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Growing Pains
Paper Tigers
Season 7 • Episode 4
Season 7 • Episode 4
Mike teaches at an urban high school.
Mike gets involved when he learns his prize pupil Luke is homeless.
Mike persuades Jason and Maggie to let Luke stay with them temporarily; then Jason's wine cellar goes missing.
Jason and Maggie compete to write a newspaper column; Ben hates his glasses.
Mike gears up for his big day as a TV soap opera star just as Luke gears up to move out of the Seavers'.
Luke is afraid to visit the doctor, so Jason accompanies him -- but it's Jason who turns out to need surgery.
Carol accompanies Maggie to a resort, which turns out to be hosting a singles convention; meanwhile, the all-male weekend planned at home is ruined when Chrissy is set home with head lice.
Nouveau riche neighbors move in next door; Ben is forced to look after Luke on his first day of high school; Jason's scheme to let Chrissie stay up late backfires when the neighbors throw a lavish party.
Consumer advocate Maggie raps a vacuum cleaner that Ben broke without telling her.
The ghost of Maggie's father oversees the Seavers' visit to her childhood home.
While Jason and Maggie are away, the principal informs Mike that Luke's birth father is back in town -- and wants him back.
Maggie and Jason put Mike on the spot for Luke's curfew problems.
Luke's father George visits the Seavers hoping that Luke has mellowed a little and would like to spend some time with him but Luke doesn't. He was about to leave when he collapses outside the door. He says that can't move, so they take him in. Jason and Ben offer to deliver his load, and they experience all sorts of chaos on the way. Mike thinks that George is faking his injury so that he could stay and Luke would have to talk to him. But the doctor tells Maggie who tells Mike that unless George stops driving trucks, he could become paralyzed. Mike talks to George and tells him to tell Luke but doesn't want Luke to pity him and doesn't anything else to do but be a trucker. Mike suggests that maybe he could open a truck stop. Luke finds George struggling to get up and they finally talk. The next day after Jason and Ben return, George tells them that he is giving up trucking and will open a truck stop and Luke's going with him. Luke says goodbye to the Seavers.
Maggie wants to fulfill a dream by climbing a mountain.
A power failure causes dissensions in the Seaver household.
Maggie is offered a plum job in Washington, D.C. The Seavers move to Washington, D.C., but share a final meal and memories in the empty house.
