The baby of the 14-year-old boy who had middle England aghast when he got his 12-year-old girlfriend pregnant last year is due in March. The boy has promised to stand by the mother of his child but will he? We all know that young single fathers, be they 14 or 24, are feckless and irresponsible. Or are they?
The truth, says Justin Rolph, director of the Mancroft Advice Project, an information, advice and counselling centre in Norwich for young people aged 11 to 25, could not be more different.
'It is not that young fathers abandon their children, but that maternity services, peers, and the mother's family and even the mother herself abandon the young father,' he says.
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