shades of grey

I've been having mixed feelings this week.

One of my favorite former students was charged a year ago with molesting several adolescent boys. This began when he himself was an adolescent and was trying to come to terms with his homosexuality. We know so much about the development of the adolescent brain and that wisdom and mature judgment aren't in place until the early to mid twenties. For some reason, this matters to me, although there's no way he should have done what he did. This student did fairly well in my class and later on worked with me for a summer in our student services office. He was the most dedicated worker I had. He always kept his personal life private, which I assumed was just him being professional. His career was going well. He had always wanted to be a sports promoter, and he had jobs with a couple major sports teams in our area.

This has been really hard for me. I genuinely like him and have a great deal of respect for him as a worker. And I also know that if at any time he had offered to take my sons to a ball game, I would have let them go with him in a heartbeat. Through my eyes as a parent, I see him both as a monster and as a heartsick young man. His mother works at my eye doctor's office, and she's been so happy when I come in and ask how he's doing. We are all much greater than the worst things we've ever done, and I know from my own early adulthood how sometimes the only way to cope with having done something bad is to continue doing it in an effort to make it seem normal and okay to help suppress the feelings of guilt. (In my case, the only one I was hurting was myself.) But I'm very sad. This student of mine had seven victims who came forward. He could've gotten a prison sentence of 100 years. Instead, he got 15 years. Prison is not kind to child molesters. He will suffer a great deal. As a parent of adolescent sons, I am glad he will be out of reach of other young men to hurt. As his former teacher and supervisor, I am heartsick that he felt that these choices were his only option. How is it possible to feel these contradictory feelings in a situation like this? His own mother must be in so much soul pain. But I feel like my own boys are just a bit safer today.

I always think about another favorite former student, from the same academic year in fact. This student wrote a paper about how he was molested by another student at a regional meeting of some kind. He felt so vulnerable and unsafe. Later he came to the conclusion that he was gay (which I'd guessed the first time I met him), and it makes me wonder how conflicted he must be about his experience of being assaulted and aroused at the same time.

Both of these young men--one victim and one victimizer--struggled to accept their sexual orientation, and I wonder if either one will ever be able to have a healthy adult relationship. I feel quite bad for both of them, although their situations and experiences seem completely opposite.

I see very little black and white in life. Usually, that is something I'm very comfortable with. But there are times, like this, when shades of gray are very difficult to wear.