responsibilities of fatherhood as perceived by African American teenage fathers, The

ABSTRACT: The experience of adolescent fatherhood was explored through in-depth interviews. Ten African American teenage fathers from a midwestern city were asked to describe what being a father meant to them. The subjects discussed their perceptions of fatherhood and described some of the obstacles to meeting their paternal aspirations. Key themes included the subjects' desire to be actively involved with their children and the critical influence of the subjects' experiences with their own fathers. Strategies for working with adolescent fathers are also presented.

EARLY PARENTING AMONG ADOLESCENTS is an issue of concern to many researchers, clinicians, and policymakers. The life experiences of adolescent mothers and the outcomes for their children have been well documented (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987; Hofferth & Hayes, 1987; Rickel, 1989). Moreover, many current remedial programs supporting adolescent parents still focus on the needs of the adolescent mother and her child (Dunston, Hall, & Thorne-Henderson, 1987). As increasingly more social attention is focused on the economic and developmental challenges inherent in adolescent parenting, the subject of adolescent fatherhood is receiving more attention. Compared with adolescent mothers, relatively little is known about adolescent fathers, despite increased scholarship during the past decade (Connor, 1988; Elster & Lamb, 1986; Freeman, 1989; Hendricks, 1983; Robinson, 1988b; Sullivan, 1986).

Much of this recent work presents demographic information on adolescent fathers and statistical reports of their behaviors (Battle, 1988; Parke & Neville, 1987). Less interest in the more subjective aspects of adolescent fatherhood has been shown. Integration of both objective and subjective aspects would facilitate our understanding of these young men's lives. Empirical (Robinson, 1988a) and anecdotal (Dash, 1989) evidence suggests that many adolescent fathers value their paternal roles highly. But when adolescent fathers use the term "fatherhood," what do they mean? Are they referring solely to their biological role in parenthood or are they including broader social and cultural expectations of fathers? How do adolescent fathers develop their perceptions of fatherhood, and are these reflected in their actual paternal behavior?

This study used symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; LaRossa & Reitzes, 1993) as a conceptual framework to explore adolescent fatherhood. We interviewed a group of African American adolescent fathers in a large, mid western city, discussing their perceptions of fatherhood and their recollection of how these perceptions originated. Our primary purpose was to gain a clearer understanding of what being a father meant to them. We also explored the potential influence that the perception of father hood had on their conduct as fathers. According to Blumer (1969), the fundamental principles of symbolic interaction are: (1) people act on the basis of the meanings that things have for them, (2) meanings emerge through social interac tions, and (3) meanings are managed through an interpretive process. Thus, we felt that these adolescents' perceptions of fatherhood would affect their paternal behavior; they would act as fathers according to the meaning of fatherhood to them. Furthermore, these perceptions should emerge from social interactions with other fami ly members and peers. Finally, we looked for evidence of an ongoing, interpretive process involving the young men's perceptions and their paternal behavior.

Research on Adolescent Fathers

Although adolescent fathers are thought to be responsible for 116,000 live births annually (Barth, Claycomb, & Loomis, 1988), research on and services for this population are minimal (Barret & Robinson, 1982). Even this figure may be conservative in that 65% of birth certificates for mothers younger than 20 years of age fail to indicate a father (Smollar & Ooms, 1987). Because of the relatively low avowal rate of patemity by adolescent males (Wattenberg, 1990) and because of the social stigma attending early childbearing, precise estimates of the number of adolescent fathers are difficult to ascertain.

The initial challenge to researchers interested in studying this population is finding and recruiting subjects. Christmon (1990a) described adolescent fathers as difficult to recruit and occasionally guarded, particularly at the beginning of interviews. At least one study has documented lower levels of trust among adoles cent fathers compared with nonfathers (McCoy & Tyler, 1985), a wariness that may stem from their fear of being tainted by negative stereo types regarding adolescent fatherhood (Robinson, 1988b). Researchers attempting to contact adolescent fathers through their natal partners often discovered that the fathers either are purposefully not named by the mothers or deny patemity (Hardy, Duggan, Masnyk, & Pearson, 1989). Moreover, researchers who examine adolescent fatherhood primarily through the eyes of adolescent mothers run the risk of overemphasizing one aspect of a multifaceted phenomenon (Robinson, 1988b).

