I Was a Teenage Father: Parenting from the Perspective of an African American Single Parent Father

By Rashan Cole

Being a new parent can be hard and anyone who has been through it will tell you there's no instruction manual on doing it the right way. My daughter was born when I was only 16 and I had to figure things out the hard way. This book chronicles some of the trials and tribulations I dealt with as a first time parent and throughout I give advice on how to avoid certain pitfalls in parenting and work through some almost inevitable challenges. Some things I say you may or may not agree with; either way you may be right, after all no two situations are the same. But I know what it feels like to be a new parent, especially an unprepared teenage parent, trying your best to raise a child and wondering “What in the world have I gotten myself into!?” If you’re an African American, Caucasian or other, whether you’re a teenage parent or just a parent of an infant or young child and are looking for a little help, well I’ll try to give you some of the best advice I can and hopefully it will help you in raising your child.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312405400

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I Was a Teenage Father: Parenting from the Perspective of an African American Single Parent Father

I Was A Teenage Father

Parenting from the perspective of an African American, Single Parent Father

By

Rashan R. Cole

Copyright Page

I Was A Teenage Father

Parenting from the perspective of an African American, Single Parent Father

Copyright © 2013 Rashan R. Cole / Nuff Lyrics Publishing

All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any forms whatsoever. For more information Contact Nuff Lyrics Publishing [e-mail]

This Book is distributed by www.Lulu.com

ISBN: 978-1-312-40540-0

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family, without whom none of this would be possible, especially my sister Lae Cole who started me on the track to publishing and my Beautiful Daughter Ashley who was and is my inspiration.

Thank you to Krystal Myers, who helped me to format this book and has always been one of my best friends.

Introduction

Ok if you’re opening this book and reading it for the first time, you’re probably asking yourself…. "Who is this guy and what qualifies him to give advice on raising children!? Well, the truth of the matter is I’m not a scholar, I don’t have a PHD and I only actually have one child. However, I am a fairly young African American man who had a child at the age of 16 and was forced to become a man at an early age for the sake of that child. Now that child is 17 years old, lives with me and even though by no means would I say it was perfect, I feel confident in saying that to this point obviously with the help of her mother and our families, I’ve done an excellent job. My daughter doesn’t have any children of her own, she is doing well in school and college more and more seems to be a definite reality for her.

Let’s not get ahead ourselves though; I still have yet to actually introduce myself. My name is Rashan R. Cole and I was born and raised for the majority of my life in Baltimore City, Maryland. I’m of Jamaican decent, my mother Michelle Cole was born in St. Ann, Jamaica and my father Stanley Cole in Kingston, Jamaica. I lived and grew up a significant portion of my life in Jamaica. This is important to know as my Jamaican background really helped to instill and strengthen my core values and beliefs. That said; please bear with me as I give you a little background information about my upbringing and beliefs in order to paint a better picture of where I’m coming from. At times I may hop around from point to point but believe me it all comes together in the end.

You’ve probably often heard a lot of people from older generations talk about the community raising the children and things of that nature, well growing up during the 80’s in Jamaica was pretty much the same. For example, during that time if a child was disobedient in school or got out of line, the teacher would have the free right to discipline that child. When I say discipline I’m talking belts and rulers not time outs! I know I know, astonishing right!? Well listen, that’s how it was and I don’t want to go too far off topic but let me just state one point…. And please understand, just like this book as a whole, this is all based off of my opinion and experience and I’m not calling any of this fact…. I personally believe one of the biggest problems in black communities in America, is this idea of entitlement that many of us seem to have. Why do you think so many people from other countries fight and die in attempts to get here? Because in many of those places, a simple childhood education is not a right it’s a privilege.  Many of those families can’t afford to even send their children to school, much less abide their children acting up when they’ve been given so precious a gift. So when they come here they take advantage of the free education that we generally take for granted and even if the teacher reprimands them, them and their parents do their best to get to the bottom of the problem and get it corrected. Not us though, no. When our child acts up in school, we blame everybody else except ourselves and our child who is more than likely not doing what he/she is supposed to be doing. And God forbid the teacher reprimands the child, we’re up at the school ready to fight! Well not my mom, she wasn’t trying to hear it. In her opinion, if I was in school paying attention and doing what I was supposed to, then there was no reason for the teacher to have to reprimand me in the first place! Of course, just like any other kid my reaction would be Na Ahn! I wasn’t even doing nothing! She just don’t like me! Yeah right, my mom wasn’t buying it and she never hesitated to Tax That Ass (That’s a butt whipping for those who don’t know) when I got caught slipping.

Nowadays, most of us young black parents are Drinking the Kool Aid when our kids give us the innocent routine. And even though, we just had to scream on little Jamal for punching his sister or Grab Up Tameka for going through moms make-up after you told her a million times not to touch it or just last night when you beat Tyronne for putting food in the Blue Ray player….. We still can’t imagine or believe our little angel could be being disruptive in class. Yeah Right! Keep It Real! SMDH….

Moving right along, I’m the oldest of my mother’s four children, two boys and two girls. I’m the second oldest of my father’s eight (that I’m sure about) what can I say …. Poppa Was A Rolling Stone…. My father went to prison in 1987 for drug dealing, leaving my mom alone with four kids to raise. I don’t blame my father or hold any ill will towards him for this, because I know that he went to prison behind doing what he felt was necessary to take care of his family. Misguided, maybe, but how would that be any different from the millions of other black fathers incarcerated for making the same mistake? We’re all only human…. Besides, even though my father wasn’t able to be there for me physically, I still learned a lot about being a man and also many of the lessons that I passed down to my daughter from him.

I learned a lot from my mother too. A woman who I believe is one of the strongest people to ever grace the face of this earth. A point that I will cover more later on in this book is the nature of a mother to a child versus the nature of a father to a child. A father is generally the rock, most times the disciplinarian of the household. At one time you would look at him as the bread winner, although in today’s climate of more educated women as opposed to educated men, that has changed in a lot of households. Nevertheless, the father is usually the pillar of strength and security. The mother on the other hand is a nurturer, a care giver…. Oh yes, she also gives the child some sense of security but, it’s a different sense than that of the father. The woman tends to want to dote on their child, gets squeamish at the thought the child could be hurt and a lot of times indulges some of the child’s wants. The father does these things too at times, but as a nurturer it is like a natural instinct in a woman. The problem is, nowadays in black households, there are a lot of single parent situations and 9 times out of 10, that single parent is the woman. At this point a woman, for the sake of her child or children, is forced to take on both roles of mom and dad which is not only unfair, but extremely difficult. Now some women are able to do this, some have a harder time at it than others, but they do what they need to do nonetheless. Some women however, not only do not do this, but they don’t even take it into consideration. Ultimately leaving a child who is already at a distinct disadvantage by not having a man in his/her life a lot more worse for wear.

My mom was not one of these women! My mom was a pillar of strength as much as any 2 men! She worked multiple jobs, came home and cared for us like a mom is supposed to and disciplined us when we got out of line, like any good father would. Was it hard for her, of course it was and at times I could see it when it hurt her the most, but she never let it beat her and I love her for that because I know I wouldn’t be the man I am today if it wasn’t for that!

So now that you have a sense of whom I am and where I’m from, let me break down the point of this book.

This book is not meant to teach anybody how to be a parent or to give anyone facts about the behaviors of children in relation to good or bad parenting. No, this book is just to impart some of the knowledge I’ve gained over the years in raising a daughter and helping my mom