4 Signs a Sexual Predator Could Be in Your Child’s Life
4. Does Your Child Have a New Guardian Angel?
The Washington Post:
“Victim 4” took the stand and told his story. He was devastatingly credible. He spoke frankly, graphically. It was a brave performance, prefiguring the courage of the other seven victims who came forward later. When he was at his most vulnerable as a boy, lacking a father figure, Sandusky had swooped in like a guardian angel, only to reveal himself, gradually, as a fiend.
Jerry Sandusky was no Clarence the angel but he mastered the role — as most child sex offenders do. The classic ploy of the predatory pedophile is to “swoop in” to rescue children from unstable and single parent homes.
According to USAToday.com, Sandusky lavished extravagant gifts on his victims. Records say that he gave one boy of 11 trips to professional and college football games, a computer, clothes, and even cash.
Obviously, not all child molesters have such resources. Nonetheless, lavishing his intended victims with gifts is part of the seduction process.
Adults with a genuine interest in children want to bring them up to their level, not sink down to the child’s level of maturity. They teach them to use adult tools, not play children’s games.
It’s important to note this too-good-to-be-true friendship can aim at you just as easily. Gaining your trust is the ultimate goal.
By befriending the parents first, and eagerly offering to babysit, run the child to sporting events, etc., the predator gains easy access to the child with the added bonus of the parents’ blessing — and even gratitude! At this phase of the process, your child may not be the primary target, but the prize.
One mother of a Sandusky victim illustrated this as she testified through tears. With heart-wrenching regret, she told of how she insisted amid protests that her son spend time with the villain because he needed a father figure.
She missed this crucial sign…
I’d advise caution on the first point. An adult who is interested in befriending a child might also think “What did I want when I was that age?” It’s good to be cautious, but also keep in mind that people might just be generous with a child who seems to be in need.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a bit of gossip about your suspicions could ruin someone’s life. It’s fine to take steps to protect your own child, but don’t make an accusation unless you are prepared to live with the consequences.
Use your common sense, and teach your kids to be willing to say that something is is making them uncomfortable. Normal people are going to stop when a kid says its making him feel uncomfortable. People who don’t stop should trigger the kid’s get outta here response, outside of rare examples like medical treatment.
“Another thing to keep in mind is that a bit of gossip about your suspicions could ruin someone’s life. It’s fine to take steps to protect your own child, but don’t make an accusation unless you are prepared to live with the consequences.”
I agree with you whole-heartedly. The call I received made no accusations, spread no rumors. I never mentioned it to anyone else. Frankly, it made it harder to talk to my son about it. Looking back, I don’t know that I handled it right. Before I wrote this, I spoke to him about it. As a father himself now, looking back, he tells me there really was no other way to handle it other than the way I did. Which was, I simply forbid him to play inside the house. He could still be a friend; the boy was welcome to play at our house.
However, in discussing this with my son the other day at 34, he confessed that he did in fact go play inside his house. He thought I was being unreasonable– his friend was a “good kid”.
When he did, the kid came up to him and said his dad wanted to talk to him. My son said the boy was looking down, and seemed nervous. All of a sudden the situation didn’t seem right to him– so he bolted for the door. He said, had I not warned him about going in, he might not have thought twice before going back in the recesses of their house to talk to this man.
I was thinking the same thing about a few points, especially point 1. How disastrous is it for someone to cast their suspicions as gossip? About as disastrous as someone SWATing an unsuspecting neighbor. The first person you speak your doubts to will invariably end up spreading the same doubts until someone’s life is ruined with no cause. I had a friend who went through that process and is now a registered sex offender for something he never did. The DA told him that because he was underage and drinking while babysitting he had to choose between doing serious jail time or no jail time and the sex offenders list.
He was wrong for drinking underage and at someone else’s house (especially while babysitting!) but the pedophile accusations stuck because he was drunk when the parents came home. They said anything and everything to get him in serious trouble because of their duty to correct his “lost soul”. They were a deeply religious family in a deeply religious county. One of their pieces of “evidence” came because he had a tendency of cooking out for a huge group of younger kids during the summer time and making sure to buy them birthday presents. Had I not been deployed to the middle east I would have stood up for my friend because his parents refused to out of shame and social commitments to the church.