Another challenge in studying adolescent fathers has been assessing the impact of ethnicity on outcomes for these young men. Few studies have integrated ethnicity's potential influence on pregnancy resolution with discussions of differential outcomes for adolescent males who impregnate, which is surprising because the literature on the differential rates of pregnancy terminations between European Americans and African Americans is well established (Marsiglio, 1989; Redmond, 1985; Rothstein, 1978; Zelnik, Kantner, & Ford, 1981). African American adolescent males who impregnate are much more likely than their European American counterparts to encourage their sexual partners to avoid abortion and therefore are more likely to become fathers as a result of unplanned pregnancies (Washington, 1982; Zelnik & Kantner, 1980). However, this increased likelihood has often been poorly documented and more often misinterpreted as an ethnic predisposition toward early pregnancy and cultural preference for early parenting.

As young fathers, African American adolescents face many of the same challenges that their older counterparts struggle with (Jackson, McCullough, & Gurin, 1988; McAdoo, 1993). These include appropriate ethnic socialization of children (McAdoo, 1988) and sensitization to the negative consequences of ethnocentrism of others (Peters, 1988). Most young African American men receive strong messages about men providing for their families and the importance of fatherhood as a significant aspect of masculinity (Comer, 1989; Connor, 1988; Taylor, Leashore, & Toliver, 1988). Such messages may intensify the conflict they feel when they cannot meet their own or society's expectations of fatherhood (Connor, 1988). Typically, curtailed educational opportunities (Marsiglio, 1987) worsen the already restricted employment horizons these young men face by virtue of their ethnicity (Wilson, 1987). The combination of these negative factors produces a powerful set of impediments to establishing and maintaining strong familial bonds with their natal partner and child.

Several researchers (Elster & Panzarine, 1983; Hendricks & Montgomery, 1983) and theorists (Belsky & Miller, 1986) have pointed to the developmental dilemma facing adolescent fathers. Applegate (1988) notes that these young men must attempt to negotiate their transitions into adulthood while simultaneously managing their child's development and relationships with the child's mother. Unfortunately, the interpersonal skills most needed for coping with these challenges "are likely to be those least available to adolescent boys still engaged in struggles around separation from their own parents" (Applegate, 1988, p. 207).

Many fathers are willing to participate with the mother in the life of their child, though their knowledge of child development is meager and their expectations of children are often unrealistic.

Yet, increasing evidence shows that adolescent fathers want to be (and are) involved with their "procreated" family (Kinman, Sanders, Rosen, & Longo, 1986; Robinson & Barret, 1986). The fact that many of these fathers do not live with their partner and child does not preclude their having a positive effect on them (Furstenberg, 1976; Kahn & Bolton 1985). Even when fathers are physically absent from the home, their child may develop significant relationships with them (Mott, 1990). This is important in view of the substantial number of children born to adolescent parents who do not have their biological fathers living with them in the same household or who have their fathers living with them for intermittent periods (Furstenberg et al.,1987).

Research on adolescent fathers' attitudes toward child care indicates that many fathers are willing to participate with the mother in the life of their child (Redmond, 1985), though their knowledge of child development is meager and their expectations of children are often unrealistic (Robinson, 1988a). Although the latter factor can negatively affect the quantity and quality of their paternal interactions over time, adolescent fathers often provide direct and indirect benefits to their offspring (Lamb & Elster, 1985; Rivara, Sweeney, & Henderson, 1986; Vaz, Smolen, & Miller, 1983). Examples of direct benefits include providing food, clothing (e.g., disposable diapers), and other material necessities for the child. Indirect benefits include the adolescent father's emotional and economic support of the child's mother, which in turn enables her better to cope with the demands of child rearing.

Although most of the literature has focused on behaviors, a symbolic interactional approach suggests the importance of understanding the meaning behind the behaviors. Several researchers have investigated meaning by posing questions such as "How do you feel about becoming a father out of wedlock?" or "Do you think that this pregnancy will affect your life?" (see Hendricks & Montgomery, 1983). Herzog (1984) reported that adolescent fathers derive a higher sense of self-esteem as a result of becoming a father. Robinson and Barret (1987) explored the relationship between self-image (and psychological level of functioning) and willingness to be involved with the mother and child. Westney, Cole, and Munford (1986) attempted to clarify the links between paternal attitudes and actual behavior. They first elicited perceptions of fatherhood among their subjects and then compared them with observations of supportive antenatal behavior and projections of postnatal behavior. In support of Blumer's first principle, they found that the degree to which the young men perceived themselves as fathers influenced their performance in that role; they acted on the basis of what fatherhood meant to them.

