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Q&A with two
parenting youth

Two young people who grew up in foster care, Michael and Dominique, are raising their children without the help of their partners. Here they share thoughts about the kinds of help they needed, as well as the obstacles they faced in co-parenting. Both Michael and Dominique are writers for Rise magazine, a publication written by and for parents involved in the child welfare system.

 

As young people who spent time in foster care, what kind of help do you think you needed to create more stable relationships and more stable families? 

Michael: When you grow up in foster care, having a stable relationship can be hard. Having a baby can make it harder.

The mother of my baby wasn’t in foster care, but she also came from drama. At first it was real good. We were friends, and we were a comfort to each other. But my experiences also made it hard for me to express myself. Any time we got mad we just argued. Then we stopped acting like ourselves, and we started losing that connection.

Dominique: Me personally, I didn’t have a father so I was looking for somebody who could love me like a father loves you. The problem was I didn’t have an example of a good man. I didn’t know what I was looking for. The father of my child had also experienced abandonment. We tried to lift each other. But when he started having issues, we both didn’t want to take responsibility for the situation. Because I grew up in domestic violence, I felt like that was the norm. You yell. You say hurtful things. You fight.

Michael: What we needed were tools to communicate, because we didn’t have them.

Dominique: I needed help knowing what a healthy relationship is, and I needed strategies to safely bond with a partner. I wish I had known the signs of an unhealthy relationship before it got too bad. I also think a lot of us need a place to address the fact that we don’t have fathers.

In terms of creating our own families, I think the place to start is with family planning. In the beginning, honestly, I had a very selfish attitude. I thought my baby was going to love me and be the person that understood me and be my best friend. Instead I wound up living in a neighborhood where I didn’t know anybody, doing literally everything by myself, realizing I’m the one who has to understand my baby.

It would have helped me to hear what that’s like from other parents when I was younger, and to understand what kind of relationship you really want with a partner before you have a baby.

Michael: When there is a baby on the way, I think it would be good if there were people who could help us understand the stress a baby can put on a relationship and how to survive that. That would take away some of the letdown. Because I really thought it was going to be this perfect thing. Family Matters or Full House. When it wasn’t, I just got into defensive mode.

My baby’s mother also experienced postpartum depression. It was kind of difficult to understand why the anger was coming out of her. If someone had helped us know that those things can happen, I think it would have made it a little easier.

What kind of support would you want to co-parent now that you’ve broken up? When should parents not be encouraged to co-parent?

Michael: My baby’s mother has had a lot of pain in her life, and she’s still stuck in that place. We talk, and I give her encouragement. But I think it would be helpful if someone else could talk to her about her feelings about being a mother and what she might be able to do for her daughter.

I think it would be good if someone could help us communicate, too. Instead of bickering it would be helpful if someone could help us tell each other how we feel.

In general I think support can make a big difference for young fathers. My daughter’s in foster care right now, but I see her twice a week and every other weekend and I’m working to get stable housing so I can reunify with her. I think other fathers need to know that presence is everything, even more than cash. I know because that’s what I needed when I was a child.

Dominique: When one person is just using the child to get back with the other person, get back at the other person, or control the other person, then I don’t think co-parenting is a good idea. When the focus is not on the child but only on y’all being together, co-parenting shouldn’t be encouraged.

What would have been good for me was someone who could have helped me figure out whether we could co-parent, because for a while it was just confusing to me. I kept hoping that everything would be OK. It took me a while to realize it wasn’t going to be. It would have been good to have someone help me see that for myself.

Register for our upcoming webinar to learn about strategies that create opportunities for a co-parenting approach among adolescent parents (details below).

news &
spotlights
First Young Fathers Convening Held in New York

On March 20, 2015, the New York City Administration for Children’s Services Teen Specialist Unit hosted its first Young Fathers Convening aimed at empowering the young men in their role as fathers, providing them with information and linking them to resources. Watch this video excerpt taken from the convening, highlighting discussions among adolescent fathers and service providers on the topic of co-parenting.

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webinar announcement

Creating Opportunities for Expectant and Parenting Youth: A Co-Parenting Approach

Dr. Paul Florsheim, Professor and Clinical Psychologist at the Zilber School of Public Health at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will present findings from the Young Parenthood Project designed to test the efficacy of a co-parenting counseling program for pregnant and expecting adolescents. He will discuss implementation efforts, challenges and implications for those considering this approach to supporting expectant and parenting youth and their children. Additionally, two young parents who have spent time in the foster care system will share their experience co-parenting and offer their insights on what is working well, challenges and recommendations.

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learning collective
The�Expectant and Parenting Youth in Foster Care Learning Collective�is an interactive forum where professionals can exchange ideas, information and resources on innovative approaches to improving well-being outcomes for expectant and parenting youth in foster care and their children.�

EPY is a project of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, a national organization recognized for its leadership in shaping policy, reforming public systems and building the capacity of communities. We support elected officials, public administrators, families and neighborhood residents to take the actions they need. Our goal is to make sure children can learn, develop and thrive with the support of strong families, in safe and healthy communities.