Teenage Father (1978)

This is quite a potent little docu-drama that introduces us to seventeen year old “John” (Timothy Wead) and his pregnant, fifteen year old, girlfriend “Kim” (Suzanne Crough). With less than six weeks left to go, they are considering adoption as neither are mature enough nor in the financial position to raise an infant, but as the day beckons she starts to have doubts, largely ignores her boyfriend’s calls, and ultimately makes her own decision in which it’s made abundantly clear he has no part. There are some disappointed parental scenarios depicted here, but it is really the contributions from the social worker (Susan Cronkite) that probably deliver the most thrust as her questions reveal just how young and naive both of these characters are. I think that is especially evident as the young “Kim” seems to be living in an entirely delusional world where she can have a baby, get a job, survive on welfare, live - or not - with her mother, and all without any reference to the child’s father at all. He, meantime, comes across as a lad who might well be all too ready to abrogate his responsibilities, but in that he might also be the one ultimately taking the more responsible attitude - for the long term benefit of the child. Both actors deliver really quite naturally to the camera and provide us with something that is clearly written to exacerbate the potential issues of parenthood, but they humanise those quite successfully. Whether hormonal teenagers in the throes are ever going to be swayed by half an hour of cinema would seem unlikely, but this is quite possibly a film that kids ought to watch if only to alert them to a real world awaiting them once a child is conceived. For the boys, well there’s the added dimension that their wishes might well be totally disregarded and there’s nothing they can do about it. One of his friends rather sagely points out that there’s nothing complicated about wearing a rubber. Perhaps wisdom worth listening to?