How Pedophiles Groom (everyone)

Afterwards the conversation held such dreadful power.

My adopted son, 14 or 15, sat amidst his younger sisters’ dolls and toys, identifying each one. My husband and I marveled at the time. Charles was not very nice to us. Not very kind in general. His attention to his younger sisters’ toys seemed an unlikely window into kindness in his chilly heart.

It was not.

He knew the toys well because for years “playing” with his little sisters had been the sinister doorway to grooming them for abuse.

It was a blow to the gut to know this too late.

My pain over my childrens’ lost innocence will not go away. It shouldn’t. I determined to do what I could to save others from the agony.

I made a commitment to speak out.. More times than I can count I have lost people in the process.

Recently Charles began dating a young woman with very young family members. I let someone know that Charles should not be alone with children ever.

His response was swift and angry. He swore at me and told me to back off or he would file harassment charges against me.

Standard for Charles.

What was shocking was the response of girlfriend and family. Even though Charles went to prison on a plea deal for what he did, girlfriend told me she did not believe me.

She and her family have rallied around a child molester.

What happened next was equally interesting.

Once she accepted his version of his story, he publicly humiliated and belittled her. I knew what he was doing—on one hand he appealed to her naïveté to accept a lie, on the other he pushed the boundaries of their relationship to flex his power.

This is an unfortunately common story. Where is the.outrage in the media over Verizon peddling child exploitive pornography? Where is the department of justice to enforce existing laws against the exploitation of children?

We stay quiet, afraid to rock this broken boat, while our little ones get let out to sea.

Watching all of me

PBS has just aired a haunting movie about women in Austin who struggle with eating and weight issues.

I viscerally connect to their food issues, but found myself crying in the middle of the movie because of what they said about community.

The truth is I have been a community-free individual since 2010. I have my family, former friends, and a church or two to thank for that. And my own fear.

Initially my dogged insistence on transparency…

I cried for my children. The older ones create shelter for their younger siblings.

The older ones remember the years of loss.

The younger ones ask questions about family as though the units of extended family–grandparents, uncles, aunts, were classes of dinosaurs or dragons.

Mythical creatures, all of them. Afraid to face the truth on our side.

Kayleigh Slusher, Girl in the Refrigerator

This is a test. Read just the following sentence then follow the prompt:

3-year-old Kayleigh Slusher was murdered in San Francisco shortly after police responded to reports of violence and abuse at her home.

Her body showed signs of sexual assault and blunt force trauma.

Okay. Deep breath.

Now. What do you think?

How long will Kayleigh’s untimely death remain in your thoughts?

I ask because Kayleigh’s violent death allegedly at the hands of mom and mom’s boyfriend coincides with the death of Kevasia Edwards, the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and a flurry of editorial opinions about Dylan Farrow, abuse survivor.

If you want to take my test a step further google each of these stories then scan for how much air each story has gotten.

Hoffman’s death is a tragedy, no doubt, but while police in New York and San Francisco are scrambling to punt responsibility for Kayleigh and Kevasia, people have been arrested for selling drugs to Hoffman.

Don’t get me wrong. People got arrested for the deaths of the two little girls. People who were known to be dangerous parents? People who had already incited the scrutiny of neighbors, authorities?

What should have been done to save them?

And why wasn’t it?

Should a grown man choosing to engage in deadly behavior warrant more intervention than helpless children? Helpless because we turn away.

Forget.

Don’t want to get involved.

Kayleigh was a citizen of Napa, California. Early reportage placed her brief life and tragic death in San Francisco.

Kevasia Edwards

Bear with me here….

It is possible to be a poor parent and never run afoul of the law.

It is also possible to be a decent parent and have to submit to the scrutiny of a caseworker.

But the stories that are the hardest to bear are the ones like Kevasia Edwards.

Little people whose whole lives have been marred by pain, hunger, violence, and the state walks into and then out of their lives only to do nothing.

Until it is too late and they have been murdered.

The Safety Protocol

Before I thought these rules were enough:

Let your children know they can talk to you about anything.

Educate them about sex.

Tell them they will never get in trouble for telling the truth.

Tell them if someone tells them a “secret” then tells them they can’t tell their parents that is precisely the secret they should tell as soon as possible.