Christmon's (1990b) suggestion that the adolescent father's perception of fatherhood was influenced by observing adolescent childbearing and child rearing in their families of origin illustrates Blumer's second principle: meanings emerge through social interactions. Christmon found that subjects whose parents or siblings were themselves adolescent parents viewed early parenting less negatively than did subjects from families in which members became parents later in life. He also found that the assumption of parental responsibility (as reflected in paternal behavior) was influenced more by the adolescent father's own self-image and role expectations than by the expectations of his partner or his parents (Christmon 1990a). Thus, the young men who had a positive sense of themselves and their potential to be good fathers seemed better prepared to negotiate the complex developmental challenges faced by adolescent fathers.

Methods

The major findings of this study emerged from the interviews rather than from a priori hypotheses. We sought to identify common themes emerging from this group of African American adolescent fathers. Our goal was to generate and explore these themes rather than to identify generalizable patterns among all adolescent fathers. Research on African American adolescent fathers requires identification and integration of social and environmental factors that shape the decisions of many young African American males. These include economic (e.g., poverty) and political (e.g., institutional racism) factors that directly influence their life. We believed that focusing on African Americans as a distinct group was important, given the potential policy and program development implications of research on adolescent fatherhood.

Anticipating a small sample, we wanted to avoid the potential pitfall of attempting to make meaningful comparisons between ethnic groups. Failure to account adequately for the context in which reproductive decisions and parenting occurs or to distinguish mediating effects of poverty from those of ethnicity compromises the utility of much of the research on this topic. Many studies using African American adolescents as subjects reflect ethnocentric biases in both research design and interpretation of results (McKenry, Everett, Ramseur, & Carter, 1989). When the subjects in question are African American and the researcher is European American, the possibility that questions or responses will be misinterpreted is greater (Johnson & Staples, 1979). Because the interviewer was African American, we believed that the potential liability of a small sample with a single ethnic group could be turned into an advantage by matching the interviewer and the subjects. Matching subjects and researchers by ethnicity does not eliminate the potential for bias, but it does decrease the probability of sociocultural nuances being lost "in translation."

In view of the social stigma attending early parenthood, we suspected that many of our subjects might never have discussed their experi ences as adolescent fathers with others. Because we believed that these young men developed and managed their perceptions of fatherhood through social interactions, we chose to use indepth conversational interviews to explore these perceptions. Interviews gave our subjects more control in both the organization and articulation of the meaning of fatherhood and allowed for the incorporation of unexpected themes that emerged from the responses. This approach also helped us go beyond socially desirable cliches about fatherhood by using circular questioning to scrutinize the meaning of fatherhood with each adolescent.

For the purposes of this study, an adolescent father was defined as a male, biological parent 15-19 years of age. The terms father, mother, and child, unless otherwise specified, refer to the subject, his natal partner, and their child, respectively. Subjects were solicited from agencies providing community and school-based programs for adolescent parents. These agencies were provided with a brief overview of the study and asked for suggestions that might improve the study. In an attempt to obtain a sample group whose experiences would be roughly comparable, we initially looked for subjects whose children had been born within one year of the interview date. However, because this guideline proved to be too restrictive, the time interval was increased to three years.

Participants

Ten adolescent fathers participated in the study. The mean age of transition to fatherhood for the participants was 16.5 years. At the time of the interview, the age of their children ranged from three weeks to three years. The mean age of the children was 18 months. Most of the participants had one child, although three had more than one child. Table 1 summarizes the demographics for the sample group.

The participants reported monthly incomes ranging from $200 to $800. Most of them were either finishing high school, completing GED programs, or entering the job market with entry-level positions in construction or in the service industry. One of the participants indicated that he and his natal partner were partially supported by public assistance. He also was finishing high school and working part time in an effort to become self-sufficient.

Seven participants reported growing up in households in which their own fathers were mostly or totally absent. Six participants were still residing with their own mothers or other members of their family of origin at the time of the interview. Two co-resided with their child and their natal partner, and the remaining two were living independently.

