Boys Bringing Up Baby

Albert Alvarenga, only a teenager, acts like this is all a snap.

Drag himself out of bed in the dark hours. Shower. Shave. Watch some morning TV.

And then take his baby--sunny, chubby Herbert, the smiling, gurgling 6-month-old--from Mama, Julie Solano, and let her get ready for the long day ahead.

Go to school, tired. Go to work, tired. Get home, tired.

Give up the parties and the friends. Everything is the baby now: Feed the baby. Change the baby. Soothe the baby.

Albert and Julie are unmarried teenage parents, sharing with their son a cramped bedroom in the Simi Valley home of Albert’s family.

It’s a responsibility even grown-ups find draining, and one that many teenage fathers seem to find impossible. But, this matters to 17-year-old Albert. It is something he wants to do.

Though he won’t say it, fatherhood is clearly a tough job, and one in which teenage boys often feel the deck is stacked against them.

And in a world where sticking around for your baby is sometimes seen as a choice--rather than a responsibility--Albert is a gem, according to young mothers and county parenting teachers. Though counselors, social workers and religious leaders all want to see more male involvement, they admit that programs specifically for fathers are few.

The boys, they say, are the forgotten half of the teenage pregnancy equation.

“People are so busy serving girls, you just run out of time, money and staff,� said Kathy Auth, who teaches parenting at Gateway Community School, a continuation high school, where only one of 43 teenagers she taught last semester was male. “It sends a negative message--like, it’s not your problem. We’re telling them just what we don’t want them to hear.�

In Ventura County, young fathers typically are from conservative Latino households, where abortion isn’t an option. They often have low incomes and come from splintered families.

The ones who stick around are usually in the minority, observers say. And many of those, like Albert, have the advantage of a strong family life and middle-class upbringing. Still, they exist and they are trying.

According to Auth, about 90% of the students in most high school parenting programs are girls. Some of that disparity is because the fathers, often older than the teenage mothers, are beyond school age.

It’s difficult to tell statistically how young men are affected by teenage parenthood. Though the state and county keep records on the mothers, they have incomplete data on fathers. There are no specific dropout rates, though Auth estimated that about 80% of teenage mothers don’t graduate. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a fair number of teenage fathers leave school to work full time to support their babies.

But, those who work with teenage parents say that young men need more guidance. And while it doesn’t take a program to get a father involved--Albert never went through one--a parenting class can be a help to young, inexperienced dads.

Surprisingly, reaching out to teen fathers is a relatively new idea. Programs started only three years ago, and responsibility has focused mainly on young women.

The state department of social services sponsors a male involvement program, but the money doesn’t go far. Funds in Ventura County dried up last year. Young Men as Fathers, created by the California Youth Authority for incarcerated boys, also lost its funding in the county. A program at El Concilio del Condado de Ventura has since been rolled into a general responsibility program for both boys and girls.

The county recently expanded some teen parenting programs--but they have failed to catch young males, experts said. In December 1998, the county Board of Education accepted a $370,000 state grant to reach more teen parents and expand child-care services. Though aimed at parents of both genders, boys tend to shy away from the classes.

“It’s an age thing,� Auth said. “These are still not topics girls want to talk about in front of males, and vice versa. You can’t talk about periods with a boy around 15.�

Auth knows the irony. The kids are old enough to have babies, but not old enough to talk about why without bursting into embarrassed laughter.

In Auth’s class, Brandon Rojo, 17, is the lone boy.

And he feels his isolation deeply. He sits quietly at a child-sized table during a discussion in which raucous, story-sharing mothers one-up each other: I caught my kid playing in the toilet, says one. Well, mine got into Mommy’s perfume, says another.

Brandon’s not sure about what mischief his son has gotten into, because the boy stays with his mother and they don’t live together, yet. When they get married and they can live on their own, he’ll have more stories, he’s sure.

“It’s kind of weird. They team up against guys,� Brandon said. “I have to defend myself. A girl wouldn’t want to be with guys all alone.�

But, he stays because he wants to be a good father to his son, Brandon Jr. He’s more than ready to admit there’s a lot he doesn’t know. He wants to do the right thing.

“I’ve got to grow up faster,� he said. “Any teenage dad would want to be with his friends. But, if you wanna be there for your son, you have to quit.�

*

About 500 teenagers go through the county Department of Health’s responsibility program for at-risk girls. Emigdio Cordova runs one of the department’s few programs aimed specifically at boys. There’s another informal support group at Simi Valley’s Apollo High School.