Never leave them with someone you don’t trust.

If they can talk, they will tell you if something happens…

Now I know these rules were woefully inadequate. Abusers, predators, capitalize on the innocence of children at all cost.

New rule (an addendum): never leave your child alone with someone you do not trust completely.

Narrows the field considerably.

The Girl in the Cage

The catalyst was an unsolved burglary–a nonviolent crime, and one that some police departments would not even bother to pursue.

Perhaps it was the gold bullion that saved her. You can imagine the home owner’s sense of violation and loss.

But in this case a pedestrian break-in and a bit of decent detective work revealed an unspeakable evil.

To think of the suffering of the little girl and the other children these two hurt is a burden to the psyche.

So the quotes about Mr. Gore are worth pondering–he seemed like a nice guy, went to church and everything.

Went to church and everything. Until we face the monsters in our own hearts we cannot face the monsters that walk among us.

And the scars, terrible scars in the heart of a little girl.

Hat People Myopia

I have a childlike way of seeing the world. There is a story in The Little Prince that I have found very useful over the years.

The narrator tells us that he once drew a picture of a snake swallowing an elephant. When he showed the picture to most people the drawing they exclaimed,

nice hat!

They could not picture the inside of the snake–the hidden elephant, if you will. He determined to talk to the hat people about insubstantial things–golf, the weather.

I find my hat picture is acknowledging great darkness in this world. Who wants to read about child abuse? Who really wants to write about it?

Not me.

I would rather not. I have done it aggressively, unapologetically over the last two years because I realized that it is a too-common story exacerbated and perpetuated by silence.

It has been an ugly cause. Made the more ugly for me personally because I realize how many “good” people do nothing.

I won’t ever be good at talking about golf while the world is burning.

Someone I cared about and once trusted as an elephant-seer had a conversation with me that reminded me how lonely the world of the abuse survivor can be.

The person’s discomfort was palpable and they couched it in terms of my Christianity. I have a feeling a lot of people look at my story of unhappy endings and think,

she must have done something wrong.

Of course I have! I am a sinner. But mental illness and child abuse happen everywhere, not just in my life. We don’t talk because have been taught to be ashamed.

That is not freedom in Christ. Freedom in the love of God involves a central story of pain, humiliation, agony, the death of God.

I cannot see the survivors of the crucifixion singing glib songs of cheap sentiments in the days of the cross.

Beware of people who preach resurrection joy without crucifixion agony.

The story of heaven can only be told if someone is willing to reckon with hell.

Thank God He did.

The DSM and erosion of the rights of children

The mental health professionals who shape the language of the DSM have been toying with the diagnostic language associated with pedophilia.

This matters because the pressure is now (and for some time has been) on legitimizing pedophilia.

Children are already largely the target of exploitation here and abroad. And in many parts of the world the legal protections for children are severely compromised or non-existent.

This waffling over the DSM is one more symptom that the rights of children to safe passage through childhood is eroding precipitously here as well.

So Much for the Children

If I had a dollar for every time someone argued that expanding the definition of legal sex was NOT going to end in disaster for our kids, I would actually have enough money to opt out of the Cap’n Crunch ads that defray my blog costs.

In a week when the DOJ makes a show of shutting down a crucial child advocacy website this story out of Virginia should put everyone on notice.

An aggressive endophile was allowed to walk free by Virginia courts precisely because sodomy laws no longer applied and the judges involved did not deem the aggressive solicitation of sex from a minor to be a crime that mattered to them.

If you have children you care about you should take note of this case.

What follows hereafter will be more of the same–courts and justices deciding not to pursue legally valid statutes against sex between adults and minors.

We are not far from the end of civilization and we are already a failed state.

You may want to start disguising your kids as pets. They will get more legal protection from PETA and the SPCA than from our courts.

No Threadbare God

She tells me a story
That haunts me all day
And into the night

About ordinary love

I run a line down memory
Not just mine but hers
Especially hers
All that I did not see

Plays out in normal…
nightmares sometimes happen in broad daylight

Chatty conversations with the devil
Always
Turn into shouting matches

I beg God, please…
Rain down mercy from heaven on these little ones
They do not deserve this

Heal us.

When I catch a glimpse of Him
No threadbare God
Ever
Again.