Today there was a posting on one of the lifestyle lists about the death of a little girl in Cedar Rapids. She died at the hands of a child molester. One of the list members posted about being bewildered about how the mother could let the situation continue.
Why indeed. I doubt the list member's life has ever been touched by child molestation else he wouldn't be so bewildered.
I used to ask myself the same questions, I still do. More often I beat myself with the realization that had I acted on previous doubts and suspicions I would have prevented what happened to our daughter.
The fact is none of us wants to believe someone we know, love, and trust is capable of such a heinous crime against a child. Especially if we could never conceive of doing such a thing ourselves.
It isn't easy to accept that your judgment and trust were so off. Especially if you yourself survived childhood sexual abuse. I used to believe that I knew what to look for, that my instincts were spot on. In truth, they were, but the person being a family friend for many, many years, made me ignore my instincts.
Master wishes I would let this go and quit beating myself up about it. I wish to the gods that I could. I don't enjoy the pain of it. But I feel so very strongly that I let our girl down. Her recent attitude issues and outright hostility toward us feels like punishment for letting her down. How can I forget when I have a daily reminder?
Okay, back on topic. Society, as a whole, dehumanizes child molesters so when we suspect someone we know, we immediately dismiss those doubts, or doubt our judgment, because these people are our friends, lovers, trusted friends, or family members. If I could remain unemotional, I could give PSAs about this. We spend so much energy and time teaching our kids to avoid strangers and telling them that strangers can't touch them in any way they don't want to be touched. The statistics show that most child molestation cases involved someone the child knows.
How do we teach our kids to be careful with their trust without inhibiting their ability to trust? I don't know the answer to that question but we really need to find one.
An even more difficult question is how do we know who to trust? How do you accurately screen the people who will have access to your children? We thought we were oh so careful, only family members were allowed near our children and only one person who wasn't family. We'd known him for a good part of our lives, we grew up with this person yet he turned out to be what I call a wolf in sheep's clothing. Did he spend all those years working on us and gaining our trust so he'd have access to our children? These are the sorts of questions that run through my mind.
There are no easy answers, there is no easy healing. Until we figure out a way to deal with child molesters in a more permanent manner, and find a means to discover those who are at risk to molest a child before they do, we're going to have to continue to be careful with our trust, hope for the best, and pick up the pieces when our trust is betrayed.
