His inspiration came in the early 1980s when he worked in a private psychiatric hospital. There he met a boy who had fathered a child with a 19-year-old woman. The boy was just 13.
“What that encounter taught me … is that teen fathers tend to have complicated lives that contribute to their being involved in adolescent pregnancy, and that complicates their lives even further.” The encounter with the 13-year-old and these words of understanding are those of Dr. Mark S. Kiselica, psychologist and author of “When Boys Become Parents: Adolescent Fatherhood in America.”
A professor of counselor education and vice provost at The College of New Jersey, Kiselica is the 2013-2014 American Council on Education Fellow at Elizabethtown College. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 25, he speaks about “The Complicated Worlds of Adolescent Fathers: Implications for Clinical Practice, Public Policy and Research.” The talk, part of the College’s Faculty Scholarship Series, takes place in the Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall.
They come from fractured and fragile families. They tend to have academic difficulties. They are more likely to have history of substance abuse and delinquent behavior.”
“I want to raise awareness of erroneous simplistic stereotypes about these young men and try to help people understand how complicated their lives are before and after they become fathers,” Kiselica said. “They come from fractured and fragile families. They tend to have academic difficulties. They are more likely to have history of substance abuse and delinquent behavior. … Boys born to adolescent mothers are at a higher risk (to be teen fathers) than those born to mothers in adulthood.
“When you have a kid with all those factors, they are on the trajectory,” said Kiselica who is former president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, served as a consulting scholar for the Federal Fatherhood Initiatives and was named a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Kiselica said that sexual activity of teens has increased, in general, since the 1960s and, “between 1980s and 1990s, the teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed. They are gradually coming down but, nevertheless, the United States still has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, second only to the Russian Federation.”
As the number of girls having children increased, so did the services available to them. The same did not happen for the fathers, however. “Appropriately there is the creation of services to help young mothers succeed in finishing education and making sure the children are healthy and safe, but our society, as a whole, has looked at the father in a punitive way, as providers who have to be brought in line.”
He blames the lack of help for teen fathers on the simplistic concept that adolescent boys deliberately exploit young girls, get them pregnant and then dump them. “Research shows that most teen fathers have a relationship for 12 to 18 months with a girl before she is pregnant; most of the girls and their partners see it as a relationship of love,” he said. Sixty to 70 percent of those teen fathers remain involved with the mother through the pregnancy and are present when the child is born. They give to the mother and child financially and otherwise—at least through the first year.
After about a year, however, the situation between the teen father and mother begins to disintegrate. They might find themselves attracted to someone else. Stress from both families can trigger strain in the relationship. And the young men tend to be poor. “He may have trouble making child support payments and her family becomes angry with him. He dropped out of school is not able to get a good job or is paid low wages. It is very complicated as to why they drift apart. … Well over 80 percent don’t marry.”
Often familial strains push the boy away and he is denied visitation. “Courts are not sympathetic to helping young men with legal issues.”
Interestingly, programs designed to help young fathers often don’t offer programs they need: legal advice, career counseling. “These become gateways to other counseling. GED programs, for instance. Most are worried about how to get a job, their rights and responsibilities and ‘help me with the transition to being a father’,”
Gradually schools and agencies have been targeting young fathers, but Kiselica said, “though well intentioned, these professionals don’t know how to recruit, establish rapport and retain young fathers in programs.”
After spending a number of years as a psychologist in clinical settings, Kiselica became concerned about a certain population of boys and men he saw as neglected and sometimes maltreated by society. “I thought if I was a professor I could influence the treatment of boys and men by mental health and social services in this country.”
He set about doing that. In higher education for the past 23 years, he is the author of more than 100 conference presentations and 150 publications including five books on the subject of teen fathers. His most recent is “When Boys Become Parents: Adolescent Fatherhood in America.” Kiselica has appeared on national and local news and has influenced public policy with regard to services for boys and men.
In his talk he hopes to reach clinicians, community members, faculty and staff members and students. He will explore the complex hardships of adolescent fathers, and show gripping digital clips of actual teenage fathers as they describe their experiences. Based on a critique of pertinent literature, Kiselica will suggest recommendations for future clinical practice, public policy and research regarding adolescent fathers.
“I hope the audience thinks complexly about adolescent fatherhood and understand that it is a serious and misunderstood social problem.”
A reception will take place at 7 p.m. with the presentation following at 7:30. Kiselica will answer questions afterward. All events are free.
The Faculty Scholarship Series is sponsored by the provost and senior vice president. For more information, contact Nancy Kaufhold at kaufholdn@etown.edu or 717-361-1416.