The Interviews

Participants were interviewed once, alone, and in public locations that were mutually acceptable to the interviewer and the participant. In selecting sites, consideration was given to enhancing the participants' convenience and to respecting their confidentiality. We used the "task" of finding a quiet space as an opportunity to build rapport with participants. Food courts of shopping malls during nonpeak hours and the quiet room in public libraries proved to be good sites. A three-part questionnaire guided each interview, which typically lasted from two to three hours. The first section gathered demographic data on the fathers, mothers, and children. The second section explored each father's relationship with the focal child. Of the three fathers with more than one child, two spontaneously designated a focal child on their own when asked which child they wanted to discuss. The third, a 16-year-old with four children, hesitantly based his decision on greater familiarity with a particular child. We asked participants to discuss the types of parental duties for which they were responsible and how often they engaged in such father-child activity. Participants were encouraged to be as specific as possible.

The answers to such questions provided an experiential foundation on which to base our discussion of each participant's perception of what fatherhood meant to him. In this final section, we asked the participants to define in their own words the meaning of the term "fatherhood"-what made someone a good father and what was the importance of fathers to families? Each young man was encouraged to talk about his experiences with his own father and how these experiences matched his expressed ideals about fatherhood. Participants were then asked to evaluate themselves as fathers from different perspectives in time and to speculate on how the mothers and children might evaluate their current performance.

Analysis

An audiotape was made of each interview, and written notes were also taken in order to document the participant's nonverbal cues. The written notes also helped to clarify the content of unintelligible portions of the audiotape. After each session, the interviewer combined his subjective impressions of the interview with the written notes to produce an interview log. Rather than a literal transcription of each interview audiotape, the logs reflected an inductive process of data reduction in which content analysis determined salient themes in the participants' responses. Toward the end of the project an effort was made to compare these themes by looking for similarities and differences among the participants' responses. After all of the interviews were completed, the major themes emerging from the group were summarized. Excerpts from the audiotapes were selected to help illustrate several of these themes. Finally, we reexamined the literature in light of our findings, looking for areas of congruence and possible reasons for discrepancies.

Results

Using a Likert scale, we asked participants to rate the relationships with their natal partner wherein 1 equaled "not very close," 2 "close," and 3 "very close." We then asked for a similar rating of the relationship with the focal child. Table 2 summarizes these ratings as well as their current living status and an aggregated estimate of the frequency of visits with the children. The participants generally reported that their relationship with their child was closer than their relationship with the child's mother. Only three participants rated the partner relationship more favorably.

Topics explored with each participant included whether he was living with his natal part ner and child, and if he was not, how often he visited his child. We also asked for estimates of the amount of time spent engaged in parental tasks, such as feeding and bathing, and in recreational activities with the child. For the purpose of simplicity, we reduced these responses to a single proxy for involvement-"time spent with child"-which is aggregated into one of three categories: every day, every other day, and once a week. Combined with "relationship to partner" and "relationship to child," we believe that this aggregated proxy provides a more accurate reflection of paternal involvement than does living arrangement alone. Although eight participants were not living with their partners or children, that many spent time with their children at least every other day. Three participants spent time every day with their child. The lowest ratings for time spent with child (once per week) were reported by two of the four participants whose partner rating was "1" (not very close). Overall, the data appear to support a positive correlation between partner relationship and paternal involvement (even more than between live-in status and paternal involvement).

Major Themes in the Interview

Meaning and behavior. The perception of fatherhood appeared to play a pivotal role in shaping the participants' paternal behavior. The participants cited various sources when asked about the root of these perceptions but they appeared to be especially influenced by childhood memories of their own fathers. Other sources included other male relatives (older brothers, cousins, and grandfathers were mentioned most often), other significant men in their lives (e.g., teachers, pastors), and popular images in the media. The group seemed split on the question "Can women teach boys how to be fathers?" Some indicated that women such as their mothers and grandmothers had been important sources of information regarding fatherhood.

Most participants felt that they were better fathers to their children than their own fathers had been to them. For some, ambivalence about their own uninvolved fathers appeared to be a key motivation in their desire to be involved with their own child. Approximately half of the group felt that they were doing a better job as fathers than were other adolescent fathers they knew. A few participants were particularly insightful about the developmental aspect of being and becoming a father. According to GK:

It's nothing I don't think someone can teach you.... It's something you adapt to and you learn how to deal with it as you go along. Like maybe next year my son'll be two, I'll be a different dad then than I am this year. As you get older, it's gonna change.

