When I was about your age, I got my first girlfriend pregnant. I was homeschooled and sex education was not part of the curriculum; I had no understanding of women’s biology and she mislead me about when and how pregnancy was possible. I tend to think of this as her tricking me into it, as she was not quiet about her fascination with motherhood, but it’s true that I could and should have done more to educate myself about the whole process before engaging in it.

Anyway, we ended up giving the progeny up for adoption, but I maintain contact with him (and the family when he understandably doesn’t want to talk to me). He turned eighteen this month.

I was going to make a comment about how young thirty-six seemed to be young to have offspring capable of posting on lemmy (I wasn’t even born until my parents were both in their forties) (no moral judgement here BTW!), but then I realized I’m sort of exactly in that situation. The ages are a little different, but pretty close, and I can assure you it’s shocking from the other side as well.

edit: On rereading my comment, I’m a little worried that it could be construed as negative regarding you and/or your father. I mean neither. I wasn’t ready to be a father for a host of reasons, some immature and some rational. It sounds like your dad was and that you have a great relationship. I’m very happy for you! Please accept my apologies if this message was in any way hurtful.