Małoletnie ojcostwo: problem i wezwanie
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Date
2001
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL
Abstract
Description
All statistics on underage parenthood are counted with respect to the mother’s age, whereas there are no statistics concerning underage fathers. In the course of recent years, the social scale of underage fatherhood has decreased. This can be stated on the basis of the observed trend of a decreasing number of children born by underage girls. In the literature of the subject, the complexity is stressed of the causes of underage persons, and most motives have nothing to do with either sexual needs or love. One of the causes of untie rage fatherhood may be found in the specific kind of thinking in the adolescence period. It is characterised by immaturity of causal thinking, insufficient ability to find alternatives concerning possible behaviours in an actual situation and evaluation of various options of action with respect to their far-reaching consequences, difficulties of planning in the perspective of a longer time. The less the young person’s maturity is with respect to those cognitive powers, the greater is the threat in undertaking actions with far-reaching, but unforeseeable, for young people, consequences. Other causes of underage parenthood are connected with the teenager’s mentality - curiosity, fashion, or pressure of the coeval group. Factors connected with the specificity of family situation play a special role among the causes of underage parenthood. The structure of the family is significant here (e.g. physical or emotional absence of one of the parents, especially of the father, emotional relations between the parents, the atmosphere of family life, bonds between the parents and the adolescent child, possible disturbances in that period (conversations with the parents, the parent's models of femininity and masculinity, the parents’ attitudes towards their own and the child’s sexuality) and symptoms of a dysfunctional character of the family (alcoholism, unfaithfulness, long-lasting conflicts, conflict with the law). Premature sexual activity is an expression of not so much tensions resulting from hormonal storm, as eagerness to discharge the stress that is the consequence of conflicts arising in contacts with the parents and adult significant people and in coeval groups, at school and of existential-moral problems. In the article also the experiences of underage parenthood are discussed - the father’s experiences, the ways of managing and struggling with the stress connected with the situation, the role of the father in the girl s experience of underage motherhood and his significance for the development of the child, as well as systems of support and forms of aiding underage fathers. Apart from that, a necessity of prophylactics is pointed to - in the form of promoting chastity among the youth, pro-family education at school and in the media, reinforcing young people’s aspirations, securing to the youth the possibility of further education and development of interests as well as attractive spare time activities, aid in school, personal and family troubles, favouring friendly relations, shaping motivation for self-control and self-education, showing authorities and positive models to follow, and especially bringing up in the family so that one may integrally experience his or her own sexuality.
Keywords
niepełnoletni ojciec, przyczyny małoletniego ojcostwa, doświadczanie przedwczesnego ojcostwa, sposoby radzenia sobie z nieletnim ojcostwem, pomoc ojcom niepełnoletnim, underage father, causes of underage fatherhood, experiencing early fatherhood, ways to cope with underage fatherhood, helping underage fathers
Citation
Oblicza ojcostwa, red. D. Kornas-Biela, Lublin 2001, s. 323-354
ISBN
83-7306-044-8