The Unknown Fathers : Teen moms and their babies often get attention. But what of young dads? They, too, have stories to tell.

Teen-age dad: Drops out of school. Pursues meaningless, unprotected sex with several partners. Trashes parenting for drugs and gangs. Indifferent to mom and baby.

That, experts say, is the perception.

But what’s the reality?

Little is known about teen fathers, not even how many there are. Only a handful of the myriad programs serving the more than 63,000 Los Angeles County teen-agers who become pregnant each year cater to young fathers. And research on teen pregnancy tends to focus on females.

“Few people know anything about teen fathers,” says Anne Duggan, an assistant professor of pediatrics at John Hopkins University who has researched fathers under 20. “They’re almost anonymous to society.”

The Times met with three teen-age boys from Inglewood, Panorama City and Torrance to find out how they feel about parenthood.

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Carlos Galvan, 18, has blurred memories of meeting his father when he was 5. He doesn’t care to know the man who deserted him, his two brothers and mother in a cramped Inglewood apartment and left them “fighting to live in this jungle.”

Yet his father’s influence lingers. Everything the man neglected to do for him, Galvan says he plans to do for his daughter, Sophia Jeanette, who’s 17 months old.

“I want Sophia to grow up knowing me, loving me,” he says. “I’m gonna be nothing like my dad ‘cause it hurts real bad to grow up without a father. Always wondering if he’s dead, alive or, worse, he just doesn’t care.”

Galvan says he cares enough to spend most of the day in classes at the Youth and Family Center in Inglewood and most of the night helping his four-year steady, 19-year-old Beatriz Torres, tend to Sophia’s hunger, dirty diapers and cries for affection. They both are taking classes in parenting, job-training and self-esteem while studying for the high school equivalency test.

Few teen-age fathers show up at the center, which is run by the Inglewood School District, says Leticia Torres, senior case manager. “Mostly we help just teen mothers, since whoever helped make them pregnant doesn’t care at all or doesn’t care enough to get involved,” says Torres, no relation to Beatriz. “But Carlos is different. He wants to better himself.”

Beatriz Torres says she appreciates her boyfriend and feels confident he won’t skip out on her and Sophia. Carlos lives with his older brother in Inglewood, but says he spends most of his time with Torres at her parents’ house, and he gives her money when he can. When they find permanent jobs with stable incomes, the two say they plan to get married.

Before that happens, though, Beatriz says Galvan must learn to control his temper. (He says he’s working on it.) “Sometimes Sophia will cry or something and Carlos will get all mad and yell,” Beatriz says. “I have to remind him that she’s just a very young person. It’s hard, though, ‘cause we’re kind of young to be doing this parenting thing.”

Galvan says the couple talked about having a baby before they first had sex at age 14. But they never discussed contraception.

“We knew that we wanted to have sex and that if Beatriz got pregnant we’d have the baby, but we didn’t know anything about birth control,” he says in an embarrassed whisper. “Then she got pregnant and, suddenly, all these adults were throwing condoms and foams in our faces. Well, too late.”

Maybe five, 10 years from now, they’ll have another baby. Until then, Torres says she’ll either stay on the Pill or get Norplant, under-the-skin inserts that offer women up to five years of 99.8% pregnancy protection.

Although Galvan says he loves having a daughter, he admits he misses being a teen-ager. “I can’t really go out with friends because I have to stay with Sophia, and I don’t want to drink or anything ‘cause I need to stay healthy for the baby,” he says. “So I guess being a teen father is harder than I thought.

“But I’m glad Beatriz got pregnant. A baby means I won’t lose her to anyone else. It means I can give someone a lot of love and have her love me back. I’ll never be like my dad and give up on being a father. Never, ever.”

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A frightening feeling haunted Gary after he had sex for the first time at 13. “I don’t have memories of sex feeling all that good back then,” says Gary, now 17. “Just fear. I was really scared and bothered because I kept feeling like I forgot something, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.”

Birth control.

Nine months later, Gary was a dad.

The Panorama City teen diapered and dabbled in baby talk during his frequent visits with son Jonathan, who lived with the mom and maternal grandmother for the first few months after birth. But mostly, Gary tried to return to his life of running track, playing football and basketball for San Fernando High School and hanging out with his 18- and 19-year-old friends.

“I wanted so bad to be a good dad and still be a teen-ager,” Gary says, slowly shaking his head. “Didn’t last long.”

Only eight months, until his then-girlfriend abruptly moved, without explanation, to her aunt’s house in El Paso, Tex., “ditching” him and Jonathan. Since then, his son’s mother, who is two years older than Gary, has had two more babies with different fathers.

