The ‘Missing’ Parent: Teenage Fathers Talk About the Meaning of Early Parenthood

Previously, we have interrogated the psychology of teenage fatherhood in Aotearoa New Zealand by examining key discourses around which the talk of teenage fathers was structured. In particular, we have considered discourses of responsibility and intergenerational repair (Tuffin, Rouch & Frewin 2010), the transformative experience of becoming a teenage father (Tuffin & Rouch 2007), the redemptive positive psychology of teenage fatherhood (Rouch 2005) and identity issues associated with the accelerated developmental transition involved (Frewin, Tuffin & Rouch 2007). In this chapter we revisit these notions in the light of more recent international literature which has examined the experience of teenage