Mt. Spokane senior adjusts student life to fatherhood

Any dad will tell you it’s difficult to do it all. Being a good father and a good provider requires dedication and sacrifice.

It’s even more difficult when you’re a teen and still in high school.

Just ask Mt. Spokane High School senior Cameron Mills.

Administrative assistant Janet Stumph said Mills lives on his own, attends school four periods a day and is a single dad, working to raise and support his child.

Mills seems to take his responsibilities in stride. The self-effacing 18-year-old says, “When I had my daughter, my priorities changed. I took school more seriously.”

His daughter, Alexis, was born the summer before his junior year in high school. She’ll be 2 in July.

Mills grows animated as he talks about Alexis. “She’s at that stage where she copies everything I do,” he says with a laugh.

Guidance counselor Tom Flanigan says Mills is remarkable. “He hung in there through hard times and did well,” Flanigan says. “He has a tremendous amount of responsibility – very rare in most young men in our culture.”

Indeed, Mills has a schedule that would seem stressful to even the most-seasoned parent. Many days, he takes his daughter to day care in Liberty Lake, drives to Mt. Spokane for classes, then heads to his job at Granny’s Buffet and finally drives back to pick up Alexis.

And every parent of a 2-year-old will tell you that keeping up with an active toddler is a full-time job itself.

“I don’t take anything for granted,” Mills says. “High school goes by really fast.”

Mills already is enrolled at Spokane Community College and plans to attend nursing school. Being a father has affected him profoundly.

Says Flanigan: “What impresses me about Cameron is that he’s never acted like a victim. He’s taken on full responsibility for his life and for someone else’s.”

That kind of responsibility gives Mills a different perspective from other teens.

“I still like playing basketball with my friends and going to the gym, but my friends seem more immature – they make choices I wouldn’t make,” he says. As a protective father, he says, he’s more aware of bad language and behavior among other teens.

Life changed for Cameron Mills the day his daughter was born. He had to put away the trappings of youth and become a man more quickly than he’d planned.

Still, Mills says, he has no regrets.

“I’m aware of what I’m missing out on,” he says. “But I wouldn’t change a thing.”