He Got His Mother Pregnant

In 1978 when I was teaching history in a high school the voters decided to reject a property tax assessment to continue the programs we had which we educators believed to be the best in the state. As a result of the rejection we were forced to cut back on our programs. One of the programs that had received recognition for its apparent success was an extensive counseling program. Several of the school directors and most of the administrators never accepted the benefits of this program as worth the cost and so we saw this disappear.
The result as far as I was concerned was to add to my regular duties the counseling of 23 students. It is not my purpose here to go into the particulars of this duty only one student’s problems. Let’s call him Fred. He was 16 when he first came to me. He was a tenth grader with average to above average grades. He had no history of disciplinary problems but some history of absenteeism. He was a tall slender, good looking, sandy haired fellow. Over the three years I counseled him, my observation of him in class was that he seemed to be respected by others but somewhat socially isolated. I would not describe him as a loner but he did not seem to belong to any particular crowd.
The first time he came in to talk to me it was about having problems with a female teacher. I knew this teacher. She was older and often remarked that we teachers had become soft and that is why students were not as good as they had been years ago. Not wanting to be an advocate for him with this constantly scowling colleague, I counseled him to take the penalty of the previous assignment and try to do better from then on. About a month later he was back in with the exact same problem and the teacher had threatened to not only fail him but talk to his mother. It seemed that involving his mother was the worst thing that could happen so I decided to pursue why.
By carefully questioning him I gained his trust to the point that he confided in me that his mother was a drunk and on those occasions when he had not had time to do his homework he had had to take care of her. Having had some experience with alcoholism in my family I asked him how he had to take care of her. He reluctantly explained how she would sometimes pass out and he would have to carry her to bed. Other times she would get sick and he would have to clean up after her. He also explained that she threatened him if he ever told anyone.
I asked him what he thought she would do if he left her passed out on the living room floor. “You see, as long as you take care of her, she does not have to take care of herself. If she finds herself on the floor she may get herself in bed before passing out next time.” He accepted what I had said but I was not sure he had been convinced.
As it turned out he passed all his classes that year and the following year he was in my counseling group again. Shortly after school started he came in to tell me of a problem but he did not seem to be able to tell me. All he would say was he had done something so bad he did not know what to do but then he left without explaining. Several days in a row I asked him to talk to me but he refused to.