He clearly recalls the day he went to pick up Jonathan for a trip to Magic Mountain. His girlfriend’s mother shoved the crying, needy baby into Gary’s arms, mumbled “He’s all yours now” and shut the door, no questions allowed.

“I didn’t feel too good, but I didn’t know what else to do but take my son to Magic Mountain,” Gary says. “When I got to my house, it really sunk in that Jonathan was my full responsibility.”

He didn’t handle it well. Being a parent frustrated him so much, Gary explains, that he eventually tossed the responsibility to his mom, grandparents and younger sister. After out-of-control arguments with his family, he would cruise the streets with friends whom he describes as “gang-type guys.” He was arrested four times for nonviolent crimes.

Gary’s trouble has landed him at Camp Afflerbaugh, a Los Angeles County probation facility in La Verne, which houses 116 juvenile offenders whose crimes range from committing multiple minor offenses such as vandalism to assault, rape and attempted murder. While he is detained, Gary must obey strict rules, study hard to catch up on classes at the camp’s high school and work through his emotional problems with counselors.

If Gary continues doing a good job, says probation director Floyd Simpson, he will be released sometime this month.

“I haven’t always been a good father,” Gary says. “I know that a lot of people have this bad image of teen fathers, and I haven’t helped that (image) a whole lot. But this place is giving me a chance and helping me set goals for my life, like being a responsible dad.”

For now, 4-year-old Jonathan is living with Gary’s mom and sister in the Valley. But when he’s released, Gary says he plans to finish school while raising his son with his 19-year-old girlfriend, whom he’s been dating for almost two years. “She says Jonathan is like her own son,” he says. “We might even have another baby in the future ‘cause only kids are spoiled. Right now, though, I’m ready to have fun with my son.”

He especially can’t wait to teach Jonathan to throw a football. “He’s big for his age. He already comes to here on me,” Gary says, smiling and pointing to the upper thighs of his lanky, six-foot body.

“He doesn’t cry much so I can tell he’s gonna be tough,” he says. “But I still want to be there for him when he grows up. I want him to like me, but not be like me. Mostly, I just want to be his best friend.”

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Michael, 15, found himself staring at a cooing mother playing with her gurgling, giggly baby. Joy and anticipation swept through him. Then he felt as if he would throw up.

“I got this real bad, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach,” he says, recalling the recent day when he walked by an infant. “Now, I get that way whenever I see a baby.”

Babies remind him that, until a few months ago, he was going to be a dad. He had everything planned: strolls in parks and malls, “loving” late-night feedings and visits to South High School in Torrance where classmates would gush, “What a cute baby!” He had full financial support from his parents, who said the baby could live in their house.

But a recent call from his 16-year-old girlfriend of seven months crushed his daydreams. “She got an abortion,” Michael says, his hands hugging his stomach. “She thought I was gonna dump her when I found she was pregnant, but I told her I had no intention of doing that. Then she said she was gonna have it. I understand she was so scared and confused, but it still makes me sad. I really wanted to be a father.”

After he got the news about the abortion, Michael recalls feeling sad and lifeless, lying for hours and hours on his bed in dark silence. Already a borderline student, he flunked a semester of his sophomore year. Spurts of anger occasionally penetrated his depression, injecting him with “lots of bad energy that made me want to hit things, and I did.” He dented a door and cracked a window in his upscale Torrance home.

At first, Michael’s parents were “extremely angry” with their son for having unprotected sex. But those feelings quickly gave way to concern over his emotional state.

“I cannot put into words how much it hurt to see my son suffering like that,” says his father, also named Michael. “We couldn’t do a thing about it (the abortion).” Under state law, a father under 18 cannot claim paternity rights.

Before the pregnancy, Michael had been running away, skipping school and fighting with the family, his parents say. Lately, “things are getting a lot better,” says Darla, Michael’s mom. “The most important thing is helping our son.”

Michael is now enrolled at Opportunity School, a program sponsored by Torrance Unified School District for ninth- and 10th-graders who have fallen 20 or more credits behind. Tutors help students catch up while counselors sort through emotional problems. “The counseling helps me a lot,” says Michael, who was recently named Student of the Week. “If I didn’t have it, I’d still probably be all depressed.”

But he still feels sad a lot, and he misses his ex-girlfriend, who attends a different school. “Sometimes I don’t want to have anything to do with her, but a lot of times I miss her.”

Michael says he’ll continue trying to change for the better. He has made new friends, completed 30 pages of math homework on a recent Friday night and is reading “Malcolm X” for fun.

“And I don’t think I want to have sex until I’m older,” he says. “It’s too scary. This whole thing really messed up my head.”