WaysToMakeTheWorldABetterPlace

I had two choices. I coulda had 'em or not had 'em. I had 'em so that's the choice I made. I'm his mum an' I'm gonna act like that and its up to you if you're gonna be a dad to 'em.

The hands free phone conversation travelled the air between this woman on the street and the rest of us. Her hands were free to push the buggy holding a baby boy and toddler girl.

It reminded me of a Guardian article: When lads become dads. It talks of how usually they are regarded as 'feckless' and how we 'expect so little of them'. The article gives an insight to three young men’s lives as fathers.

It talks of the young fathers trying to break the cycle of the poor parenting and opportunities they had received so that their children might have better lives.

'Some fight so hard, they are positively heroic', says a young father's worker from Northampton.

Daniel tells us about his little boy, 'When he's older I'll have to explain, 'If you want to read you'll have to go to your mum.' Kim's all right, man. She's really clever. She's going back to college when she's older. People call me mongol,' Daniel adds, shrugging. 'I don't let it get to me.'

'I'm looking for the key to open my brain,' he says smiling. 'I always say my mum left it at the hospital when she had me. People have said to me about Tyler, 'You're dyslexic, how are you going to bring this kid up?' I said it's not just about reading, it's about what's in your heart and the love that you give him.

John is ‘determined to be the best kind of father - unlike his own.’ John’s mother chucked him out when he was nine, 'I reminded her too much of my dad and he's an arsehole - a thief and a wife-beater. He said he'd come on a Saturday to take me to McDonald's. He never came. My mum used to say I was rubbish just like him.'

In another article The stigma of being a teenage mum, Hannah, having had a baby in the middle of her GCSEs (7 As -1A*, 2 Bs & C) brushes it off as 'just comments and looks, that's all'. What did hurt her, though, she says shyly, was the universal presumption of commiseration among people she knew. 'When I told people I was pregnant they'd always say, Oh! Are you keeping it? Ebony was never a baby, she was always an it. There was no, Oh how great! You're pregnant. It sounds awful, because I shouldn't expect it, but there does come a point when you want it, you want congratulations, you can't help wanting the same thing people 10 years older than me would get.'

Like the woman on the street said...most people choose whether to have a child and then they have the choice to act like parents...but its up to us to treat them like parents.