THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9406190053
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940619 LENGTH: Long
Rock had taken care of his older brother's kids, but he had never held anyone so young or so little before.
{REST} As he gazed into Brittany's eyes for the first time, he wasn't thinking about his daughter's future or his girlfriend Nette's. He wasn't thinking about his eighth-grade friends, or the fact he had just turned 16 the month before.
``I was just thinking in my mind how cute she was, how happy I was to be a father, at the time,'' Rock said.
Rock is one of thousands of teenage boys who have become fathers in the past year. The National Center for Health Statistics in Washington reports that the nation's birthrate for boys ages 15 to 19 was 24.8 births per 1,000 in 1991.
But unlike so many other teen fathers, Rock plans to be part of his daughter's life. He wishes he and Nette had waited. He wishes he had a few more carefree summers in front of him.
But most of all, Rock, 16 and not yet in high school, wants to be a good father.
Rodrigues C. ``Rock'' Hampton and Antonette D. ``Nette'' Powell met more than two years ago, in seventh grade. She wasn't too impressed at first.
Nette saw Rock as just another of the guys she called the ``gangsters'' - hanging out together, drinking on the sly, heavy into rap music.
Nette liked church music. And the women in her family kept warning her about boys. All they want to do, they said, is get you pregnant and dump you.
But the attraction grew between her and the thin, polite Rock. He seemed different. ``He was the kind of person - he cared about girls' feelings and stuff,'' Nette said. ``Maybe he saw something in me he didn't see in other girls.''
By the next year, they were ``going together.'' They had little money and no driver's licenses or car, so there wasn't much dating, as such. But they spent a lot of time on the phone together. He'd often walk the 10 minutes to her home to visit.
After about a year, the relationship grew more physical. They began having sex, sometimes at his house, sometimes at hers.
``We always talked about it,'' Rock said. ``I didn't rush her into it. We waited until we thought we were ready for it.''
Rock, although almost a year younger, was the experienced one, having first had sex around age 12. Nette was a virgin. They had heard all the warnings about the dangers of sex, of unintended pregnancy and disease, from their parents and on television and at school.
They used condoms. For a while.
``I was just wondering what it was like without one,'' Nette said. ``I was being stupid. So I asked him not to use one.''
Within months, she missed a period. And she knew. Rock kept hoping otherwise.
``I just didn't think it would happen,'' he said. ``I used to sit around and say: `Mom, I'm not going to have any babies until I'm 25.' My mom, she told me about it. But I just didn't listen. . . .
``I guess I was . . . trying to be hip. I guess I figured I knew it all.''
Rock and Nette waited and fretted, hoping it was a false alarm, both afraid to tell their mothers. Finally, in June, Nette told her mother she didn't feel good, and her mother took her to the Maryview Medical Center emergency room.
``She didn't want to tell her mom, so she was looking for any excuse for someone else to tell her,'' Rock said.
Someone else did. A doctor confirmed the pregnancy - four months along - and announced it to Nette and her mother together in an examination room. They told Rock outside in the waiting room.
The only future Rock thought about right then was how he was going to tell his mother when they got home.
And as it turned out, he really didn't have to.
Rock's mom had found a note in his room from Nette. In it, the girl talked of her fear that she was pregnant. About hiding in her room so people wouldn't see her. About what they were going to do if it was true. About what it meant for their dreams of someday living in a big house and enjoying high-paying jobs. He was a rap fanatic and wanted to get into the music business, maybe as a producer. She had always wanted to be a veterinarian. Big dreams, with or without a baby.
Rock's mom feared the two kids' dreams would remain just that - dreams. Unfulfilled dreams.
Rock, her youngest, was still in middle school, still wearing the youth uniform of baggy pants and untied sneakers. Would becoming a father so early beat him down for good? What kind of a father would he be - could he be - at that age? What kind of a life could he and his baby realistically expect?
They thought they were going to have a Christmas baby. Nette felt labor pains late on Christmas Eve and went to Portsmouth General Hospital. But it was a false alarm. The dry run relaxed Rock a little for the real thing three days later.
He had worked hard that fall, busing tables several nights a week at a shipyard restaurant, sometimes until midnight. Nette had worked that summer on a city housing maintenance crew. She didn't tell her bosses she was pregnant, for fear she wouldn't get the job.
Rock and Nette pooled all their money and bought baby things: clothes, bottles, toys, everything - enough to last a year. They picked out mostly blue items, since their doctor told them the baby would be a boy. Family and friends also chipped in with gifts.
