At Young Fathers, things get said and get real

Some Young Fathers are practically babies themselves.

The night I sat in on one of the group's weekly meetings in North Philly, the youngest baby dad in the room, with his urly 'fro and cherubic features, barely looked old enough to do the deed.

Other common attributes in this crowd? Most were unemployed. Some were still in high school. If they hadn't dropped out already. Some drift from couch to couch at friends' homes, or even live on the streets.

When a group leader asked how many of them lived in the same home with their children, barely a hand went up.
Sitting there in a room full of men who had produced babies with so little thought, apparently, I felt like getting in their faces. Is it really that hard to use a condom?

But I checked myself. I was there to listen, not yank these young men up by their sagging pants.

Young Fathers is supposed to be a safe, judgment-free zone, an eight-week program where dads can support each other as they discuss the many challenges they face.

I was surprised at how candid they were. How earnest. For some, their children were the only bright spot in their lives, even though many didn't seem to have a clue what being a father really means.

Andre Mason, 23, talked about learning to contain disagreements with his ex, so they don't impact his little boy. "It's not really about my baby's mom. It's about my child," he said. "I've just been spending time with him. Nothing else matters."

A guy in cornrows commented, "My dad wasn't in my life but I'm not going to disappear from my son's life."
"You wouldn't want to put your child through that," Mason piped in.

Young Fathers is an offshoot of the Institute for the Development of African-American Youth, a 23-year-old social services organization based at 2221 N. Broad St. and founded by Archye Leacock. A single father himself, he organized Young Fathers in 2001 because many of the people in his various programs were unwed fathers.

"It gives them the opportunity, in a safe space, to talk about their experiences and hear that they are not the only one," Leacock told me recently. "It gets their juices going. It gets them inspired to think of, how can I be more available to my child?"

Leacock, 58, feels a deep kinship to these unwed dads, though he was in his 30s when his son, now 20, was born. But he hasn't forgotten his rambunctous youth.

"I did exactly what these guys did....I fought when I was in high school. I tell them, 'If I were in your shoes today, I would have been arrested....Nowadays, they call the police.'"

Leacock, who is blind, was born in Trinidad and moved to the United States with his mother as a teen. He went to college, got two master's degrees, in music and public administration, and taught at Temple University. He started the institute after noticing all the neighborhood children who hung out around Temple's campus but weren't students.

What began as a SAT-prep program evolved over the years to include everything from after-school programs to job training.

About 22 men are in the current Young Fathers session, which meets on Wednesday nights from 5 to 7:30 p.m. As an incentive to attend, each Young Father gets two tokens and $20 a week. They're encouraged to spend the money on their children.

Participants can attend two eight-week session but no more. There is no shortage of fathers eager to join.
Leacock serves as surrogate father, mentor and occasional banker when participants are hard up for extra cash. He's quick to defend them when critics point out the 72 percent out-of-wedlock birth rate among African Americans, or the stats linking this pattern to poverty, behavioral problems and other disadvantages.

"It's not carelessness," he explained to me on more than on occasion. "They are making poor choices because the choices in front of them are the only choices they've got."

"They don't go in saying, 'I'm planning for a child.' They're young men with a lot of testosterone."

Fair enough, but condoms don't cost all that much, I pointed out.

"These guys don't have time for no condoms," Leacock said. "We think that it's just so easy. We are looking at a middle-class standard and judging these guys by this middle-class standard."

And don't lots of people involved in sexual relationships start off using protection but then relax, he asked.
In other words, let those who have never taken a chance cast the first stone.

My biggest takeaway from the Young Fathers meeting was that, overwhelmingly, the men love their children and want to do right by them. When they spoke about their babies, they're faces lit up.

"Me, I didn't plan on having my child. Before I had a son, I didn't care about the world. I didn't care about myself," Mason said. "Once I had a child, I really started appreciating every moment. I started valuing life in a different sense."

"I've kind of got a sense of a legacy," he added.

After the session wrapped, participant Maurice Weightman, 24, pulled me aside and asked, "Are you going to write that black men do take care about their kids?"

I told him I would.