Rob Lowe Makes Room for Daddy in Schoolboy Father

Our first indication that 16-year-old Charles Elderberry (Rob Lowe) isn’t ready for parenthood comes early in Schoolboy Father (1980), an Afterschool Special about the dangers of reproductive illiteracy. As his judgmental mother (a solid Sharon Spelman) reads a birth announcement involving Daisy Dallenger (Dana Plato), a girl he met at summer camp, Charles begins counting on his fingers. Later, he asks a friend if pregnancy always takes nine months. It’s information he could’ve used before roasting more than marshmallows with Daisy, if you catch my nonsensical drift.

Because mothers and newborns weren’t booted from American hospitals within 24 hours in the early 1980s, Charles has time to consider his options. Inconvenienced by the $2 parking fee, he nevertheless visits daily, staring at his son through the nursery glass. Daisy, who harshly dumped him on the last day of camp, never said a word about her pregnancy, not even after being temporarily kicked out of her parents’ house. When Charles asks whether she used protection with him, she retorts “You were there, did you?” before ruefully observing “Not that it matters much now.”

Charles feels an immediate but facile connection to the baby, which causes an already emotionally volatile Daisy to erupt in anger. She’s been advised to keep her distance, lest it weaken her resolve to sign him over for adoption, and hasn’t given him a name. As the son of a father who left when he was an infant, Charles is opposed to surrendering his own child and is concerned the boy will be given a dweeby name like Herbert. He prefers Wolf, “in case he’s a quarterback or something.”

Schoolboy Father, adapted by Durrell Royce Crays from a Jeannette Eyerly novel, almost works better as a comedy at times. Explaining his anti-adoption stance to best friend Jeff (Bryan Utman), Charles — who works part-time as a grocery bagger and doesn’t know the first thing about bottles or diapers — reasons, “I mean, I could turn on the TV in 20 years to watch the World Series and never even know that the pitcher is my own son. And what about the Super Bowl?” Refusing to sign away his parental rights, he wants to play-act the role of father while foisting the actual responsibilities of parenthood onto his irate mother, who is already stretched thin by work and night courses.

Hospital social worker Ms. Shipley (an amusing Beatrice Colen) drops some requisite Afterschool Special statistics while calling his plan absurd: “You’re very lucky, you know. Before the Supreme Court ruling in 1972, the father had no rights at all. I’m afraid it’s hardly solved the problem — over a million teenage pregnancies last year alone.” But the particulars of contraception are never discussed. Charles missing out on a party thrown by classmate Nancy McKeon (of Please Don’t Hit Me, Mom) was presumably incentive enough for young viewers to practice abstinence or safe sex.

Scott Baio had a stronger emotional connection to his bong in Stoned than Lowe (now sharing a sitcom with his real-life son) has to his baby in Schoolboy Father, and there’s little that positively distinguishes it from similar TV movies to come, featuring teen dads played by everyone from Dermot Mulroney to Paul Dano and Brian Austin Green. Director Arthur Allan Seidelman, who later made Strange Voices with McKeon, was back the next year with a similar special for girls: I Think I’m Having a Baby, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh as a character even dumber than Charles. Fortunately, it wasn’t a crossover event.

Streaming and DVD availability

Schoolboy Father was released on DVD as part of the Afterschool Specials: 1979-1980 box set that is currently out-of-print. You can also find it on YouTube.

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… But wait, there’s more!

If you’re appalled by the prospect of sexually active teenagers being this moronic about their bodies, gather ’round the fire later and my wife can tell you about her stint as a sex educator on an Ivy League campus, where she regularly fielded questions about whether douching with Coca-Cola, or having sex standing up, prevents pregnancy.

Cranky Lesbian

Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.

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