When men become fathers in their teens, they sometimes struggle to connect with their kids later on. Rubicon Programs, in Richmond, California, has a project called Fathers at Work that aims to help young dads take better care of their children. Youth Radio's Sophie Simon-Ortiz visited the program, and met some of the dads who are finding their way back into their kids' lives.

The “Wall of Success” inside the Fathers at Work office is covered with little photocopied twenty-dollar bills showing the faces of people who have found work through Rubicon. Next to their name, you see their new job title and hourly pay. At noon, the office is crowded, mostly with men. They’re here for everything from employment and housing services to parenting workshops where they discuss what it’s like being a young father. Twenty-five year old Robert Jones does community outreach for Fathers at Work.

ROBERT
I was going on 14 when I first became a father. Life wasn’t really a reality yet, let alone kids…and just now recently, I’m starting to get reunited with my son.

SOPHIE
Robert Jones is a giant man with a voice that doesn’t match his body. He seems much older than 25. His arms and upper body are checkered with tattoos and bullet scars. Three months ago, he and his seven year-old son Michael were reunited right here at Rubicon’s Fathers at Work office. Robert says when he first saw his son, he felt like he could barely breathe.

ROBERT
And I looked at him and he looked at me, and he kinda smiled at me and he jumped back into his great grandmother’s car, and he kept kinda looking at me hiding behind her. It was just overwhelming.

SOPHIE
Robert hadn’t seen his son since Michael was two years old. Turns out, Michael was living with his grandmother right there in Richmond, and played at the park down the street from Robert’s office. Robert says Michael’s mother is now “out in left field”— strung out on drugs.

ROBERT
It hurts when I have to answer questions about his mother because all I can kind of give him is broad descriptions, like I tell him she’s a good woman, she’s just kind of lost right now.

SOPHIE
And these days, Robert describes his relationship with his son as “hip-tight,” even though they’ve only been back together for three months. Robert is trying to get custody from Michael’s grandmother. He doesn’t approve of how she’s raising his son, feeding him junk food all the time. At seven years old, Michael already weighs 160 pounds.

MICHAEL
Daddy, you like your broccoli? Cause it’s good…

SOPHIE
Robert takes Michael to a Chinese buffet for lunch and orders for them both, not allowing any fried food to land on his son’s plate.

ROBERT
Not your hands…all that fast food, that stuff will kill you.

SOPHIE
Michael clearly looks up to his dad, so you wonder if someday he’ll want to experience what his father’s been through, mistakes and all. Like when Michael asks about the faded gang symbols on his Dad’s fingers…

MICHAEL
Daddy, are these tattoos right here? They don’t look like tattoos, all these look like is bump marks.

ROBERT
That’s cause they’re old…you see, even stuff like that, when he asks me questions, I gotta kinda really pick what I want to tell him, cause some things he really don’t need to know, yet.

SOPHIE
Back at the office, Robert’s friend Raven Richardson says when you leave behind the life of the streets, you go through something called “hustler’s withdrawal.”

RAVEN
I mean it’s hard for some people to go from making $1,000 or $800 a day down to $62 a day, but you gotta look at the big picture. I mean, it’s either going to be this money or letting another man raise my daughter.

SOPHIE
Raven became a Dad at eighteen and now has three kids of his own. He says learning to be a father is not just about financial stability; it’s also about setting an example that your kids can respect.

RAVEN
You gotta change, man. How you going to be out on the street hustling and your son walking home from school, like that’s my daddy right there”. “That’s your Daddy?… I don’t see my Daddy until he gets home from work.” Imagine how that’s going to make the child feel.

SOPHIE
Raven says his biggest challenge today is dealing with the three different mothers of his three children. And though Robert is reunited with Michael now, he thinks has four other children.

ROBERT
One day, all my kids could show up. When my son came, it just really became concrete that all of those things I did when I was a kid, and having those kids, they will come back one day, and I need to be ready.

SOPHIE
But it won’t be that easy for Robert to reconnect with those other kids…three of the mothers don’t even acknowledge he’s the father. Robert says he saw one of his children walking down the street the other day, and the boy looked just like him. But the boy’s mother barely stopped to talk. “I’m in a hurry” she said, “I’m taking him to see his Daddy.”

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