Cordova handles about 50 young men, but he knows his program is failing to attract many fathers who could benefit from some practical advice.

“We haven’t done a lot of outreach,� he said. “We’re pretty much overwhelmed as it is already.�

His kids are primarily Latino, and mostly from Oxnard. Some grew up without fathers. Many are bewildered by what they’re doing and have gang ties--some are even rivals. A fair share spent time in juvenile hall.

But, in Cordova’s program they’re simply fathers, at various stages in their relationships with their children.

Fernando, the newcomer, wiry and thoughtful, has a girlfriend who has refused to put his name on his child’s birth certificate. Roberto, a gentle, bearish boy, is struggling to find a job to support his girlfriend and baby. Santos--hip-hop philosopher and veteran dad--is struggling to support his kids and dreams of the day he makes it as a rap star.

The young men often speak to each other in the words of their neighborhoods: hip-hop “homie� and bits of Spanglish. It’s not all about parenting. They discuss family planning and male responsibility. They talk about what it means to be a man. What it means to be a father--especially when you haven’t spent much time with your own children.

They wrestle with the larger philosophical questions as well as the more practical ones--sometimes at once.

What do you do if you have to use the bathroom and you have your baby girl with you? Who knows? Hold it? Shield her eyes?

“They’ve got changing stations in women’s bathrooms,� Cordova said. “Society should give fathers the credit they deserve. We need family bathrooms.�

And that’s where the boys speak out: We don’t get the esteem we deserve. We are trying to be good fathers. People think we’re all on welfare. People think we don’t care about our children.

This is where Cordova agrees: Yes, you’re right. That’s not fair. But, you have to start changing these stereotypes by changing yourself. You have to face your problems. It’s hard to shepherd a new life when you’re still trying to grow up yourself. So, you have to work closely with your child’s mom.

“I got your back; you got mine,� is how Santos describes it.

But youth combined with financial pressure can put an incredible strain on those relationships. Many young fathers and mothers simply can’t afford their children.

“I was working with men who weren’t ready to be fathers,� said Cesar Hernandez, who ran the male responsibility program at El Concilio, which has since been suspended. “They just didn’t have the option to take the financial responsibility. They barely had enough to pay rent or buy diapers.�

But ask the young men in Cordova’s program how they feel about their fatherhood and they will say it has proved to be the opportunity of a lifetime. At 15, 16, 17, it is time to stop being a kid, to quit drinking and being a gang member. And fatherhood is a way to do it all without losing face.

Fernando was kicked out of his gang when his girlfriend got pregnant. Brandon and Albert have given up drinking as well as seeing many of their old friends.

“They can say, ‘I need to focus on my baby,’ and that’s respected,� Cordova said.

They have someone who will love them unconditionally, maybe for the first time. They have something to work for.

Fernando’s girlfriend’s family hates him. That’s a problem when she still lives at home and relies on her parents for financial and emotional support. They see Fernando as a roughneck and don’t want him around his son. Fernando can’t understand why.

Think about your own child, Cordova says. What would you want for him?

That’s the thought that keeps Albert--soft-spoken, earnest and absolutely gaga over his son--going through the daily routine: The two hours of getting the whole family ready for school at Apollo, where Albert and Julie attend. The occasional crying. The middle-of-the-night wake-ups. The early mornings when he’s tempted to stay in bed. The long day of school and work.

Albert and Julie, who is also 17, discovered she was pregnant when they went to the doctor to get birth control.

“I was tripping out. I was like, ‘Whoa,’ � he said. “But, I thought it was pretty cool. Every day, I trip out more and more.�

He realizes just how much his life is devoted to his son.

*

He is a homebody now. Nights out are an occasional movie with Julie, when grandma watches the baby. If a driver cuts him off, he doesn’t immediately think: What an idiot! He thinks: What if my baby had been in the car?--my baby, who can roll over, who can put his feet up to his mouth. My bubbly, sweet, mama’s-boy baby.

“I trip out. I see dads in movies and on TV,� he said. “That’s my real life. It occurred to me, I have to make things the best for me and Julie and my baby.�

Albert wants to join the Air Force. Julie wants to be a flight attendant. Herbert, well, they think he has the good looks to be a baby model. Julie wants them to move out of Albert’s parents’ house and get a place of their own. She wants to get married, someday.

If he joins the Air Force, she will follow him wherever he goes.

The three of them are a family.