Fatherhood, Ready or Not

By: Alden Loury“I’m pregnant, and it’s yours.”

I’ll never forget that telephone call. It was the fall of 1996 and a typical day at The News-Gazette, the daily newspaper in downstate Champaign where I had worked for a few months. The large newsroom was abuzz with reporters, editors and the almost constant ringing of telephones.

She spoke those words in an even tone, as if telling me she just finished a ham sandwich. We dated for about 10 months but had parted company three weeks earlier. Our last few months together were turbulent. We argued constantly. She wanted me to commit to a serious relationship, and I wasn’t ready.

And now here she was, giving me news I didn’t want to hear. I couldn’t move, couldn’t say anything. My only thought was, “No, it can’t be.”

But it was. And instantly I felt that my life was about to change forever—and not for the better. I wasn’t prepared for fatherhood. I wasn’t in love and I wasn’t married—things I considered prerequisites for starting a family.

At 27, I was living some of the best times of my life. After a few false starts, I was about to graduate from college and I was working. I had avoided the pitfalls that ensnare many black men. I had never been jailed or even arrested. But now this.

Thousands of unmarried black parents struggle with similar issues. According to the 1990 Census, single women headed 60 percent of black families with children in Chicago, compared with 16.8 percent of white families and 20.8 percent of Latino families.

I grew up without a father, and it was something I didn’t want my children to experience. I promised myself when I was 9 years old that I’d never let a child of mine grow up without a father.

“What are we going to do?” I asked my ex-girlfriend in a dejected voice. Did we want to go through with the pregnancy? How would we support the child? How would we work together to raise the child since we weren’t married or even together?

We talked, but the discussions never went well. She wanted to have the baby, get married and live a fairy tale life as mother, husband and child.

“I’m having the baby, and you’re the father. Now, deal with it!” she yelled over the phone some days later.

First Meeting
I can’t imagine why a man would not take an interest in his child. Growing up, I never felt I was missing something. But it would have been great just to know my father, talk with him, share my troubles and dreams. I managed to live without him, and then he entered my life.

I met my father for the first time 10 years ago. I was 20 and had just finished my third year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One day, he called.

“Hello, may I speak with Alden?” a man asked in a deep voice. “This is your father.” It startled me. We agreed to meet around 1 p.m. that day. He was in town to attend his daughter’s graduation. I had met my half-sister and her older sister about a year earlier. Our grandmother told them they had a little brother somewhere, but they had never really believed her.

I was still in shock when he knocked on the door. There he was, looking so much like me. He was a few inches taller and a lot broader. I invited him in and we sat down.

“How’s school?” he asked.

“I’m not a very disciplined student,” I said. “I’ve been dropped by the school and will probably have to sit out a semester before I can petition for re-admittance.”

Don’t be discouraged, he told me. “I went through some rough times myself when I was in school.” His words helped. He was a professor at a major university and had become a well-known scholar, often appearing on national television news.

We took a walk through the neighborhood, and he told me about his family. He had married, divorced and married again. He was raising two young sons but remained active in my half-sisters’ lives. He told me a little about his father and grandfather and some history about our family name. It was kind of cool.

And then it was over. He had to leave for the graduation. We exchanged phone numbers, and I felt a tinge of excitement. What would life be like knowing my father? We talked about going to a ball game or just talking on the phone. I was excited and happy, even though there was so much I hated about this situation. I wanted to ask him why he had never been there for me, but neither of us talked about it. For right now, I just wanted to talk to him, to remember what he looked like. I didn’t want the memory to be an ugly one. We embraced and said goodbye.

I haven’t seen or heard from him since. And while all the anger, hurt and frustration are still inside me, I remain very grateful for that day. Even if it’s all I’ll ever have of him.

Stepping Up
It’s not that I had anything against children. I wanted children. But there was so much that wasn’t right about this situation. It was hard to feel good about any part of it. I was hurt and disappointed, but also ashamed. I had made mistakes before but this was irreversible.

I saw my mom during the Thanksgiving holiday but couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I didn’t bring it up until Christmas.
I admire my mother more than anyone. The last thing I wanted was for her to think less of me. But she was supportive and very frank. She wanted me to do the right thing—to care for my child. She reminded me it was too late to feel sorry for myself. I had to be strong. I had to be a father.

The next several months were difficult. My ex-girlfriend and I argued constantly. Still, I went to all the prenatal visits with her, even after she moved back to her parents’ home in Chicago.
And then, on July 31, 1997, Amirah was born. I was in the delivery room, and it was beautiful. I held Amirah and fed her. She was so small, so tender, so fragile. I could feel her squeeze my little finger with her tiny hand. I was a father and, for the first time, it felt good.

But the arguments continued. My ex-girlfriend and her parents continued to press me to marry her. I heard them in my sleep: “You have to step up and be a father. Amirah needs her father.” I felt the best place to raise a child was a home with two parents, but I could not marry Amirah’s mother.

We agreed I would see Amirah on weekends. I was still working in Champaign, so I would drive to Chicago to spend time with her. After Amirah’s first birthday, being separated from her started to eat away at me. The two-hour drives back to Champaign became grueling.

I began looking for work in Chicago. In the late summer of 1999, I was hired by The Chicago Reporter.

Amirah is now 2 years and 8 months old. I see her at least every other weekend, but I wish I could spend more time with her. The tension that remains between her mother and me sometimes gets in the way.

Still, every day I work to be a better father than I have been—and a better father than I ever had.



Dedicated Dads

Jane Louise Burnett changed her father’s life.

In 1994, Ivan Pryor Burnett III stopped selling drugs after learning that his former girlfriend was pregnant. At first, she was against having the child, but Burnett stepped in. “I said ‘You’re not killing my baby. I’ll stop hustling and get a job.’”

But four months into her pregnancy, “She left me and went to another drug dealer,” he said. More than a year passed before Burnett saw his daughter for the first time. He was overjoyed to see Jane nearly walking on her own. Then he noticed the burn above her left ankle.

His sister reported the injury to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and child welfare workers took Jane. Burnett said he wanted custody.

Through a friend, Burnett, 43, learned about the Paternal Involvement Project, based at Kennedy-King College in the Englewood neighborhood. The agency offers parenting services, including classes, legal assistance and a support group for fathers.

“I thought the only rights I had was paying child support,” Burnett said.

The project provided legal and moral support, Burnett said. But Jane’s mother fought back, telling the court about Burnett’s drug-dealing past. Burnett said his first visits with his daughter were supervised, and he had to submit to random drug tests for 16 months. He passed them all.

On Jan. 15, 1997, Burnett took Jane home with him and got sole custody about seven months later.

Other black men who have fought similar battles find solace and camaraderie at the 8-year-old project, which is supported by public and private funds. “It’s the only thing out here,” said Byron Doyal, who joined a year ago. “It’s not so much that we all know each other, but we’ve all had the same trials.”

The alumni group meets for two to three hours every other Tuesday. At the March 14 meeting, the men discussed growing up without their fathers and their own struggles to be good parents. Burnett, now an outreach specialist with the project, helped lead the group.

“It’s not every black man,” he said angrily when the discussion turned to the subject of deadbeat dads—the common label for fathers who fail to make child-support payments. While Burnett acknowledged many black men don’t take care of their children, he said many lack the means. “It’s a natural instinct for a man to want to take care of his family. But if he’s put in a position where he can’t. … It’s like a lot is taken out of him, like he feels less than a man,” he said.