Now I have no idea what has happened to him, only that I got an email from him while I was on the ship two years ago saying that he had nothing left in life. The point of this long story was to emphasize that very careful thought should be put into such allegations before speaking them aloud. Otherwise you end up completely destroying someone for something you may not be able to verify or even accurately deduce.
I understand eveyone’s caution, but in this case she was right, and too bad the authorities were never told; God knows how many other children,including his own grandkids, that man is still molesting if he’s still alive. I’d rather pull my kid out of someone’s house and risk offending the parents, than to pooh pooh the warning and end up with a sexually traumatized child.
I guarantee you, that if you’re in a room with 20 people, five were molested as children. Five.Unfortunately, there are despicable folks who purposely ruin someone’s reputation, and there’s no way to recover from being a suspected pedophile, but you bet your bottom dollar I’m pulling my kids out as soon as I get a whiff of abuse.Better safe than sorry.
The case of that man who was virtually told it was c choice between the devil and the deep blu sea is an appalling ome. That DA should be hounded out of office. I hope a modern US version of Emile Zola can produce a US-style version of this French author’s celebrated “J’accuse”. How long is he expected to stay on the sex offenders’ list? but more important: DID ANYTHING THAT BY COMMON CONSENT COULD BE CLASSED AS A SEXUAL OFFENCE EVER TAKE PLACE?
Three years ago the London “Economist” had an article entitled “America’s Unjust Sex Laws”, which it illustrated by the case of a woman who, at 17, was caught engaging in oral sex with a 15-year-old boy. Thanks to her own unfamiliarity with the legal process she ended up being punished more and more severely until not she is branded for life as a sex offender. What sge did was foolish; iy was not so bad as to warrant her being branded a social leper for life.
To a legal layman like miyself the worst factor is that if you ARE innocent then gettung a wrong guilty verdict reversed is easy if the have the do$h, but nothing like so easy if you haven’t got millions stashed away to afford good lawyers. Whatever happened to the principle, laid down as long ago as 1215 in the Magna Carta, that justice was NOT for sale to the highest budder?
That there is EXACTLY why I do not go to church or suffer extremely pious people.There is NOTHING on this planet, not even “church”, that is more important than your child and supporting them when they are going through legal troubles or other problems.
Agreed, and this piece is much more nuanced than the usual pedophile scaremongering, and therefore much better. The key line:
“Adults with a genuine interest in children want to bring them up to their level, not sink down to the child’s level of maturity. They teach them to use adult tools, not play children’s games.”
A little oddly phrased, but the right idea. I’d phrase it as, “Good men who volunteer will relate to your child as an adult teacher. Pedophiles will relate to your child as if they were a child.” After all, I wouldn’t want to run afoul of a mother who takes this advice thinking “chess is a children’s game, so that guy who volunteers to run tournaments must be creepy.”
My dad turned out to be a pedophile, though he never did anything to me or my sister–we only found out when he was caught on NBC’s “To Catch a Predator.” But there were warning signs earlier in his case–an inappropriate ski trip with a minor patient of his during med school/residency, being more comfortable interacting with my teenage friends than with their adult parents, etc.
I volunteer directing scholastic chess tournaments, as I was a top scholastic chess player about 15 years ago and wanted to help out today’s kids. I wouldn’t want to be treated as automatically suspicious for wanting to volunteer with kids. It’s good for kids to learn how to relate to adults as adults–but I can’t help noticing that the chess dads get that idea a lot more than the chess moms seem to.
Like most parents, I didn’t have to read these statistics, I could practically feel them:
US Department of Justice reports, nearly 800,000 children younger than 18 are missing each year, or an average of 2,185 children reported missing each day.
I have to say that these numbers are clearly unbelievable. From the FBI:
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), every year, more than 200,000 children are abducted by family members. An additional 58,000 are taken by nonrelatives with primarily sexual motives. However, only 115 reported abductions represent cases in which strangers abduct and kill children, hold them for ransom, or take them with the intention to keep.
Media news outlets have portrayed that abductors primarily consist of strangers or registered sex offenders (RSO), which has proven invalid in the past 2 fiscal years (FY). When a child is reported missing, members of the media advise parents to check sex offender registries to prevent their child from possible abduction or sexual victimization. However, FBI reporting indicates that RSOs are a minimal part of the problem. In FY 2009, an RSO was the abductor in 2 percent of child abduction cases; in FY 2010, this figure dropped to 1 percent.
