万花筒 2010-02-18&02-19 19岁爸爸的心路历程（在线收听）

Teen pregnancy is tough, even in good times. But Nate Howell  and his 16-year-old girlfriend are facing parenthood during an economic downturn. We met Nate last May as he graduated from Central High in Elkhart, an Indiana town hit hard by hard times. This fall /the pizza place where Nate works part-time, his new reality was setting in. It scares the living hell out of me that I’m gonna have a child. It just freaks me out. I thought I'd be in college right now, playing football. Nate and Sam are part of a growing trend as the US teen pregnancy rate is up for the first time in twenty years, which is longer than Nate's been alive. The baby dues this spring.

Nate’s future is uncertain. It’s gonna be a little bit harder to say we’ll have to go to college and pay bills and everything when the baby gets here. Despite working two jobs, the numbers don’t look good. Without food or the utilities, bill price be about 900 to a thousand dollars a month, which I only get paid 1, 200 dollars a month. It’s gonna be really really hard. The days are already long. I’m there by 3:45 every morning, and I got off at 2:30. And some days I work a second job. And bound to get longer. I know I’m not ready for a kid. I always told myself that I’d never put my kid through the same thing I went through when I was little. My family was always in hard times for money. When my mum says that I’m not going to college right now, and she would work to college tried after high school. Then it could help me better.

The baby is due in five months, and I’m in the same predicament that my mum was in, and I’m trying to get myself out of that. Nate believes he may still attend college. But for now his dream is on hold. I’m working for my baby’s future now. I don’t care if I have to work in a factory for the rest of my life as long as my baby will have everything it needs. I’m fine with the second-rate life. Cerise Ray from msnbc.com, Elkhart, Indiana.