Teenage father becomes rolemodel
A 17-year-old Porirua father and head boy has credited his own young mother for showing him how to keep striving as a teen parent.
The newly appointed head boy of Aotea College, Noa Woolloff, defended his decision to go public with his fatherhood last week, despite some negative backlash.
Woolloff said he heard the radio show with a theme of how being a father had changed listeners, and decided he had a ‘‘hell of a story to tell’’, about his experiences.
He became a father in March to his baby girl Kyla with his former girlfriend, Shania Paenga, also 17.
At the time he kept the news from his mother, Siggy Woolloff, who was herself pregnant with Noa’s brother.
The babies were born two days apart, with baby Jimmy Davidson 48 hours older than his niece, Kyla.
Worried about stressing his mother, Woolloff took three months to tell her he too was a parent.
His mother said last week she had to be told four times before she could get her head around her grandmother status.
Moments later she was in her car with her son heading to meet her granddaughter at the Paenga home.
Noa Woolloff said his mother almost ‘‘exploded’’ when she saw Kyla. She held her own baby and her granddaughter at the same time.
Siggy Woolloff was 18 when she had Noa. She said she never thought her life was over after she learned she was pregnant.
‘‘It makes you a better person. It only makes you do better in life. Suddenly you’ve got to be a role model and show you can do any- thing you want in life.’’
Woolloff, who now runs her own business, said when she was a pregnant teen she was told she would be a ‘‘loser for the rest of my life’’.
‘‘For me, it’s a blessing. There’s nothing negative about it.’’
Noa Woolloff said his goal in going public was to provide a positive role model for other teen parents.
‘‘I’m not encouraging it. It’s just a thing that happens, and we’ve got to wake up to it.’’
He has not let becoming a father get in the way of his studies and goals – becoming head boy, and continuing as a tennis coach, with an eye to tertiary study and business.