Although parents teach their children to stay away from strangers, most neglect to teach them not to allow anyone, even someone they know, to take them without parental consent. Additionally, children frequently are instructed to obey elders without question, adding to their vulnerability to offenders known to the child victim.
Over the past 4 years, the FBI has seen a decrease in abductions committed by a stranger or RSO. However, it is important to note that abductors with sexual intentions are, in fact, sexual offenders who have not yet been identified and, therefore, are unknown to local law enforcement agencies.
While the FBI reported numbers of kidnappings are clearly too high (one is too many), the number you supplied of “nearly 800,000 a year” is exaggerated by at least a factor of three. That number was provided by an advocacy group and they frequently exaggerate statistics to scare people into donating money.
As reported by the FBI, a child is far more likely to be taken by a relative than anyone else. Do pay attention to non-relatives who take an interest in your child for they might fall into that second group (the 58,000). Despite all of the trauma over “stranger danger”, that’s the least likely person to kidnap a child, although it’s still too damned many.
Also, most of the abductions by a relative consist of a parent taking the kid and running off, but thanks to people who chose to lie about this, the entire nation spent years worrying about zillions of kids who were supposedly missing and dead in ditches somewhere.
The 800,000 number refers to missing person reports. Thankfully, the balance of these occur when the child simply isn’t where a parent expects them to be and they call the police.
These incidents are usually resolved quite quickly, but until they are, it’s a big deal and worth keeping a tally.
First, teaching our children “stranger-danger” as the first line of defense against child molestation often does a tragic disservice to the child. The problem with stranger-danger is that if a younger child is lost in, say, a shopping center, he will only be able to seek help from, you guessed it, strangers. Code words and ongoing communication with our children should be applauded and encouraged.
Secondly, most child molesters are not strangers, but close relatives, close family friends, and seemingly well respected members of the community. They have a keenly attuned radar for troubled kids and troubled families. Such molesters, many of whom are men, quickly figure out what their intended victim needs and wants. They also figure out how to smooth over and sedate any warning signs or red flags which may arise in the minds of those kids’ parents.
Finally, child molesters work slowly, cautiously, and with determination. From an emotional/psychological point of view they seize their victims and slowly squeeze any healthy life out of them like a boa constrictor killing its prey.
For the victim, his seduction turns to oppression. Oppression, out of a bizarre self-protection, turns into Stockholm syndrome. The long term after effects include any number of pathologies and addictions. The child’s normal process of growing up gradually to becoming an adult is turned topsy-turvy as if partially destroyed by a major earthquake. A new life can be built after the molestation, but is is built upon a shaky earthquake destroyed ruins of a smashed childhood.
For men, because don’t we all know, “Big boys don’t cry!”—recovery from childhood sexual abuse is, often a life-long process. An acquaintance of mine in his fifties, and fellow survivor of childhood sexual abuse once told me, “First I gave up drugs. That didn’t solve things. Then I gave up drinking. That didn’t solve things. Then I gave up smoking. Still no relief. Then, I reluctantly acknowledged that that “special” relationship I had with ________ may have been the source of my difficulties throughout my adulthood. That was the beginning of my recovery.”
As for myself, I began my nearly life-long struggle with depression at age thirteen, a few months after my parents’ best friend began molesting me. In my adulthood, my depression ebbed and flowed, but became rather PTSD-like with nightmares and ever-present intrusive thoughts and memories of the childhood sexual abuse, as well as a measure of low lever paranoia and social introversion. Fortunately, with a good deal of prayer, the love of a wonderful woman, the blessings of our two children, and the help of several excellent therapists over the years I have healed. My silence about the issue, however, lasted from age thirteen until my late twenties and early thirties.
For a variety of reasons (including a mistaken homo-phobia, as well as “stranger-danger” mania) most men who were molested as children go to their graves without ever mentioning that they were such victims. Can you imagine being married to your wife for decades and never being able to confide in her about one powerful thing?
The commonly accepted estimate of the number of men molested during their childhood is one out of seven—-about fourteen percent. How many men are in your life? Fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends, and co-workers. Now, consider the degree of hidden handicaps which lay among the one in seven of men! Consider the lost productivity to society because of the silence of these men!
Fortunately, only a couple percent of all men molested as children grow up to become molesters, themselves. But, the few men who do become molesters usually molest tens, scores, and hundreds of children throughout their predatory lives.
