A Parent at 13-Years-Old...

This particular story out of the UK might have many saying WTF and others simply shaking their heads or others, like me, trying to remember back to when I was 13 and wondering whether this was an outcome I was thinking about.

This is a story of little Alfie Patten, who at the tender age of 13 has managed to get his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant. Not only did he get her pregnant, it seems that there was a conscious decision to have the child.

Now, I will be 39 this year and I am currently enduring the challenges of fatherhood with our firstborn. I would not say that I am struggling, to the contrary, I am loving it. Nevertheless, I am wondering how well equipped a 13-year-old father and a 15-year-old mother are to be facing these challenges.

By all reports, young Alfie is seemingly a natural and really good with babies. At 13 I would be suggesting that young Alfie is still pretty much a baby himself. However, the pair seem to have the future all mapped out. This includes sharing some of the parenting duties with the baby's grandparents. This is supposedly going to facilitate the pair staying in school and then making the most of their abilities in providing for the kid. Although Alfie seems equally at home with PlayStation and X-Box

The case is an interesting one. It is without a doubt a case to which local social workers will be paying a lot of attention to. Interestingly, the police investigated and decided that it was not in any one's interest to prosecute. This is probably so. A rape charge would seem pretty difficult to sustain and that would leave something like child neglect as a possible charge. Child neglect would also be pretty hard to sustain, unless of course the burden is on the parents to chain their children to the bed.

Let's face it, if the parent(s) have already discussed the "birds + bees" with their kids and the kids go out and do the deed, then really have the parents been neglectful or have the kids just been kids and ignored their parents advice and now have a serious set of consequences to deal with?

It is now that the recriminations will start. Who's at fault? Where did the system fail? Who should pick up the tab on this one?

I do not know that this is indicative of a crumbling social norm in Britain or anywhere else that teenage pregnancies occur. What it is indicative of is a need to reassess whether the idea of abstinence is a sustainable one. Perhaps greater emphasis and more serious levels of sex education (personal development training if you prefer) is necessary in schools so that youngsters are forewarned about the consequences and risks that they face if they engage in sexual behaviour.

At 13, I think I was pretty good on the Atari and I am pretty sure I was not thinking of bedding my girlfriend and becoming a dad. I am not even sure that I had a girlfriend.

Life!

Note:
The photo is subject to copyright (apparently). I tried to contact the paper that I lifted it from but they did not respond, but it can be found here. The photo is accredited to a Lee Thompson.

Rape or Porn or Both?

Common sense would suggest that if you are going to commit a crime, then do not film yourself doing it. This might be even more so if you are going to commit a rape and then distribute it amongst your friends via your mobile phone. That said, the footage might also be significant in proving that the sex was consensual and that no rape had taken place.

The gist of this case is that a teenage boy invites a girl to meet and then goes to a friend's house for some reason, presumably to have sex, the sex occurs and the friends that the boy has invited decide that the whole sex scene is worthy of some mobile phone footage and that this footage is worth sharing with others.

The boy's story is that he called the girl and invited her for the rendezvous and she willing agreed to the encounter. However, the parents of the girl have gotten wind of the rendezvous, the encounter, and perhaps even the footage and reported the boy to the police for allegedly raping the daughter.

This is the classic "he said, she said" scenario with a twist, video footage from a mobile phone.

There are a couple on interwoven issues here. Underage premarital sex, sexual violence in the form of rape, privacy issues, pornography, and crime, to name but a few. Perhaps cases like this interest me as it would allow for an exploration of the legal issues and the "how" the law is to be enforced (or implemented).