In addition to ethnic and familial socialization about the ideal paternal role, the participants described their paternal behaviors as being supportive of their perceptions of fatherhood. Examples of this were behaviors such as direct caring for their children (e.g., feeding, changing, and bathing) and support for the children's mothers. In this mutually reinforcing relationship, the perception shaped their behaviors and the behaviors enhanced their perception of fatherhood. Participants who could best articulate their perception appeared to be most involved with their child. (By involvement we mean the result of seeking access to and active engagement with the child on a consistent basis). This was true even when in the presence of major obstacles to involvement such as an antagonistic relationship with the child's mother.

In contrast, the two fathers who had the least to say about what fatherhood meant to them were also the least involved (according to their reports of both the amount of father-child interaction and the range of activities). The differences between the "more involved" and "less involved" fathers appeared to be more indicative of their degree of reflection regarding their status as fathers than of differences in verbal ability. Their interactions with others (the child, the mother, peers, etc.) continually shaped and reshaped their attitude about fatherhood. Many of the "more involved" fathers also indicated that being a father contributed to their own development as individuals. This interpretive process resonates with Blumer's (1969) conceptualization of symbolic interactionism.

"Being there." The phrase "being there" was a recurrent theme used by participants in one of two contexts: (1) being present at the birth of their child and (2) being actively involved in the lives of their children. The fathers who witnessed the birth echoed the sentiments of FQ:

I just think a father should be in there, to go through the experience, you know, to see what the mother goes through. And really, when you're in the operating room or the birthing room, that really starts it all. It's like you see your son or daughter come out and you're there, and that's where everything starts.

The second meaning of the phrase "being there" is reflected in this same father's response to the question "What makes someone a good father?":

I think the most important thing is to be there for my daughter. 1 need to give her love and understanding. A father is the one who make[s] you smile. Being a father means being there for everything.

Responsibility. Several of the fathers in the study cited responsibility as a significant aspect of their perception of fatherhood. As stated earlier, this finding is consistent with studies discussing paternal values among African American adult men. When asked what he felt was the most important aspect of fatherhood, RJ said:

Responsibility. There's a lot of responsibility with two kids. I remember going to temporary agencies, just tryin to get diapers for [my child]. My neighbors ask me if we want to go out to the bar, but they know we can't afford to go most of the time.

A possible difference between these adolescent fathers and their adult counterparts is that most of the participants felt responsibility primarily to the child and not to the child's mother. Several participants seemed overwhelmed by the sheer number and variety of parental obligations. When we asked GK what he thought the most unexpected aspect of becoming a father was, he responded:

All the responsibilities, I would say. I didn't think there was this much responsibilities. I mean, there's hundreds of 'em! Some weeks I plan for me and [my child] to do somethin' the whole week and it's like, and I didn't know in between he was going to wet his clothes, and now I gotta change him, and I gotta do this, and I gotta [do that].

Importance of fathers. The participants were unanimous in their opinion that fathers were very important to families. When asked why, many of them pointed to the father's role as a provider of economic and emotional support to the family. Some stated that fathers were necessary "to hold the family together" and used terms like leadership to describe the paternal role. RJ stated,

Yes, I think fathers are important. Like, my mom was a single parent, and I saw what she went through. She taught me a lot of responsibility, but she could really have used some help. I think they [fathers] can help the mom and the family.

These fathers also saw themselves as becoming the primary disciplinarians of their children in the future. We could not determine whether this was a desire to act as a counterbalance to perceived maternal indulgence of their children or a reflection of their ambivalence over having grown up in single-female-headed household. However, the majority felt that it was particularly important for male children to have their fathers involved with them throughout their lives. As GK explained, "I think fathers are important, especially for boys. Every child needs a role model; boys need fathers as models."

This group of fathers as a whole reported significant involvement in their child's life.

Some spoke about contributing money from part-time jobs for food and clothing for their child. Others provided child-care alternatives to the mother (e.g., taking care of the child for a weekend). Most of them were pushing the mother for even more time and more responsibility than they already had. The motivation behind these efforts seemed rooted in their perceptions of what fathers do for their children. Typical of this strong sense of obligation to children was this comment by MM:

My mom and my grandmother raised me. My dad? All I know is that his name was . . , and when I was about [child]'s age he left my mom. So, my mindset is that I want to be everything that he wasn't to me. Meanin' I want to be something to my son. I want to be a [cherished] memory, I don't want to be like just a name. My mom was talkin' about finding my dad, and I was like, "Well, go ahead . . . I don't care." I don't want to be like that with [child]. I want to be part of his life. I want him to say, "My dad is right there." I want to take him to ball games, I want to keep him strong, I want to be his life.