For those math lovers among the readership, consider the following: Assume in 1900 there were no child molesters in the U.S.A. Then one molester got off the boat at Ellis Island. Further assume, that this man molests ten teen-aged boys, but no more. Further assume that ten years later, each of these ten men, molested as teen-age boys, each molest ten teen-aged boys. Further assume that each of these, in turn, molest ten teen-aged boys in the next decade. Repeat the process on a decadal basis. Assume the supposed guaranteed, never ending “cycle of abuse” which according to urban legend and the ten o’clock news means that if you were molested, you will become a molester. Assuming no overlap of victims, and assuming only ten victims per child molester—-by 2050—–the number of victims in the latest group would be ten to the fifteenth power. That is one, followed by fifteen zeros. 1,000,000,000,000,000. A billion. Absurd, of course. (I am sure that my calculations are not exactly on the money. But, they are close enough. But you get the point.)
In the face of “stranger-danger” hysteria, and willful blindness to the real child molesters among us, you can imagine why male childhood victims of sexual abuse never speak a word of the crimes committed against them.
Women of America, gently, calmly, and in private, ask the men in your lives whether they were molested as children. Particularly, ask the troubled men in your lives. Be patient. Be forgiving. See the divinity in each of these mens’ lives. But, try to understand the devils they face. (Try to understand that while you have permission to tell your women friends if you were molested as a child, your man has no such permission.) Then help them get help. Stand by them and with them as they seek help.
http://www.mercurynews.com/lynch/ci_21016513/will-lynch-found-not-guilty-beating-priest
After years of torment this guy got a little payback.
I can think of several situations. I’m not unusually perceptive, and intuition is not infallible, but in only one case was the predator confronted by anyone in authority.
The “big boy” on the other side of the block who wanted to be called ‘Uncle —–’:
my dad was angry when he told my brothers to stay away from him. I overheard him tell my mother that there was something wrong with a man spending that much time with little boys.
The old man down the block who was so fond of one relative’s two boys that he didn’t see anything wrong with letting him babysit, give gifts, etc. from the time they were infants. He never came to any extended family events, though he wasn’t excluded. When I was told by one of the parents that this man’s own children had nothing to do with him, and they felt sorry for him, all I felt was dread. One of the boys came back from a short shopping expedition with him, ran out of the car without looking back, but didn’t look happy to see his visiting family, which was not like him. However, the parents didn’t want to hear anything, in fact they were flattered that the man so doted on their kids. Maybe I was wrong about the old guy, but sadly I don’t think so.
As to informing children without killing their childhood innocence: my dad uncharacteristically stern and serious with us was emphasis enough. He didn’t say anything bad about the young man, but we knew that to go into that house or garage was absolutely forbidden. Only no-fish-Friday was that serious.
Ya see it when your a kid, The old guy down at the mobile home sales office who builds wooden and rice paper airplanes as bait, the Boy Scout leaders who are tickle monsters, the cousin who takes the child and commits frottage on him when he is a toddler. The children then go on to share their new learning which gets other children sexually aware at too youthful an age. Then the cruelest of all they pedos tell the child if they tell their Mommy she won’t love him anymore.
Pedophiles, I hate them my disgust is overwhelming.
I’ve worked with them at factories and places hearing them talk about their desires.
It takes a great deal of effort not to go lethal on them.
As a parent, follow your instincts and listen to that little inner voice that says “something ain’t quite right.” When “something ain’t quite right” act accordingly. No explanation is required. It may well be nothing but could also be something.
All sorts of bad things happen in juvinile detention.
Be careful of anybody who was locked up as a juvinile, it stays with them forever.
I’m happy that this subject is openly discussed. What’s missing from the discussion is incest. Incest. More often than not, it’s a family member who is the predator. And if you think parents might have blinders when it comes to a neighbor or family acquaintance, no one wants to look at their own relatives as predators. For generations, children, and especially daughters, have kept the secret of sexual abuse to themselves. I’m disgusted with the Jerry Sanduskys of this world but I ask you: how would you cope with your spouse, your child, your sibling, or one of your parents being the predator who’s hurt your child?
A juxtaposition: we’ve just had “Gay Pride” in my community, with, in front of multitudes of children, there was nudity, perversion, public sex, etc.—and all of this is sanctioned by the powers that be. Here and all over the place, the police and legislators, like attorneys general and justice ministers, disregard the law, and anyone daring to disagree with flagrant public perversion—like a Christian preaching the Good News of salvation from depravity—is harassed, while the public depravity is altogether protected.
