Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Sins of the Father

This past Easter weekend, the television news was full of Easter Egg hunts, scrambles, and rolls. The screen was full of happy children, gleefully bouncing through the parks and lawns, searching for candy-filled eggs, with their parents laughing, smiling, encouraging, and helping. I'm sure that more than a few pictures were snapped, and many memories were made. These are the happy moments that make up childhood, memories and pictures to last a lifetime.

Sadly, some of those memories and pictures won't include dad - not because dad didn't want to be there, but because he wasn't allowed to be.

Far too often, we focus on the continued punishment and persecution of the sex offender, righteously defending their exclusion from parks and playgrounds where children may be with the oft-repeated mantra of "if it saves one child..." Rarely do we consider that there are children being harmed - innocent children, whose only crime was to be fathered by a sex offender, who don't understand why daddy can't be there, but only that daddy wasn't there, and equate that lack of presence with lack of love.

"If it saves one child...all children deserve a happy childhood full of love and security." Except the child of a sex offender. They don't count.

When advocates for Sex Offender Law reform speak of "collateral damage", this is what they mean. Children whose sex offender parent is absent not from a lack of desire to participate, but because they are legally prevented. Easter egg rolls. Summer days at the beach. A picnic in the park. Visits to the zoo. Trick-or-treat. School plays. School sports. School field trips. Father-daughter dances. Graduation. The things that bind a child to a father, the shared experiences that build a happy, healthy childhood.

And those are just the passive modes of collateral damage. There's also the whispers and rumors. Teasing. Outright bullying and verbal and physical assaults for being the child of a sex offender. The fear that comes with drive-by harassment of their parent by vigilantes. Vandalism of their home or the family car. Being shunned and ostracized at school and in the neighborhood.

"All children deserve a happy childhood full of love and security."

Don't they?

3 comments:

  1. Did it ever once occur to you that the reason those "pictures" dont include Dad is that he violated the most sacred trust, the trust of safety and security by one's own father? I spent a couple of minutes on your site just now. You are very compelling and most certainly have a profound way with words, but in all of your post I come to the conclusion how you envelope all sex offenders as over-prosecuted and under served by society. Do you and I not read the same newspapers, live in the same country or even exist on the same planet? Your first mistake is to align your self with any and all parasitic offenders who do more damage to your reputation than any sex offender designation. I am always amazed why sex offenders align with anything for no other reason than Status, then go on to ban together as a United front. You never mentioned in detail what your conviction was. The fact your anonymous should not hinder that very real consideration to your readers. You skirt it, but I assume it wasnt for the infamous "peeing on a bush" when you mention the time you did. You talk a big game about how people should react to you, how you want others to ban together and become more powerful. The funny thing about that? Not one offender I have ever encountered will admit their true crime when plying for support for their cause.Their wives and or loved ones are even worse by denying it completely. Whats more infuriating is offenders love to insinuate their problems begin and end due to a registry and I am a little surprised after all of your admitted therapy you refuse to even address the core issues of sex offenses and or the people who do indeed commit them. You have very pretty prose, but at the end of the day, your still not saying anything. You can throw spelling insults and exaggerated personal stories you garner from other sex offenders as a pathetic hit and run on my blog but again at the end of the day You have convinced me of nothing and despite how you and your buddies want to diminish my existance, my impact is stronger than yours. I have made it my mission to deflect those "oh so heartwarming" stories of offenders into real truths, real stories, real headlines that are bombarding our families daily. The one thing offenders dont get, you cant just call Off your repercussions, you cant just wake up one day even 17 years later and say, I dont want to play in this sandbox anymore. This society like it or not considers those who sexually abuse children and or the vulnerable the lowest rungs on the ladder and deciding societies forgiveness of that event isnt forthcoming fast enough for you? Isnt going to make it go away.
    You can bother with websters, I think I made myself more than clear.

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    Replies
    1. There's a reason I don't tell you, or anyone else, the details of my crime: it's voyeurism, pure and simple. You don't need to know details to interact with me - generalities are all you're going to get. If you want titillation, you'll have to look somewhere else. I don't explain away or excuse anything.

      There is no insinuation that any problems I have with employment or being a productive member of society begin or end with the registry, here - it's a fact. The fact that you bring up my perceived failures of addressing core issues regarding sex offenses and those who commit them, despite the years of ongoing therapy I have, shows just how little you understand exactly what Sex Offender therapy really is. There is no cut-and-dried, one-size-fits-all answer. The underlying issues leading to a sexual assault are more varied than you can possibly imagine, as are those who will commit such an offense.

      I do not hit and run. I did not insult your spelling - "site" was spelled correctly, but you meant "sight", and I suggested that you obtain a reference book (thesaurus) so that you don't make the same mistake again. I don't exaggerate personal stories of others - everything on this blog is mine.

      Sex offenders align by status (on the registry) for no other reason than the public perceives all sex offenders to be the same - pedophiles who have assaulted children - when the truth is so much different. Unless and until that public perception changes, that will not change.

      If you would believe that an ADULT who committed a crime against an ADULT a quarter century ago is a threat to children today, you are sadly misinformed. And I doubt that any amount of education and information would change your view. These are the children I speak of. There are no abusers in those homes, only children who do not understand why dad can't be at their soccer game, wives who live in fear that one day, someone who equates SEX OFFENDER with PEDOPHILE will shoot their husband.

      These are not "pretty colors" painted with words. These are realities.

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  2. "All children deserve a happy childhood full of love and security."

    Well dont tell us that, tell the guys who cant keep their zippers up around their kids. Your groups (especially Shana Rowans) get absolutely giddy over posting the same old "abuse happens within the home or by someone the child knows" mantra. It has been my experience and my observations that "children are better served when the abuser is removed from the home. It amazes me you guys want points for bitching about the "family disruptions due to status". Your groups need to stand outside yourselves and listen to how insane that sounds. You re-enforce the fact offenders strike at the most available target, (the home) then demand for the offender to be left alone??? The children of sex offenders do count, they are the easiest victims. Thats why society thinks you shouldnt have access to them. Pretty simple actually. Women and Children shouldnt have to walk on the glass Offenders often subject them too. If the women still maintain a stronger alliance with the offender over her children, then she should be a member of the "bad breeders club" . Not building rocket ships here. Contrary to all those pretty colors you like to paint in your verbage, its still pretty black and White.

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