Flada Blog

This is a paper that I wrote for a college composition class that I was enrolled in when my son was born in October of 2005. I’ve included it here because it is one of my favorite papers that I wrote in my college classes. My hope was to convey that life isn’t necessarily “over” when you become a teen parent. That is to say, life and our situations aren’t something that just happens to us but rather something we design. You have control even when it seems you’ve completely lost it.

The emotions are practically indescribable. There were so many things that went through my head when my girlfriend told me that she was late—fear, worry, anguish. I had just turned seventeen myself; what was going to happen to my plans to go to college, my plans to have some fun, my hopes, and my dreams? At that age, on first consideration, it’s difficult to connect “I’m late” with the impact it will have on one’s planned future. It’s even harder to start thinking “my son” or “my daughter.” Since the easy choices are often the wrong choices, they are usually the ones taken, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Teen parents still have the power to affect the nature of the changes in their lives.

Maybe it would have been easy to decide to do what so many unprepared, unwed sperm-donors do these days—cut and run. However, once I stood in the delivery room after her birth, holding this new, little life in my hands, the primal concept of “my daughter” instantly sank in. That was the point-of-no-return where cutting-and-running ceased being an option. Yet the questions still plagued me. What would happen to my future? What would happen to my dreams? Only now, there were added questions: How can I take care of my daughter? How can I make her life better? How can I teach her right from wrong when I know so little about them myself?

With those questions in my mind, I started to talk to military recruiters. After a few pitches from them, the Navy seemed like it might be an ideal answer to almost all of my problems. They could give me the education I wouldn’t be able to afford with an infant mouth to feed. As well, they could help me achieve my dreams. And finally, they could help me develop the tools to take care of my daughter, make her life better, and learn valuable lessons that I could pass on to her. So I signed up.

A funny thing happened after I enlisted, though. Although they were able to help me answer my questions and begin the long journey toward achieving my goals, they took my valuable time in exchange. As the years ticked away, I began to realize that just because I was providing for her financially, that didn’t necessarily mean that I was a good dad. Surely it takes more than two weeks spent partially with your child each year to be a good father. I believed that my situation would lead to my daughter growing up believing her father abandoned her, or worse—her believing that there was something wrong with her, proven by the fact that her dad wasn’t around.

Of course I couldn’t stay in the Navy with this dilemma on my mind. So as soon as my contract expired, I moved back to the town where my daughter lived. However, with the loss of the Navy benefits and income, the struggle to pay for her support soon returned. Eventually my persistence led to a good paying job in field service. Unfortunately, field service took me away from her again, but at least I was there for her on weekends, which was far better than in my Navy days. Later, through progressive job changes, the time I had for her increased while my paychecks steadily grew. When she was twelve, she moved from her mother’s to my house.

Because of the choices I’ve made, I now have a fabulous relationship with my daughter. This past summer, I walked her down the aisle. Next month, she and her new husband will move in with my wife, my newborn son (her brother) and me.

Now I contrast my newborn son with my adult daughter. My son will have quite a few advantages that my daughter didn’t have: more mature parents, more financial stability, and better emotional support. Yet, despite the fact that he was planned and I thought of him as “my son” months before he was actually born; he is neither more wanted nor more loved than was his sister.