As far as I’m concerned, this is sexual child abuse—as is the promotion of homosexuality in our schools. Under the guise of “anti-bullying”, our children are being desensitized and set up to become victims. While the Ten Commandments are verboten, our kids are being taught that “gay is good”—and that any deviation (excuse the pun) from this orthodoxy is both “homophobic” and unacceptable. This dangerous and despicable sophistry softens up our children for the kind of abuse this article discusses.
Ms Robinson, I’d appreciate your response to the societal sexualization of our children, especially by such “authorities” as our educational institutions (and certain mainline Protestant churches), which are promoting the acceptance of homosexuality, as if it were some kind of Teddy Bears’ Picnic life-style choice:
Whoops! “If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise. If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise . . .”
To protect our children, let’s open our eyes—EVERYWHERE they need to be opened.
Keep homosexuals away from your children. The Catholics could have used that advice.
There is a Constitution predator in America’s life.
Guard your children with every weapon you have.
50 years ago I was molested repeatedly over a period of about 4 years by a friendly neighbor down the street. He gave me popsicles. It was a more innocent time and I had no idea what he was doing. Eventually he started hurting me and I avoided him, but I’d been taught to obey adults.
Protect your children. The scars of molestation never go away. Never.
I take umbrage with a few things in your ‘article’.
1. The stats for the annual number of molested children. I’m a statistical analyst and that stat is bogus unless PROVEABLE… if you use any stats from an institution or group that stands to gain value or money from their stats, then those stats are even MORE unreliable.
2. The seven year olds who were giving each other a blow job (I’m ‘assuming’ they were both little boys around the same age, although you did not actually state the age of the other child)….. what planet are YOU living on??? ALL LITTLE CHILDREN, starting from about the age of TWO, are sexually aware in one way or the other. Am i the only ‘girl’ in here who remembers seeing one female dog humping away on the sofa arm, then trying the same thing, and LIKING the sensation??? I was around FOUR years old. Maybe I just have clearer memories of my early childhood. I hardly think two little kids playing with each other’s weinies to be ‘sexual abuse’. Sure, you stop them, meet with the other kid’s mom to let her know and tell your own son that it is ‘okay to explore your OWN body and to masturbate’ (because it IS unless you are living in Victorian ENGLAND) but ‘it must not be ‘shared’ and should be ‘private’.
As to the ‘warning’ call you got… GOSSIP it is called. You shouldn’t let your kids play inside someone else’s home anyway, not these days, when lots of homes have GUNS in them, or ‘recreational drugs’… but you will NEVER KNOW if that family you got an anonymous call about was a ‘danger’ to your kid, or if the anonymous caller had ‘an agenda’ of her own. Shame on you! That ‘call’ is NOT a ‘warning sign’ of ANYTHING but GOSSIP.
your views and values were “a bit off”, but then you confirmed that sense when you warned” lots of homes have GUNS in them.
Silly you, guns are neutral. ALL children must be taught how to be safe around them, they are not evil things that jump up and start sqirting lead out their small ends. Every home in America should have guns in them… time was when they did. When children are kept away from them, taught an inordinate fear of them, and constatnly told they are evil and scary, of course they will be curious and want to check them out whenever found.. and THIS is precisely where trouble starts. I’ve known kids as young as six who can handle a rifle confidently, safely, and with considerable skill. They are NOT afraid of them, they know what they CAN do, and also how to do with them what should be done. I’ve also heard of kids as young as eleven using firearms to drive off violent intruders, protecting their siblings and/or parents from imminent serious bodily harm. Your fear of guns is a sickness, and your acceptance of unseemly behaviour amongst young children is as well. I know many homeswith young children where guns are as much a part of daily life as is breakfast and cutting firewood.
While children may look at each other’s sexual organs, would it even occur to them to suck or lick them? For a child to think of performing such adult acts, it would necessitate his seeing them happen via hardcore porno films or experiencing them on his own person by an adult.
Always err on the side of caution when it comes to your children. A warning which turns out to be true is NOT gossip. Adults who are constantly alone with a single child or taking children on trips without a chaperone SHOULD be suspect. Any non-pedophile would welcome this precaution and not be insulted.
