual opportunism. In his account, based upon interviews with boys in comprehensive, grammar and independent schools, Barrowclough (1999) cites the attitude of Steve who became a father at 16. Steve attended a comprehensive school and left school with few qualifications:

I was going out with lots of other girls when I was going out with Anna. I didn’t really think of her as my girlfriend, although she thought I was her boyfriend. Of course I used to say I loved her, but I always said that to all the girls I went out with. You have to say you love a girl because then they let you have sex … when you’re a fifteen year old boy all you want is sex with as many girls as possible. You don’t want sex because you love someone, you have sex because you want sex.

(Barrowclough 1999)

However, contrary to these popular risky images, some young men are involved in ‘hidden’ domestic support particularly when they become fathers (Reeves 2006) and although they often defer to the mother’s overall key managerial role with the child(ren), they describe times and spaces which are their domain. For example night-time is described by many young men as a key time for their involvement.

Case transcript

As Peter describes:

Because what happens is, she will go to bed about 9 or 10pm, depending when he wants to go. Then I will stay up until about 3am, waiting for him to wake up for his 3am feed, give him his bottle, settle him down again while she is sleeping, I hope. And then I do that bit and she wakes up and does the next bit.

All of the young fathers in Reeves (2006) who described their involvement also revealed the apparent willingness with which their participation was given. They situated themselves as working in partnership with the mother of the child and distributing tasks between them. Perhaps most appealing is how they described being involved in caring for their child, a factor often not referred to in the literature and an image not usually associated with socially excluded young men. As Christie (2001) remarks from social work literature:

Men as carers were both ‘invisible’ and ‘ultra visible’; they became invisible when the gender assumptions by welfare workers excluded them as a potential source of informal care, yet those men who are identified as carers may be ‘ultra visible’ due to the gendered nature of most caring tasks. Discourses of welfare and social work, for the most part, represent men as either passive recipients of care or resistant recipients of control and not as active providers of care.

(Christie 2001: 30)

Case transcript

Mark describes how he has the main responsibility for his young disabled son:

I wouldn’t say I do everything, it’s just, I don’t know, I do him at night, all night, get up about five o’clock in the morning, or well she shoves me ‘you going to get out of bed and sort him out’ and I do housework and all. I don’t do cooking, no I don’t know how

… I do the washing up and everything else. I bathe him, well basically I do everything but sometimes she does jump in and say like someone comes round say, like I don’t know, my nan, she’ll jump and do it just to show them and I can’t do nothing about it. It’s her word against my word at the end of the day. But I don’t know I do love her, I do admit that.

For some young men fatherhood is not their first experience of caring, it can also have been a task carried out in their birth families. This portrayal of previous caring capacities in families could point to an underestimation of the amount young men do contribute in their birth and subsequent families. Of course generational patterns of fathering indicate that fathers in contemporary times are more likely to be involved with their children, though it is not a popular representation for young fathers (Tyrer et al. 2005). A point to note, however, is that the majority of the young fathers in the study by Reeves (2006) were unemployed, a feature which perhaps makes it easier to be involved at night and to catch up on rest during the day, a point taken up in Chapter 6 by Rosa Panades-Blas who develops the idea that teenage fatherhood contributes a further element to the debate on fatherhood generally.

Case transcript

Having a caring role is a position also described by Adam, who describes a past caring role with his sister.

Adam: I don’t mind a bit of poo and a bit of sick or whatever.

Jane: You’ve done it before?

Adam: Yeah with my little sister. My sister had whooping cough and I managed to deal with that. I was by myself by the side of her and she was at the toilet. I got used to that, I don’t know I’ve just cleaned up the shit and poo and everything.

Good Practice Box

Identify the skills the young father has with his children

1. Has he had experience with children before?

2. What caring skills does he contribute to the family?

3. What was his role in his biological family?

4. Does he need to develop parenting or ‘playing’ skills or does he already have them?

5. Are there opportunities to further encourage his involvement?

Prohibitive influences on young fathers; the role of the maternal grandparent

The maternal grandparent

Some evidence suggests that fathers generally who are engaged in a loving, sexual relationship with the mother of their children will interact more positively with their child (Furstenberg 1995, Lamb 1987, Lamb & Elster 1985, Parke 1996) and are more likely to be involved in family life on a long-term basis (see Chapter 6 on this debate). However, factors have been identified which significantly influence this involvement, including family approval or disapproval or emotional distancing (Weimann et al. 2006), cultural issues, whether the young man lives with his child or children and also the quality of his relationship with the baby’s maternal grandmother.

A study by Gavin et al. (2002) ascertained that young fathers are more likely to be involved with their child in families where the maternal grandmother had high education levels and where the father had a positive relationship with her.

They found that the maternal grandmother often acts as a gatekeeper towards the father, either encouraging him towards adopting a positive role or keeping him at arm’s length depending upon circumstances. Weinmann et al. (2006) have suggested that this is a particular trait found amongst white families. They explain:

Adolescent mothers frequently live with their own families during the first few years following birth … For families of some pregnant adolescents, prospective fathers are perceived as threatening to the newly found closeness that the pregnancy has spawned. Thus, some pregnant adolescents find themselves having to choose between parental support or support from their babies’ fathers.

