by Carol Rucker

Created on: October 01, 2009   Last Updated: October 03, 2009

A few decades ago, early fatherhood meant taking on a wife and child before a man was established in his career. Today, it can happen as a result of a middle school boy experimenting with sex or a college kid living away from home for the first time with plenty of opportunities to go sexually berserk.

It's a cruel twist of fate, but as children struggle toward adulthood, concurrently taking on high school sports, graduation and college courses, jobs, driving, and, more than ever, sexual experiences and parenthood, their brains have not yet matured enough to handle these responsibilities.

Scientists believe the teenage brain is not yet fully functional. Their judgment is incomplete. What they've learned from life experience is limited. Their reasoning is flawed, rendering them unable to fathom their own immaturity. During the transition from teen years to adulthood, the privileges to which they feel entitled often saddle them with a lifetime of adult consequences.

Most teenagers and young men will survive accidental sports and automobile-related injuries. They will bounce back from academic failure; but early fatherhood can create problems for years to come, a dynamic that crosses all classes, cultures and socioeconomic levels to some degree.

"My Baby Daddy"-

Daytime talk shows are replete with young adults and teenagers offering a bird's eye view into the confusion of early parenthood. While the Springers and Maurys of the world seek out mostly radical examples, and their teenage parenthood dramas are exaggerated for maximum entertainment value; that they choose to air these young parent's stories speak to a growing awareness of the problem.

Young parents come to the small screen with a multiplicity of what they now call "Baby Daddy" and "Baby Mama" dramas; and while the circumstances are hyped up for ratings, the typical issues: paternity, child support, and child rearing, are genuine.

Paternity-

DNA has made determining paternity a more technically accurate process than in decades past, but it can still be emotionally scarring for a young father. Boys used to be the sexual conquerors; but young women have begun to usurp their roles in the sexual games they play, taking on multiple sexual liaisons and offering themselves as "friends with benefits." Young girls glorify sexual acts with text-message sharing and color-coded sexual experience bracelets. Young males have more sexual partners to choose from and more paternity problems to sort out.

Child Care-

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