A gay friend of mine was a teacher for forty years. She said she NEVER was alone with a child. When a conference with a child was necessary, she always made sure another adult was in the room. She realized that many people equate homosexuality with pedophilia and did not wish to give anyone an excuse to accuse her of impropriety.
Your children are YOUR responsibility. NEVER assume there is not evil out there. Perhaps the Sandusky crimes will serve as a warning to be proactive in protecting your children from men or women who wish them harm.
I was abused in a number of ways as a child and felt totally helpless and terrified and alone. It deeply impacted my relationships and life. One common thread I see with these stories is that the parents did not LISTEN to their own children. They weren’t bonded to them enough to notice who they were and what they were experiencing. They didn’t really see or hear them deeply enough. So they missed all the signs!! We were always very sensitively aware of our daughter’s moods and if she suddenly didn’t want to go to someone’s house or school or whatever, we would listen and take her feelings seriously. We never would have sent her to go somewhere she wasn’t happy going until we understood why and what was going on. When she was a little older, with all the talk of molesters everywhere, I told her once that NO ONE was allowed to touch her in a way she didn’t want. I told her that if someone tried to do something to her and then told her they would hurt her or her family if she didn’t keep quiet, to know that they were lying and afraid. They were weak and lying and that all she had to do was immediately come tell us and she would be safe. I told her that the police would help us but if someone still tried to hurt her then Daddy would kill him with his gun. She is now 30 years old, well adjusted and happy and evidently nothing ever happened. Too many Americans today are morally weak and cowards. They have no idea what love or honor or nobility is. That is why are society continues to sink into darkness.
I am also a little concerned with the statistics cited in the author’s article. Really? Yes, America is a big country and even after a 2010 census we really don’t know precisely how many millions of people live within our borders. But over 2,000 kids per day?
Folks, we need to be careful here. Yes, there are perverts out there. And evil is real. But let’s face it, some people are good at working with kids. Music teachers, tutors, big brothers/big sisters, church volunteers, teen youth group volunteers, sports coaches.
Keep this up and you’ll surely chase away the well meaning ones who do not want to forever be tainted as a child molestor/pedpphile. Is this what you want? This statement: It is far better never to risk that label than it is to engage in one’s gift (as a violin or piano teacher, as a soccer coach, etc.) in aiding youth and young teens.
Is that the sad state of affairs you seek?
We’ve already chased all adult males out of elementary schools, have we not? Junior highs nearly also so.
Parenting means involvement with your kid. No one else raises your kid; you do. Always accompany your kid and get to know the adults or older teens (young twenty somethings) that are in your child’s life.
In particular, men who wish to volunteer as scoutmasters, coaches, summer camp counselors, martial arts instructors, etc. all now walk on eggshells.
Or they don’t even bother — because you’ve helped make the risks far outweigh the possible joys of teaching, mentoring, aiding.
Thanks for the article and Thank you Robert. I told my son the same thing. It is time that people let their children know that they are that important to their parents. Our society is bringing this on as many parents are so busy pursuing their own Caffe Lattes, yoga classes and MBZ that they dont realize the most valuble thing they have is their family. My son knows no matter what I will love him. That I will protect him if he tells me what is wrong. Communication!!!! (and I do not let him have sleepovers at age 5 like half our community!?!?!) Time to Parent USA!
Rhonda, I notice you’ve ignored my earlier post.
Are you not concerned about the proliferation of altogether inappropriate sex-ed programs in our schools, including the aggressive promotion of early sex (with “how-to” included) and homosexuality? These programs invade our children’s “latency” period: they’re not interested in the details of sex, thank you very much. These invasive and ideological programs both remove inhibitions and desensitize our children to an aspect of life where they are particularly vulnerable: this sets them up for victimhood. Alarm bells should be ringing.
I think the fact that you’re trying to warn parents about protecting their children from sexual predators, while ignoring the fact that our “progressive” “educators” are, figuratively, putting our kids in the line of fire, is somewhat disingenuous.
I hope you’ll weigh in on this aspect of the issue.
I agree wholeheartedly with both your posts.
The author’s aim (and the aim of most good, decent, upright, moral adults) is that children get to enjoy their childhood, start learning, have wholesome upbringings and thus have every chance of becoming fine, happy, successful adults.
To me, this is utterly unachievable without a Bible-based upbringing.