Self-image as fathers. Most of the participants perceived themselves to be developmentally "early" as fathers; some stated that they wished they had postponed becoming a father so prematurely. Yet, even these reservations were balanced by a sense of connection to their child. According to JJ, a young father with specific career goals in mind,

If I could do it over, I would not be a father right now. But he's here and I'm glad he's here. Even though he's just a little baby I really feel close to him and everything.

When asked what he would do if he had to choose between his child and career, JJ said, "I think I'd choose him over anything."

Negative stereotypes about African American males, particularly African American adolescent fathers, appeared to influence many of the participants. For example, they commented about the lack of African American men portrayed in family settings by the popular media. Several felt that positive paternal role models were either absent or deliberately obscured by society. One consequence of this distortion for these young men was their difficulty imagining themselves as successful relational partners and fathers. GK expressed a common sentiment when he summarized his ideal paternal self-image as a reaction to negative images of African American fathers in society:

I don't want my son growin' up like I did. There's a lot of kids who don't have fathers, or if they do have fathers they're in jail or on drugs or not working or don't care about anything else.... So what [if] they're a father. If you look at it, there's probably more dads out there that's not doin' what they should be doin' for their children than there is dads doin' everything they can. I want [child] to see that his dad is not what he sees in society.

Contradicting these stereotypes, the participants talked about the positive significance of fatherhood. Many used spiritual metaphors to describe their becoming and being fathers. ET referred to his daughter as "a gift from God" and described his becoming a father as a "blessing," something that had changed his life for the better. Others cited parental obligation as having brought purpose to their lives. Despite regrets about the timing of their transition to parenthood, most of the group felt capable of "being there" for their children. The stated desire for paternal involvement coupled with parental activity appeared to offset their ambivalence about being adolescent fathers.

Obstacles to fathers' involvement. When we asked the participants what prevented them from being the kind of father they wanted to be, they listed various obstacles. The most striking of these was a strained relationship with the mother of their child. Such relationships had the potential to affect both the quantity of time spent with the child and the quality of fatherchild interactions. Participants whose relationship with the mother was strained tended to see their child less frequently (see Table 2) and also appeared more reticent about the specific nature of their interactions with their child. This reticence could be interpreted as anticipation of eventually being separated from their child as a result of a problematic co-parental relationship.

DC discussed how these difficulties affected his attempts to spend time with his son:

Well, like when me and [partner] weren't fond of each other, it kept me and my son apart. She would always [say], "I don't want to see you today," or I would want to see my son, and me and her were fightin'. I would say, "Well I'm comin' over . . . and she'd say, "No, you don't," and leave. And I would come over there and she'd be gone.

Family and friends (of both the young father and the mother) could also be an obstacle to involvement, especially if they were hostile to the young father or not supportive of the couple's relationship. One participant described the verbal abuse he received from his partner's mother as they both stood beside the young woman during delivery. Another young man detailed how after trying repeatedly to see his child and the child's mother, he was chased at gunpoint from her father's house by some of her relatives.

Social institutions constituted a third category of obstacles to the participants. Many of the young men felt that the staff of schools, hospitals, and social service agencies hindered rather than facilitated their efforts to care for their child. They spoke of these institutions as being "stacked against [them]" and biased toward the mother. Some participants, like GK, went to extraordinary lengths to care for their child despite these impediments.

My son was seven months old, and he had a bite mark on his face. I asked [partner] who did it, and she said she didn't know. I asked her did she take him [to the emergency room], 'cause at the time she was staying at a place where cats and dogs was, and I figured, well, if a dog or somethin' bit him, he should go in for shots. So I take him to the hospital. They look at him and they document it and they tell me, "Well, maybe you oughta take him to St. Joe's [foster home agency] and let them do some documents." Well, I made it to St. Joe's, they told me give 'em [child] and I can go. And I'm thinkin', I'm bringin' my son here, I want to know what's goin' on. They tell me, "We can't."

