inner-city men? This query spurred us to chronicle the processes of courtship, conception, and the breakup of the romantic bond. We then looked at how fathers viewed both the traditional aspects of the fatherhood role—being a breadwinner and role model—and its softer side. Finally, we elicited the barriers men faced as they tried to father their children in the way that they desired, and how they responded to these challenges. Our goal was to offer honest, on-the-ground answers to the questions so many Americans ask about these men and their lives.
In this book we do not seek to portray the whole way of life in these communities. The voices of the women these men share children with only rarely enter in, for example, and this is intentional; their stories have already been told.40 Nor do we discuss men who have earned college degrees, have managed to land and keep higher-paid manufacturing or white-collar jobs, or are raising their children within marriage, though men with these characteristics also reside in these communities. This is not a book about race; though we note racial differences when they occur, they are more in degree than in kind. In this narrative, where black and white men live in more similar contexts than in most places, racial differences are far outweighed by shared social class. This is not a work of history; we do not, and cannot, present the narratives of low-income fathers at earlier points in time such as the 1950s and 1960s—what some conceive of as the golden age of family life.41 We do not offer an analysis of the individual characteristics or contexts associated with fathering a child outside of a marital bond—that question would have required a very different study design than ours. Nor do we engage with the rich literature on father involvement, though readers can find references to this literature in the notes to the book. Finally, this is not a book about the effects of fathers’ behaviors on their children’s well-being, though we do discuss the implications for children in the final chapter.
This is the story of disadvantaged fathers living in a struggling rustbelt metropolis at the turn of the twenty-first century. By examining each father’s story as it unfolds, we offer a strong corrective to the conventional wisdom regarding fatherhood in America’s inner cities. There is seldom anything fixed about the lives of the men in this book—not their romantic attachments, their jobs, or their ties to their kids. Only by revealing how they grapple with shifting contexts over time can we fully understand how so many will ultimately fail to play a significant and ongoing role in their children’s lives.
The men in these pages seldom deliberately choose whom to have a child with; instead “one thing just leads to another” and a baby is born. Yet men often greet the news that they’re going to become a dad with enthusiasm and a burst of optimism that despite past failures they can turn things around. Conception usually happens so quickly that the “real relationship” doesn’t begin until the fuse of impending parenthood has been lit. For these couples, children aren’t the expression of commitment; they are the source. In these early days, men often work hard to “get it together” for the sake of the baby—they try to stop doing the “stupid shit” (a term for the risky behavior that has led to past troubles) and to become the man their baby’s mother thinks family life requires. But in the end, the bond—which is all about the baby—is usually too weak to bring about the transformation required.
Not surprisingly, these relationships usually end, but instead of walking away from their kids, these men are often determined to play a vital role in their children’s lives. This turns out to be far harder than they had envisioned. Nonetheless, they try to reclaim fatherhood by radically redefining the father role. These disadvantaged dads recoil at the notion that they are just a paycheck—they insist that their role is to “be there”: to show love and spend quality time. In their view, what’s most important is to become their children’s best friends. But this definition of fatherhood leaves all the hard jobs—the breadwinning, the discipline, and the moral guidance—to the moms.
As children age, an inner-city father’s scorecard can easily show far more failures than successes, particularly because of the “stupid shit” he often finds so hard to shake. In this situation, it can require incredible tenacity and inner strength to stay involved. But few of these men give fatherhood only one try. Each new relationship offers another opportunity for “one thing” to “just lead to another” yet again. And a new baby with a new partner offers the tantalizing possibility of a fresh start. In the end, most men believe they’ve succeeded at fatherhood because they are managing to parent at least one of their children well at any given time. Yet this pattern of selective fathering leaves many children without much in the way of a dad.
By examining the unfolding stories of these men’s lives beginning at courtship, and moving through conception, birth, and beyond, we come to see that the “hit and run” image of unwed fatherhood Moyers created by showcasing Timothy McSeed is a caricature and not an accurate rendering—a caricature that obscures more than it reveals. Some readers will argue that our portrayal is no more sympathetic, or less disturbing, than Moyers’s. Others will find seeds of hope in these stories, albeit mixed with a strong dose of disheartening reality. But getting the story right is critical if we hope to craft policies to improve the lives of inner-city men and women and, of course, their children.
ONE
One Thing Leads to Another
While witches and goblins lug candy-laden pillowcases and orange, plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets up and down the streets of Philadelphia, black thirty-one-year-old Amin Jenkins is experiencing the best moment of his life. It’s October 31 and he’s in the delivery room of the University of Pennsylvania hospital welcoming his baby Antoine into the world—a boy who he says “looks exactly like me.” Though he admits the child was far from planned, Amin is proud that he “never said I wasn’t responsible, that I had nothing to do with it”—“it” being Antoinette Hargrove’s pregnancy. Far from it. “From the time that she was pregnant I was always involved, talking to her and spending time with her and rubbing her stomach.”1
By the time the baby arrived, Amin and Antoinette were clearly a “couple.” By then, Amin was certain that he “really, really loved” Antoinette and was cautiously optimistic about their future together. Eighteen months later, however, “the communication just stopped.” Amin explains, “as time progressed we started having certain irreconcilable differences and that caused our fire and that spark to diminish.” Soon both were “seeing other people” on the side, which led to a “retaliation-type situation.” Finally, around Antoine’s third birthday, Antoinette, fed up with the tit for tat, moved out, leaving no forwarding address. Antoinette’s sister and mother weren’t willing to reveal where she was living. A year later Amin is still crazy about Antoine but doesn’t know his address; he can only see his son when the boy visits Antoinette’s mother.
What brings inner city couples like Amin and Antoinette together in the first place? How well do they usually know each other before becoming pregnant? Is it usually true love or little more than a one-night stand? Faced with an unplanned conception, how is the decision made to go ahead and have the baby? Do the pressures of pregnancy fracture an otherwise strong relationship, or is it pregnancy that transforms a fairly casual liaison into something more—at least for a time? And what aspects of men’s larger life stories—their childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood experiences and the neighborhoods they come of age in—both drive their desire and hamstring their attempts to forge a lasting relationship with the mother of their child? As we will see, the way in which men like Amin become fathers can tell us much about the many struggles they will face after their children are born.
Following a quiet career at James Alcorn Elementary, Amin’s seventh- and eighth-grade years at Audenreid Junior High were pockmarked by suspensions for fighting, stealing, cutting class, and any other form of trouble available. By fifteen he’d been expelled from South Philly High and assigned to the Absalom Jones disciplinary school, and a year later the criminal justice system remanded him to a year in juvenile detention for burglary.2 Immediately after his eighteenth birthday, Amin was convicted of robbery and served his first real time. Out at twenty,
