Teen fathers

Churches in NZ and abroad spend a lot of time ministering to youth via youth groups, but the emphasis in these groups tends to be on single youth who haven't moved up to the marriage or parenthood level yet.

A booklet called Supporting Teen Fathers has just come to my attention, and makes me wonder how many teen fathers most churches have anything to do with. My experience makes me think it's a very small number, but I guess I could be wrong. (And how many teen fathers would be inclined to go to a 'youth' group?)

The booklet has been put out by the Ministry of Social Development, and on their website they outline the way in which the booklet is laid out:

Part 1 of the resource outlines what is known about teen fathers in New Zealand, including their characteristics and needs. It discusses the roles fathers play, and the cultural context of being a father in New Zealand.

Part 2 covers things to consider when developing services for teen fathers:

• finding out about teen fathers in your community
• considering effective approaches to supporting teen fathers
• recognising the importance of identity, mana, whakapapa and whanaungatanga
• providing parenting support services to teen fathers
• supporting teen fathers with other areas of their lives
• deciding how to deliver services
• selecting people to work with teen fathers
• getting teen fathers involved and keeping them engaged
• creating environments that are teen father friendly
• working with families and whānau
• working with other services
• monitoring, evaluating and reflecting on practice.

Part 3 contains profiles of five providers currently delivering services to teen fathers in New Zealand.

One useful starting place in the book, it seems to me, is the first on the list in section two: finding out about teen fathers in your community. This could be a valuable area for your church to check out....

You can download the booklet from the website either as a pdf or Word doc, or can purchase a hard copy.

Bit of a rant

Statistics NZ released figures this week showing that the rate of solo parent homes is projected to increase from 31% to 36% over the next 20 years. The media ignored it, and the politicians said nothing...

Here are the details: The number of one-parent families is projected to increase from 219,000 in 2006 to 267,000 in 2031. At the same time, the number of two-parent families is projected to decrease from 480,000 to 467,000.

Okay, there are solo parents who fit in that category through the death of their partner, which will reduces the shock factor of these figures somewhat. There are solo parents who fit in the category through no fault of their own, and who do a remarkable job in the circumstances. And of course there are solo fathers.

The concern are those solo parents who are in that place by choice, especially women who have a range of partners over a succession of years and no stable male figure in the household. Whatever the politically correct brigade may think, having a stable father-figure in a family unit is more than valuable, it's vital.

The statistics relating to boys in particular, (but also to girls), who grow up without a father in the home, don't make good reading: crime, mental health issues, emotional difficulties in relationships and more can frequently be traced back to the lack of a father.

And lest it be said that I'm just talking stats here, my own experience is one of growing up without a father. My parents separated when I was three for reasons I only partly know about - and that was the last time I saw my father. Over the period of my childhood and teenage years, I heard from him only once or twice, and that was almost by accident. In fact, I never knew I had a living father until I was in my early teens.

I lived with my mother, her parents and two uncles. My grandfather, who was a wonderful father figure, died suddenly when I was 8 or 9 (and died in hospital after collapsing at home - I never saw him again after the ambulance took him away and I don't think I was even taken to the funeral). The uncles were too intent on making their own way in the world, and were not much cop for me in the father-figure department.

The missing father eventually left a hole in my emotional life that took years to heal. (One of the most healing aspects was coming to know God as Father.) In my twenties I obsessed about not having got to know my biological father (he died when I was about 18). This left me not only with longstanding regrets on my side that I hadn't tried to contact him, but an underlying anger that he hadn't kept in touch with me - and a sense of betrayal.

My situation was actually one in which it was possible to survive the lack of a father. Many boys are not in a situation that has the positives I was given.

How do we change this here in NZ and elsewhere? We have to keep bringing the issue before the public, have to ignore those who say that fathers don't matter, and, while agreeing that there are abusive fathers and that they certainly do damage, have to keep on saying that good, plain, honest down-to-earth fathers are an absolute necessity for children growing up.

Photo from Flickr.com

The return of the multi-generational household

The following paragraph indicates an interesting trend in family households, which may also be increasing in New Zealand.

The number of Americans living in two-adult-generation households grew from 28 million in 1980 to 49 million in 2008, with 25% of Baby Boomers expecting to live with their parents again; and the recession has accelerated the trend. Supporting both parents and children takes a major emotional and financial toll, with the average yearly cost of supporting an aging parent at $5,534 and the yearly cost of supporting adult children at $7,660. But 76% of those helping a relative say they enjoy it, and 54% have bonded with their loved one more than they anticipated.

The first sentence is a bit unclear, but basically we're talking here about a member of the grandparent generation moving back in with one of their children and that child's family. Or the three-generational group moving into a different house together.

We were blessed when our children were growing up to have my mother living with us. She had her own living area upstairs, her own bathroom and a small kitchen. The enormous benefits this gave to our children are too many to count. It was also great to have a built-in babysitter (!)

However, this won't work in every situation, and it can be an awful burden for some. Still, my intuition is that it's healthier for the older person to live with their family. Even older people living in their own homes are healthier than older people living in rest homes. People who go into rest homes seem to deteriorate faster than those who don't.

It turns out my intuition is backed up in the report the paragraph at the top of this post relates to. One of the findings was:

Older adults who live alone are less healthy and they more often feel sad or depressed than their counterparts who live with a spouse or with others. These correlations stand up even after controlling for demographic factors such as gender, race, age, income and education.

The report is called: The Return of the Multi-Generational Household. It is presented by the PewResearch Centre, and came out in March 2010.

Photo by Dianna, on Flickr.com

Students for mental health

A recent report from the Whangarei Leader begins:
A group of teenage mums is using fashion to reach out to those affected by mental health.
Students from He Mataariki School for Teen Parents have designed t-shirts to raise self-esteem and spread the word about where to get help for mental health.
They are now organising a fun event, Reach Out, Speak Out, to raise awareness in Northland youth.
The group of about seven teen mums started the project as part of a NCEA level two, or year 12, health class.
Teacher Roz O’Shea says in a health promotion exercise the students decided to tell youth how to access mental health support in Northland.
Ms O’Shea says mental health was top of the list for the students because they are conscious of depression and youth suicide rates but were unsure where youth could turn to for help.
You can read more about this by clicking on the link above.

• Reach Out, Speak Out, raising mental health awareness for Northland youth, will be held from 12.30pm to 2.30pm on Wednesday, June 24 at The Pulse, Raumanga Valley Rd. For more information or to buy a t-shirt email he.mataarikiroz@xtra.co.nz or phone 09 438-2602.

The Number One Christian Porn Site

Got your attention?

Yes, there really is a number one Christian Porn site, and the link is to a post about Craig Gross' trip to Australia and New Zealand in March this year. Unfortunately most of the post is about the Australian leg of the trip (sounds like the writer was too tired to write any more once he got to his NZ bit). However, Gross did come to NZ, to Northpoint Baptist Church, where they had a weekend discussing the plague of porn that's affecting men around the country and around the world. The senior pastor of Northpoint says, "Porn is a plague in our society, and the church must respond lovingly and proactively."

The church invited fathers to bring their sons to the Porn and Pancakes evening, and then next day they held a Porn and Parents night. On the Sunday, two services addressed the issues of porn in NZ society. Unfortunately further news about the weekend is no longer available on the Net (as far as I can tell) and the church's own website doesn't mention it.