Nowadays we witness the emergence of so-called ‘intense’, ‘professionalized’ parenting. However, the phenomenon of a very (if not overly) conscious treating of the process of child upbringing as a ‘project’, supported by numerous professional advices, handbooks and specialists, parenting mostly applies to middle- and upper-class parents. And what is parenting and the bringing-up of children among the least privileged members of our society like? In the article, I will attempt to answer (at least in part) this question referring to the experiences of young fathers whose first children were born when they were still teenagers. In Anglo-Saxon literature of the subject ‘teenage parenthood’ is almost a synonym for ‘social exclusion’ as it usually implies accumulation of numerous adverse factors/circumstances such as being brought-up in a multiproblem family and/or in a foster care, early school drop-out, lack of or low professional qualifications, health problems, substandard and overcrowded housing, located in an area of concentrated poverty. The article is based on qualitative research carried out within the framework of WZLOT Project (project’s full name: ‘Strengthening Opportunities and Weakening the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty among the Inhabitants of the Lodz Region’, financed by European Social Fund within Human Capital Operational Programme, 2008–2010, coordinated by prof. Wielisława Warzywoda Kruszyńska) within a research module titled ‘Early parenthood as a threat of poverty and social exclusion’.