They picked out a boy's name, and one for a girl, too, just in case.
More importantly, they decided what they were going to do after their baby was born. They were going to stay in their own homes and keep going to school. The baby would stay with Nette, sharing her bedroom. Nette's mother would watch the baby while Nette was at school.
The labor pains returned for real about 5:45 p.m. on Dec. 28. Nette called Rock from her house, then her mother drove her to the hospital. Rock had to call his older brother for a ride.
Family and friends had kidded him about fainting during the birth. Once at the hospital, he didn't have time to worry about it. He slipped on a scrub suit and cap and held Nette's hand in the white-walled delivery room. Their doctor and one nurse joined them. Rock and Nette hadn't taken a single childbirth class. Rock was a little scared.
``They were trying to tell me to talk to her, and tell her to push, things like that,'' he said.
The baby was coming quickly. He tried to calm Nette. ``I'm here,'' he kept saying. ``I'm here. Everything's going to be all right.''
Fifteen minutes later, their baby was born. A girl. A healthy girl. Rock's daughter. Good thing they had picked a girl's name, too: Brittany Raquoulle Powell.
Wilson High School let out earlier in the day than Hunt-Mapp Middle School, so ninth-grader Nette would get home before Rock. She'd tend to Brittany while Rock first went home and helped his older sister with house chores, and maybe did some homework. Most evenings, then, he walked to Nette's house, where he'd feed and rock Brittany while Nette did her chores. He'd bring his homework over, too. He was doing better in his classes since the pregnancy, and his guidance counselor wants to test him this summer to see if he can catch up on some of the two years he fell behind his original class.
Homework done, all three would sit on Nette's bed, playing with Brittany and watching television. Like most parents, they work out deals. He'll watch Brittany alone so Nette can get out with her girlfriends, although at his house he can hardly get her out of his mother's arms. Nette will watch her alone so Rock can play basketball with his buddies.
Rock's mother sometimes will drop them off somewhere - they went to Harborfest, and often will go to Tower Mall - where they'll stroll with their baby, family-style.
They also attended weekly ``Good Beginnings'' parenting classes at Child and Family Service of Southwest Hampton Roads. Program Director Bessie P. Abner instructs young parents in baby basics: Feeding. Washing. Nurturing.
Rock is one of the few fathers who attends, breaking with the common perception of unwed teen fathers as irresponsible louts who ignore their children.
``Some may say that's rare, but that's because they're not aware of the father's side of the story,'' Abner said. ``There are not a lot of them who are doing it, but there are fathers out there who are'' actively participating in their children's upbringing.
A lot is stacked against new parents Rock and Nette, starting with their ages, Abner said. But on the plus side, they've got Brittany in common, they're coming to the parenting classes, and they're getting support from both their families. That's more than most have going for them.
``When it happened, I was really shocked,'' said Rock's mother, Barbara Carouthers. ``I guess I was a little mad at first. Then I had a little talk with myself, and I guess mistakes are made.
``I guess things are working out about as good as can be expected.''
Her ``heart just dropped'' when she found out about the pregnancy, and she worried that she had failed Rock as a parent. She had the first of her three children at 15; her oldest son fathered his first at 16. She knew it meant growing up quickly. Maybe too quickly.
``You try and instill in your children not to have sex,'' Carouthers said. ``But at the same notion, when you're not with them, it's hard to say what you'll do in that moment.''
She looked across her living room at Brittany, her head on Rock's shoulder as he patted her back and tried to coax her into a nap. A blue-and-white headband circled her nearly hairless head above tiny pierced earrings.
``She came so early,'' Carouthers said. ``But I wouldn't trade her for nothing.''
Six months later, Rock still walks to Nette's house and still helps with Brittany. He cuts grass and does other odd jobs for money to put toward her needs. Nette's a little surprised. Before their baby was born, when they'd have a fight, she'd accuse him of planning to abandon her. He'd deny it, over and over. But she remembered what her family said about boys.
``He'd say: `I am going to be here. I am,' '' Nette said. ``I'd say: `We'll see. We'll see.'
``But he's still here.''
Rock jokes that his mother is the reason - she won't let him abandon his responsibility and go back to being nothing but a happy-go-lucky, hang-on-the-corner kid.
Then he turns serious. He talks about how hurt he was that his own father wasn't around for him. How he doesn't want his own daughter to go through that, to grow up with only one parent, to have no one to call ``Dad.''
Rock, 16, not yet in high school, wants to be a good father.
by CNB