I agree so much with the tone of this post, thank you mysteriew. I’m coming out of reading mode to offer my thoughts, which I struggle with constantly.
My daughter is 3, so I haven’t had to act on my choices yet. It breaks my heart to have to restrict her in ways I never was. Freedom and independence is invaluable… priceless. That our kids have to give some of this up because of the existence of troubled freaks (male or female) is the biggest shame I know of. These stories and resulting discussions that keep us awake at night, many of them would’ve been prevented if someone wasn’t allowed to repeat.
I am a compassionate person. I like to give the benefit of the doubt. But even if we weren’t armed with the knowledge that these offenders are rarely (I believe never) rehabilitated, we’re risking the innocence of our children and our children themselves to protect them and their rights. I don’t get it. These “people” think of nothing but harming children… obsessively, with an unspeakable thirst most of us can’t imagine. And what do we do? We knowingly let them exist in our population! What the! Something is horribly wrong.
I know that my feelings may change as my daughter grows, and as I (hopefully) grow as a parent. Regarding your topic, my present personal set of rules to get my family through the next few years
- can’t walk to school unless with me or dad, a trusted adult, or a group of kids I believe to be responsible.
- can’t play in the neighbourhood without our supervision. ex. I'm outside in a lawn chair while she explores the front yards of our street, am hopefully having a coffee or a beer with another mom or dad. If she isn’t visible, you can bet I’ll be going for a walk-by, regularly.
- going inside friends’ houses is negotiable, depending on my relationship with the parents. To the best of my ability, I will always know the occupation, address, and phone number of all adults in the house, but to her, I’ll downplay my involvement as much as I can.
- can’t play in the yard unattended, even the fenced back one.
- no, she can’t spend time alone with adults. I’ll insist on being present if any one-adult-on-one kid-time is requested (I’ll at least be outside the office door). I want to know about it if an adult is alone with her without my permission, and I’ll have to trust her to help me enforce that.
I know that the above won’t guarantee she doesn’t encounter danger, but this is what I’ve reconciled, so far. I don’t know at what age I’ll flex. However. I want her to never feel resentful, or that she’s not free to know her own self, apart from me. I will also need her to learn how to make her own choices, without constant discerning eyes and a hand to hold. I don’t want her to feel spied on. I use the word can’t in my examples above because that’s what it feels like, it isn’t a choice. It is a necessary evil, and I have someone to blame for that. I am paying, with my beautiful child’s sense of freedom, for some abomination to have a chance to be hopelessly rehabilitated.
I will also add that I am in a quiet and almost crime-less mid-upper class neighbourhood, in a small city, in a small province, in small-country Canada. You should just SEE the naivety!! Okay, okay, okay. I know it probably won’t happen. But I know it might… it could! Thankfully, I can probably prevent IT, and I will try my best. I, like you, defenselessly imagine every child’s and loved one’s terror when I read the stories here. When I feel broken and ashamed to be a human.
My relative is a school teacher in my city. She just told me of a young student in a city school who was approached by a man in the girls’ bathroom. The school was on lockdown. I’ll never hear about that in the news.
This might have been OT and self fulfilling (wow I really got something off my chest), but I hope it’s not a totally inappropriate place to finally let it out in a post. I don’t want to take anything from this poor little girl. It is her story, with all the others, that I feel so strongly about it’s in my bones. I can’t look at the world without knowing who is out there. I am so thankful to websleuths for knowing.
That said, I hope they have found who is responsible. It looks like it was this teenaged boy, I guess we can be glad he was caught early, "only" at the expense of this young girl and her loved ones. If only we would let them be the last to be ruined by this inexplicably horrid human being. I wish I could lend them all my strength, but I know I can't, really. I ache for them. Really doesn't help them, though.
