Devalin found out he was going to be a dad when his 15-year-old girlfriend Keirah took a pregnancy test at the school nurse’s office. He was 16.
“I was freaking. I cried, to be honest,” he tells the cameras on the first episode of Dadolescence, a new documentary screening on TVNZ+.
Along with four other teenage dads from all over Aotearoa, the series follows Devalin’s unexpected parenting journey.
Speaking to the Herald, he recalls feeling “mixed emotions” when he found out Keirah was expecting their baby.
The young couple had recently moved in with Devalin’s whangai parents in Palmerston North, but waited several months to share their news, telling their biological parents first.
“When we told our mum and dad who we live with, they were a bit cut up,” Devalin, now 19, recalls.
Keirah, 18, adds, “Then they realised that [we] couldn’t go back from it, because I was already so far along.
“They just put their feelings aside and helped us with what we needed to get through.”
They welcomed their baby girl Aaliyah, now two-and-a-half, via emergency C-section.
Devalin and Keirah are two of hundreds of new teenage parents across New Zealand.
While the numbers have fallen dramatically over the last 15 years - the birth rate for teenagers has more than halved since 2012 - there were more than 1,700 babies born to teens in 2022.
Devalin remembers his feelings taking him by surprise when he first held his daughter.
“I think it was more emotional than I thought,” he recalls.
Now, his favourite thing about being Aaliyah’s dad is seeing her reach milestones.
“To experience every footstep, as she grows bigger and better.”
The hardest thing about being a parent? For Devalin, it’s being apart from her. For Keirah, it was the newborn stage and the late nights that came with it. Now as a toddler, it’s “her not listening”, she laughs.
The couple are both “excited” to see their journey unfold on screen.
Devalin wants young people watching to know that “being a parent so young doesn’t mean your life is over”.
“It is possible to still do what you want to do and have a child.”
At one point in the show’s first episode, Devalin recalls being scared to break the news to his whangai father.
“He was mad, but I think he was more sad and disappointed that we couldn’t talk to him about that stuff.”
Now, he hopes the series will help make it easier for young people to talk about tough topics like safe sex, pregnancy and parenting with their own parents and whānau.
“It’s easier said than done, I guess!”
Devalin and Keirah have been supported by the Whakatipuria Teen Parent Unit (TPU) at Freyberg High School in Palmerston North.
According to the Ministry of Education, there are currently 25 TPUs across New Zealand. Each one is attached to a host school as well as an early childhood centre, or located near one.
In the Whakatipuria TPU, there can be anywhere between 18 to 35 students at a time, along with their babies.
“It’s not like mainstream education - it can’t be. It has to be flexible and adaptable,” director Mikala Triggs says.
“Every single student has their own pathway, so we just try to support them to where they want to go.”
Teen parents or parents-to-be are provided with transport to and from school, baby clothes, car seats, meals, food packages, essentials like toothpaste and sanitary products, school resources like laptops, and parenting support.
Staff help teen mums and dads access the Young Parent Payment benefit, finish their high school education and find pathways into further education or employment.
It’s rare for a young dad like Devalin to be part of the unit. Triggs says in her time there, there would have been no more than five fathers at one time.
“It can be tricky. We do accept dads, but we have to make sure that it’s safe, because some people in these relationships, even though they are the fathers, it’s quite a toxic relationship.”
If safety is an issue, staff will help those young fathers get into a UCOL or polytech course instead.
While it’s not always easy, Triggs says it’s the most “purposeful” job she’s ever had.
“When I get students that come back two, three or even five years after they’ve left, and they’re like, ‘I’ve graduated as a midwife’ or ‘I’ve graduated as an early childhood teacher’ or whatever they’ve done - I just am so happy for them.”
For these young people, life may have not unfolded the way they thought it would - but she wants them to know support is available.
“It’s not the end of your life, it’s not the end of the world.
“I’m just so grateful that I get to be a part of seeing these guys grow, and I’m really proud of them,” she says of Devalin and Keirah.
“It’s awesome to see how far they’ve come.”
Dadolescence is available to stream on TVNZ+.