When I call up there or when I went back there, they tell me I can't even see my son. They took him and told me, "Even though you're the father we can't tell you nothing. We have to notify the mother, let her know her son is here, let her know who brought him." Even though I'm the one who brought him. Later, when I asked the county about the report concerning the bite marks, they told me, "We can't tell you anything; that information is confidential." [After a pause, with a perplexed look on his face, he said,] I'm the one who made the report.

As with other participants, GK's paternal aspirations appeared to provide the primary motivation to overcome obstacles to involvement with his child. Unfortunately, in time, such obstacles may diminish the intensity of paternal aspirations among adolescent fathers. Several participants speculated that other young fathers they knew lost interest in their children, probably as a direct result of frustration with these obstacles.

Discussion

This study adds to our knowledge of adolescent fathers by revealing subjective aspects of the experience and should be useful to other researchers and to clinicians interested in working with adolescent fathers and their families. The study arose out of our curiosity about the interpretations that adolescent fathers drew from their paternal experiences. We were initially skeptical about the adolescents' potential to be good fathers, but we tried to withhold biases about their desire to be involved. Our professional view was that problems associated with assuming the enormous responsibilities of parenthood, coupled with the truncation of more developmentally appropriate life experiences, would make adolescent fatherhood problematic. However, we tried to balance skepticism with an openness to the participants' perceptions in order to avoid inadvertently injecting our own biases into the results (Miller, 1993).

The relatively positive self-perceptions of fathers in this small convenience sample may have influenced the relatively high paternal involvement we observed. It is probable that adolescents who impregnate and do not seek involvement do not value fatherhood in the same way as our group did and would not volunteer for this study. Thus, the findings presented here may be criticized as reflecting selfselection among involved fathers. It would also have been interesting to observe these young fathers with their children in order to corroborate their assertions of involvement. Given our cross-sectional design, we do not know how these young men might feel about their children 5 to 10 years from now. Similarly, interviewing the participants and their partners would have provided a glimpse of the relationship that seemed to be such a significant factor in paternal access.

Despite these limitations, we found the participants' responses compelling evidence of how perceptions of fatherhood shape the desires and behaviors of some adolescent fathers. The themes of "being there," responsibility, and the importance of fathers to families seemed remarkable coming from adolescents, notwithstanding the salience of such themes with adult African American fathers (Cazenave, 1981; Connor, 1988; McAdoo, 1993). Some of the participants' assertions of involvement initially appeared hollow, given their marital and household status visa-vis the mothers and children. The use of indepth interviews did not completely remove the possibility that the young fathers' responses may have reflected what they thought we wanted to hear. However, we believe that most of this group articulated a deeper understanding of the experience of fatherhood than socially desirable cliches might suggest. Many of their responses demonstrated familiarity with the typical parenting challenges most fathers face and suggested an awareness of the unique problems associated with their early parenting.

Childhood experiences with their own fathers shaped these fathers' perceptions of the kind of father they might be with their own child. This may have been particularly true for those whose father was absent.

The process of developing perceptions of fatherhood, of role taking and role making through social interaction, began long before these adolescents became fathers. Childhood experiences with their own fathers shaped their perceptions of the kind of father they might be with their own child. This may have been particularly true for those whose father was absent. The pain of that absence may have fostered a determination to remain involved with their child--to "be there." If childhood experiences formed the foundation of the perception of fatherhood, interactions with other significant individuals in their life provided additional input. Family members such as older brothers and grandfathers, as well as mothers and grandmothers, seemed to play significant roles in socializing the participants as potential fathers. Such socialization was not limited to close family members but included extended family networks, peer associations, and images in the media. Thus, at each ecological level, Blumer's (1969) "interpretive process" continually defined and redefined the meaning of fatherhood. We believe that the participants used that process to align their paternal behavior with their perception of fatherhood.

Though the empirical evidence suggests less involvement by most adolescent fathers as time passes, we feel it is important not to lose sight of the sense of paternal commitment expressed by the participants in this study. One conclusion that could be drawn from the literature (and from reports in the popular press) is that young African American men do not value fatherhood or family as highly as do their counterparts in other ethnic groups. We believe that this conclusion is incorrect. A more compelling hypothesis is that the conflict between strong convictions about responsibility to family and the virtual inability to fulfill those responsibilities drives African American adolescent fathers out of relationship and away from their child (Connor, 1988; Wilson, 1987). Conflicts over level of involvement and consistency of involvement appeared to manifest themselves as relationship problems between our participants and their natal partner. It was often difficult to determine whether such conflicts were the cause or the result of the couple's relationship problems. The participants also differed greatly in their ability to recognize incongruencies between what they believed good fathers did and what they themselves were actually doing.

