Alittle free association takes me from Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry to Denver County former welfare mom Oshanette Neal.

Henry, 28, father to nine children by nine women in four states. Has been court-ordered, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report, to pay child support for seven of them. Was just ordered to pay $3,000 a month for a boy he fathered three years ago.

Neal, 33, mother to six children by four men. None of them paying child support. And, no, none of them Henry's.

Both Henry and Neal displayed a staggering lack of judgment, not to mention a lack of basic knowledge about birth control. But, here's the difference that came to my mind: Neal is actually raising her children. Alone.

I thought we should see what that looks like.

Three children in high school. One in middle school. Two in elementary school. Dentist appointments. Doctor appointments. Football games. School uniforms she can't afford. Work out a payment plan with the school. Kids need new shoes. School calls, youngest boy appears to be mentally retarded. Tests begin. Youngest boy diagnosed with birth defect affecting memory, speech, learning ability. Will he be able to function in normal society? Don't know yet. Traffic ticket. No insurance. Fine imposed. No money to pay fine. License suspended. Hard to keep a job.

Older boys, full of hormones, one suspended from school, one ditching class, lurking in the hallways, flirting with the girls, Lord help me, anger management classes for one son, lectures for the other. I ain't raising no thugs, no gang-bangers, no drug dealers, no sorry baby daddies. I am raising men. Nights of prayers. "I am going to break the cycle with my sons. I will go to my grave before I give up. I swear they are going to do the right thing." Doubts, self-recrimination. "I can teach them how to be a certain kind of man, how to treat and respect women, but I can't teach them to be a man, because I'm not a man."

Oldest daughter, high school senior, honor roll. Continuation ceremonies. Mom, you're embarrassing us. "Oh, you wait until graduation, kids; they'll have to say, um, Ms. Neal, no dancing on stage." Light bill overdue. Water bill overdue. No more bus tokens. Food stamps late again.

You can save the sarcastic boo-hoo comments. Neal never has been given to self-pity and she sure doesn't ask for it from anyone.

"My kids didn't ask to be here," she says. "They didn't ask to have me as a mom. They didn't ask for their dads to be their dads. But when you have children, life is not about you anymore. It's about them. God gave me my babies and it's my job to raise them right."

I don't know what the story is with Henry's children, but I keep hearing people say his reproductive habits are his business. Funny how so few people said that about Neal. Not when she went on welfare because she had babies at home, no family to turn to and men who didn't contribute to their children's upbringings. Not when she used up all those benefits under welfare reform and in 2002 entered the ranks of the working poor, counting on child support that never arrived, relying on food stamps and subsidized housing. You want to know where private acts intersect with public interest, well, there's one place.

Neal did get six months of payments from the father of her youngest, the man who could pass his daughter on the street and not know her. The checks stopped coming in February, when he dropped off the radar. Last Oshanette heard, he was in Texas.

The other three men are in jail, all serving time on drug-related crimes. The father of three of her boys, the man she thought was the one, "my white picket fence," hasn't answered any of their letters.

So, bring up the Travis Henry story in her presence at your own risk.

"I know people will say, 'Oh yeah, Oshanette, she's the one that laid on her back with all those men and had all those kids.' Well, I just want to say two people made them babies. And just like people say we women should have used birth control, he could have wrapped it up. We don't know the whole story with that Bronco, but if you're not taking care of your babies, you can look at it upside down, standing on your head and you're still a deadbeat dad."

Before I leave her, she asks her 12-year-old son what he thinks of the Henry business. I dunno, he says. You gonna have 9,000 kids you don't support? No, he says, I'm gonna have two little girls. When? When I'm married. And do what? Be a lawyer. Well, first, I'm gonna be a football star, but I'm going to go to law school so when I get older and can't play football, I'll be a lawyer.

All right, she tells him, you go ahead with your lawyer plans, and I got a book I want you to read. It's by Sidney Poitier, The Measure of a Man. I want all you boys to read it. It's mandatory.

I look the book up when I get back to the office. Neal's insistence becomes clear. Page 181, according to the review, contains this sentence: The measure of a man is how well he takes care of his children.

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com