Fatherhood: boys and young men

Sometimes fatherhood comes a bit too soon. Namely, teenage pregnancies are a common sight these days more and more teenagers indulge into early sexual intercourse. Yet, once the responsibilities are to be accepted and childhood left behind, due to the arrival of the baby, young parents often act inappropriately. Basically, they either practice poor parenthood or leave the child and run away.

The Child Father

Children can become fathers. In these cases, a vast majority of individuals refuse to accept this state of affairs, refusing to reject their childhood and become dedicated, caring and responsible fathers. Rather, they leave the baby to the teenage mother. This scenario usually produces a low-income, single parent family and a childhood bound to be rough and unpleasant.

Yet, the story can have different protagonists and antagonists. There are cases where teenage mothers leave their babies to their underage fathers. Here, the child is supposed to take care of another child and there are great chances that this form of parenthood will prove to be a failure too.

Boys Don’t Cry

There is a book called Boys Don’t Cry, depicting a life of a 17-year-old father who was left alone with his baby. This boy, Dante, is left to go through a whole plethora of different emotions, overcoming abandonment, sorrow, grief, fear and numerous other feelings due to the fact that he knows nothing about taking care of himself, let alone taking care of a baby.

Fortunately, Dante is not alone in this novel. Rather, he has his father besides him, helping him get over every obstacle that fatherhood poses in front of him. His father had to be alone too, since his wife died when Dante and his brother were small children.

So, this book carefully depicts the necessity of young fathers of depending on other people, preferably their supportive members of the family.

All in all, in the book, Dante manages to be a good father to his little daughter, after going to hell and back, just like the epic poet he shares his name with.

This book is not a fantasy. On the other hand, it is a common scenario that many males need to live through. Stereotypically, we are led to believe that only women, in this case girls, are left to be single parents. However, there are many Dantes in the world of today.

Fortunately, these boys do not cry, but rather accept their responsibilities and manage to accept the early fatherhood tossed at their feet. Still, they usually do this with all the help of their families and friends they can get.