Parenting might have been easier from the start had he had a friend who was also up changing diapers at 2 a.m., Jason Macek said in retrospect. But dad Jason was barely 20 and mom Kristi was just out of high school when son Cameron arrived three years ago.
Their friends were either sleeping or partying at 2 a.m. They just didn’t understand.
Now those exhausting middle-of-the-night feedings are over. But Jason and Kristi are both working two jobs to keep the young family afloat.
A support group for young dads like himself would have helped him tremendously. It could still help him, he said. And it would help many other young men like him who have found themselves thrust into a fatherhood that wasn’t planned.
For 10 years, the Greater DuPage MELD for Young Moms (MYM) has provided support and education for adolescent moms throughout the county. Last year, 57 young moms were regularly involved in the program. Dads were only included at socials like the annual picnic and the MYM Prom. Now they have decided to include in the supportive circle custodial and non-custodial dads as well as young men who are dating young mothers, in a program to be called MELD for Young Dads, said Greater DuPage MYM executive director Janet Bornancin. (MELD stands for the learning curriculum Minnesota Early Learning Design, an organization that develops parenting programs for the education of all types of families.)
“So many times the young women have said how they wished the child’s father knew this or that about parenting. There is no way those young dads are going to know if someone doesn’t teach them,” Bornancin said.
The group for dads will be up and running in January. Funding will come from foundations, corporate donations and in-house fundraising, she said.
“It would be nice to get it going as soon as possible,” said Gary Falls, a young dad from Glendale Heights.
Gary and Gwen Falls’ son Vance was born when Gwen was 17 and Gary was 23. Gary was a senior in college and Gwen a senior in high school when she became pregnant.
“I did not know who to talk to at the time. There were a lot of times when I had questions, and nobody was around,” Gary said. “It seems that a female on average knows a lot more about the stages of development in a child’s life than a male knows. If a man knew some of these things about babies, he could be better prepared. Even if you’re only going to have your child on weekends, you have to know how to take care of him.”
Both Gwen Falls and Kristi Macek have completed the three-year MYM program and are now leaders for MYM groups near their homes.
“Gwen always had a place to go to talk to someone,” said Gary. “In helping her, they were helping me, too. Once you find a group that does something for you, you want to give something back. I’d like to help get this program for dads up and running.”
Until recently, the social issue of teen pregnancy dealt primarily with support for the adolescent mom, Bornancin said. “But that’s changing,” she said. “We need to focus on positive parenting. We need to try to keep these families together. In 1993, 519 teenage mothers, 13 to 19, gave birth in DuPage County. Someone is fathering those children.”
Robert Bollendorf, a clinical psychologist and professor of human services at the College of DuPage, met Bornancin when she was a guest speaker in his class.
“I believe the program (for dads) has enormous potential and possibilities. I would love to see it get off the ground,” said Bollendorf, who wrote a letter of support for the group. “I’ve been a therapist and a teacher for years, and I feel that one of the most crucial needs in our society is to get fathers more involved not only in family life but neighborhoods. The most common dysfunctional family I see in therapy is where the father is physically or emotionally absent. Part is that they don’t realize how important they are, and the other thing is that they haven’t had much training in fatherhood. They tend to be intimidated by infants, and they never catch up.”
Bornancin anticipates that the dads’ program will be similar to the moms’, with a three-year program of sessions running for 10 weeks and meals and child care provided during meeting times.
The issues to address are many. Coping with the isolation they feel from family and friends is one topic to address, said the young dads.
Early childhood development, appropriate child guidance and discipline, crisis intervention, safety, hotlines and social services, nutrition, family management, career planning–the needs are many, Bornancin said.
And do not forget the basics of diapering and feeding.
They also need a place to get a morale boost, Falls said. “The only thing you hear about fathers in this situation is the negative stuff. There are a lot of groups out there to help single moms. Somebody needs to get the dads in the right direction. If more dads could understand what’s going on, a lot of problems would not occur. Guys turn their backs because they feel they’re not ready. They’re afraid to ask. This is not something guys typically talk to their friends about.”
Jason Macek said he relied on Kristi, whom he married this summer, to help him understand some of the questions he had about parenting.
“When Kristi first got involved in MYM, she didn’t feel like she had a solid ground to be able to parent,” he said. “MYM helped her get herself emotionally secure and taught her about child raising. She then helped me learn.
“For some dads, it would be good if they could have a one-on-one environment where they could get together with young fathers and their children. It would help bring the father and the child together.”
MYM serves moms between the ages of 15 and 25, with the average age about 22, Bornancin said.
Not only does the program help teach parenting but it also helps prevent second pregnancies among the teens. Eighty percent of teen mothers in Illinois have a second pregnancy within two years, Bornancin said. “Only 6 percent of our mothers did. The importance of pregnancy prevention is another important issue to discuss with the young dads.”
Falls and Macek know that as well. Both young dads are active volunteers in MYM’s Peer Presented Prevention Program, talking to DuPage adolescents about preventing more teen pregnancies.
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Call MYM at 708-790-6600; the group is looking for male volunteers who have experience in single parenting.