(Weinmann et al. 2006: 629–630)

Significantly the authors highlighted that father involvement at two weeks following the birth predicted ongoing, at least, monthly contact between a young father and his child in the future.

Kalil et al. (2005) also point out in their longitudinal study that strong support from the maternal grandmother and, in particular, where she co-resided with the teenage mother was related to sustained low father involvement.

It is also argued by Smith et al. (2001) that where the relation ship with both the mother of his child and her mother has broken down, a young father needs help, not necessarily with looking after his child, but with communication and negotiation skills in the complex and sometimes hostile adult discussions regarding access to the child.

Good Practice Box

Encouraging communication skills

Some young men may need encouragement to keep in contact with their child because of a lack of skills in negotiating with gatekeepers or significant people in their child’s life, rather than always needing guidance in looking after their child.

A positive force?

The role of the paternal grandmother

The paternal grandmother

My nan’s like my carer because my mum’s not here. If anything’s got to go wrong I just got to go there. I go there quite often and talk to her and that.’ Mark, aged 18.

There is a particular dearth of studies which consider the influence and support of a young father’s birth family on the pregnancy and birth of his baby. Indeed, in comparison to the literature on the changing relationship between a young woman and her mother following the birth of a child (Allen & Dowling 1998, Oakely 1979, Reeves 2003, Tabberer et al. 2000) the relationship between a young father and his mother is currently under-researched. Fagan et al. (2007) emphasise the crucial link of family members in encouraging the relationship between a young father and his child. Adopting a stress model they outline that young fathers are often exposed to multiple stress factors, including their own health, social isolation, depression, role restriction, partnership difficulties and parent/child attachment issues. These stress factors can be additive and combined with the emotion of parenthood the situation can become overwhelming for a young man. Support from his birth family can be crucial in reducing the risk to the father/child relationship. Chapter 6 considers that there are particular factors of stress associated with young fatherhood which need to be acknowledged.

In Reeves’ (2006) study, three young men, Ben, Paul and Andy, describe how important their mothers are to them and portray how they have offered them ongoing practical and emotional support following the birth of their child. Ben positions his mother as central to his daily life and describes the attachment he has with her and describes her as helping out with his current baby and also in preparing Ben and his partner for the birth of their second child. Similarly Paul portrays that he and his mother have always been close and this mutually supportive relationship has continued following the birth of his child. As practitioners working in services with a maternal focus (Daniel & Taylor 1999, 2001) it can be easy to focus on the isolated teenage unit, forgetting previous longer-term relationships in young people’s lives. It is crucial that these relationships are acknowledged and assessed.

Case transcript

Andy describes using his mother as part of his network of support as a young father.

The screaming of Sofia and her temper tantrums, even now it gets to me and it really makes me want to strangle her, you know it makes me want to shake her. So I can understand how people have done it. I got to the point where I thought no, this ain’t right, this is wrong and I cried because I felt that way and I phoned my mum and she said ‘yes I felt that with you’. So I phoned a few people, so I got to learn to phone a few people to calm down, have a break, walk outside, have a drink.

Good Practice Box

Assess the contribution that maternal and paternal grandparents bring to the lives of young fathers

1. Who are the main providers of support to the family?

2. Where does the young father get his support from?

3. Is he close to his mother or are there other siblings who provide support?

Other influences on young fathers: a care history

Other influences

Although some young men do have positive family relationships which can be drawn on, some may have a criminal or care history which may prohibit them drawing on their family support networks. In the study by Tyrer et al. (2005) their findings set out the social exclusion and disadvantage that most of the young fathers described experiencing especially with ‘little financial security, low educational achievement and poor work prospects’ (2005: 1110). In addition, the young men emphasised their poor experiences of the care system and how their perceived complex support needs were not addressed by staff, in an industry with a particularly high staff turnover.

A large body of research suggests that being in and leaving the care system exposes young people to fast-track transitions, especially when compared to young people who grow up and leave the family home at their own pace (Allen 2003, Biehal & Wade 1996, Corlyon & McGuire 1997). Inman (2001) remarks that this accelerated move towards adulthood is often compounded by young people’s experiences in care and, as a consequence, adds to their vulnerability when leaving.

Allen (2003) takes up this point in her small-scale study of young people leaving the care system. She remarks that the reasons a young person enters the care system can often influence the quality of their post-16 transition experience. She states that for the young people in her study, ‘Care history affected young people’s ability to build and maintain significant relationships, their schooling, and their attitudes and self esteem’ (Allen 2003: viii). Many of the young people in Allen’s study left school and the care system with few qualifications and poor job prospects, which increased their exposure to financial problems and worries. Support was cited as a key ingredient of post-16 success, and those young people with family or long-term professional relationships formed whilst in care, were more likely to adapt and cope with the challenges of independence. Allen argues that transitoriness in relationships, employment and support increased the likelihood of the journey to adulthood breaking down.

Similarly, Biehal and Wade (1996) concluded from their study that care leavers’ experiences of the transition to adulthood are ‘both accelerated and compressed’ (1996:45). Their two-stage study included the views of both young women and young men, with the authors remarking on the vulnerability of the