Implications

When the participants spoke about the obstacles to "being there," we could hear their frustration as well as their determination to overcome these obstacles. Their responses to the question "What does being a father mean to you?" were filled with confidence about their future rather than doubts about their past. Most participants described the experience as having changed them in some inexplicably positive way. When asked how being a father made him feel, MM said,

It kinda gives you, it's a . . . it's an unexplainable feeling. Like when I was in the delivery room and he came, and he was there, you know, and he looked at me . . . it was like, you're in awe. That's the best way I can say it, you're in awe! You're like, wow! He looks at you and your body like tingles . . it's almost like catching the Holy Ghost or something!

This type of exuberance in some adolescent fathers makes one optimistic regarding the possible positive effects of providing social support for adolescent fathers and adolescent-pregnancy-prevention programs. However, current debates concerning responsibility and values may need to include scrutiny of how society prepares adolescents to manage intimate relationships. Many of our participants lacked an appreciation of the dynamic nature of such relationships. Some of them became sexually active with their partner with few expectations of long-term commitment. Others wanted a more committed relationship but needed better conflict-resolution skills or better strategies for effective coparenting. Ideally, the adolescent's own family could provide a laboratory in which to learn and practice these skills. When this is not possible, remedial services may be indicated. These might include peer counseling to support young men delaying sexual gratification without feeling less than "manly" or family counseling to facilitate the adolescent's acquisition of relationship skills for coping with early fatherhood.

In the same way that researchers need to focus on the unique characteristics of adolescent fathers, social support services need to be developed that address the unique needs of these young men. Christmon (1990a) suggests that assessment of the adolescent father's parenting skills and interpersonal relationships with his own parents are important prerequisites to developing effective support services. Agencies should use multiple strategies to recruit and work with adolescent fathers. These strategies include finding clients wherever they are and bringing services directly to them (e.g., making home visits). An innovative approach used by a local agency was to provide dinner during group meetings as an incentive for attendance. Use of peer advisers as group leaders also promotes involvement of former clients and other members of the community. The importance of involving African American adult men in such program development and delivery cannot be overemphasized (Battle, 1988). The benefits to such participation accrue to both the adolescents and the adults as well as strengthen communities through the transmission of shared cultural values about the importance of fatherhood.

In that many adolescent fathers provide some assistance to their partner and child, direct support to these young men may help them indirectly to support their procreated family (Barth et al., 1988). Adolescent fathers should be encouraged to assume supportive roles during pregnancy as a way of learning how to be supportive co-parents after delivery (Allen-Meares, 1984). Streamlining the establishment of paternity may be another strategy for facilitating the involvement of adolescent fathers (Wattenberg, 1990). Several of our participants were attempting to establish paternity as a means of securing greater access to their children. Most were unaware of their legal rights or obligations as adolescent fathers. Even those who attended the birth of their children knew little about their options for establishing paternity.

Service providers working with adolescent fathers should identify the shared needs of both parents and incorporate these into more comprehensive programs for this population. Approaches that vilify adolescent fathers or discourage mothers from including fathers in child-care decisions decrease the possibility of father involvement when such involvement might be forthcoming. Input from and participation of extended family members can often improve the efficacy of support and efforts to prevent further pregnancies.

Looking ahead, for many of the young African Americans we interviewed to realize their aspirations as fathers, they will need to recast their definition of fatherhood to include being a co-parent and partner in some form of committed relationship. Society may also need to define parenthood more broadly to include extended family and extrafamilial resources to provide the widest possible safety net for adolescent fathers and their families. This "net" must go beyond establishing comprehensive programs and extend to rebuilding the communities in which adolescents make their relationship and parenting decisions. In other words, we must take to heart the African proverb: "It takes an entire village to raise a child." Closer attention to the social and cultural contexts in which young men learn and make decisions about fatherhood could prevent yet another group of young African Americans from becoming adolescent fathers in the future.

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William D. Allen is a doctoral student and clinical intern at Family and Children's Service, Minneapolis, Minnesota. William J. Doherty is Professor, Family Social Science Department, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota. This article is adapted from a paper presented at the University of Wisconsin's 1994 Resiliency in Families Conference, June 1-2, 1994, Madison, Wisconsin.

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