Yet what we have in our society everywhere and certainly in our public schools is just what “Lookout” is sharing. He (I am guessing Lookout is a he – but not sure) is absolutely right. It is a bit daft to go this ultra careful route in and around one’s home and neighborhood but completely ignore the poison that is coming in the form of Health Class or Gender Awareness Class. Goodness, even all school assemblies now have principals and vice principals harping on “diverstiy!” (means — accepting gays and bending over backwards so that they are even better than heterosexuals) “tolerance!” “respect!” As if these discussions even need to take place in elementary schools or junior high schools. For that matter in senior highs.
We have a dumb and dumber set of generations under the age of 50 because we waste valuable school time on filth like sex ed. That is the teaching domain of parents and parents/the home only.
Sorry, those commenting here excusing homosexuals and trying to make the claim that homosexuals can be just fine around children — no way. Get lost with that evil thinking. You are an abomination if you think a gay or lesbian has any place working with children.
Read Romans 1. The whole chapter. Those are the words of God Almighty given to the Apostle Paul. If this makes you upset, tough. Take it up with God. You’ll lose the argument, so better fix yourself — pronto.
To the author: Unless you are prepared to talk tough like that in this discussion, you really are doing children today no favors. You can somehow try to think you’ve made your home a safe zone, but the mind destruction of your child (and all children) is going on at warp speed in our public schools.
Thus: To the loving parents out there, don’t wait. Home School.
EL, just FYI, I’m female! And you make excellent points. Thanks for your input. But where is Rhonda Robinson?
As far as I’m concerned, her article is simply three steps forward, with the school system sexualizing our kids being six steps back. What our schools are doing is undermining parent’s teaching and authority—especially if one is an observant Christian, as you and I both are—and putting our kids at serious risk. Once again, your thoughts on what the schools are doing, Rhonda?
Harvard Yard Conservative, below: your remarks remind me of Whoopi Goldberg’s famous justifying—the perpetrator—remark about Roman Polanski: she said what he did wasn’t “rape rape”. Give. Me. A. Break. If it walks like a duck . . . I don’t understand your attempt to justify the unjustifiable by letting a certain kind of person off the hook, when our kids are the victims. Most homosexuals are not pedophiles, but a disproportionate number of pedophiles are homosexual.
It’s a free country—I think!—so you’re entitled to your opinion. But it’s not a good idea to confuse it with the facts—and a clear look at the facts is what we need in order to protect our kids.
Homosexuality and pedophilia (or hebephilia) are not the same thing. Coach Sandusky and other men like him primarily view themselves as heterosexual. Hence they are often married for years while they are also molesting children. In addition to their primary sexual orientation towards the opposite sex, they clearly have an aberrant attraction to boys of a certain age.
Most adult homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are attracted to adults, not children.
Returning to the subject of men molesting boys, yes it is sexual in nature. But, usually we do not confuse rape with sex. An adult man has a penis. A boy has a penis. An encounter between the predator and prey is, technically, same-sex. The encounter, however, is primarily predatory, and only incidentally sexual. I believe the author, Mike Lew, pointed out a clever way of viewing the distinction. If someone hit you over the head with a frying pan, would you call it assault, or would you call it gourmet cooking?
It’s one thing to be prudent and careful but our fear of the omnipresent sexual predator had ruined a generation or two of children.
When I was a kid in the 60s/70s, my father was emotionally absent. I had a paper route (kids had paper routes in those days) and I befriended several gentlemen on my route. A couple were high-profile politicians and several ran businesses.
One man in particular was great. An engineer and businessman, he got me interested in technology and radio… the field that makes me a decent living to this day. He lent me space in his shop where I built my first Heathkit.
How many kids now lack any motivation and interest simply because no adult is willing to talk to them for fear of being labeled a predator of some sort? How many lost opportunities for learning?
My male relatives and friends all, without exception, do not mingle with neighborhood kids at any level unless the kids’ parents are present – and then, it’s perfunctory. In my paper route days, I was invited inside on many occasions (that included the first time I got to operate an amateur radio station – a hobby I keep still). Any man who now invites a kid inside is certifiably nuts.
The fear of being labeled a predator has lots of men unwilling to interact with neighbor kids. Being gay, my partner and I no more than nod at neighbor kids. Of course, neither of us (nor any of our straight male relatives friends) has any improper interest in children but fear of people like EL, above, dictate extreme caution.