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You pose an excellent dilema. . .and being a parent, a teenage father, and a convicted felon (burglary, a little different but still a crime) I can tell you that it's an incredibly conflicting situation.
I agree with you that the father needs to step up and take care of your daughter and the child, but I feel that charging the boy may have prevented a lot of what you're aiming for. From your original posting it sounds like the sexual encounters were consenting, please correct me if I'm wrong. Your enforcement of his violation means two things, first he is now a convicted felon. . . and I can't BEGIN to tell you how complicated that makes getting even a minimum wage paying job, much less something professional that could allow you to support a family. Second, not only is he a felon, if your states laws are anything like mine he now counts as a sex offender, which carries it's own set of complications and stigmas. That being said, and mind you I'm attempting to remain objective about the boy, but he doesn't sound very promising, I feel that you're right that he should take resposibility for this child and be supporting both the baby and the mother. Another caviot, giving that support and not being able to see the results of all his hard work is a little callous, I can understand your concern about them being together, but can you see why he might not be so inspired to succeed and care for the two of them when he doesn't get the reminders of why he's trying so hard?
I'm also divorced and have the same "softie" problem with my ex-wife, discipline with my children is a constant struggle, but in my personal life I do my best to make that struggle with their mother and how lax she is in enforcing the rules, rather than making the children suffer for her shortcomings. Luckily my children are still young enough (5 and 4) that I've been able to this point to create the distinction that I'm not their mother and that they will not behave in certain ways around me.
I guess what it really comes down to is I agree with your concern for your daughter, but I disagree with the current status of the situation and how you're addressing it, it just seems like you're digging yourself a deeper hole. Have you tried getting your daughter to neutral ground and attempting a compromise with her that you can both work from? I would hope that the final goal for all of you would be that she and the baby are taken care of and provided for, but you've only got 6 more months until she is legally an adult and can remove you from the decision making process entirely, after that any input you would have sounds like it's going to be ignored by her because of how hurt she is, regardless of how good it might be.
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