A Thought....

Let's pretend for a minute...

I want to pretend that Doug didn't molest my daughter. Instead, let's pretend that he ran her over with his car. No evidence, no witnesses. When she wakes up in the hospital and says, "It was Doug", the police would have arrested him. Even with a plea deal he would have spent years in prison for purposely hurting my child.

MaKayla telling the police who ran her over once and hurt her counts... her telling that he molested her countless times and hurt her doesn't count.

Let's say as a result of being ran over, she was in a wheelchair. Every morning when I put her on the special bus, people would know, without having to think about it, that it had been a long morning and even night for us. Her physical struggles would be obvious. But because she can walk and talk and ride a normal bus there really isn't any understanding of the toll this takes on her or on me.

But I don't know what to do to change it.

I watched a documentary last week, on accident, about Bakersfield, California in the 80's. Family after family were arrested, convicted and served long prison sentences for child molestation because of a corrupt, over zealous (and in my opinion, psychotic) new DA who was bent on stopping crime. The children, once grown, recanted.... every single one of them. The interrogation methods used to extract information from the children are the basis for how children are questioned now. I wanted to track down and open fire on every single person of authority in those cases... because of them, our system now favors the molesters... and does not support the children who need advocacy.

It's like when you're driving along at night and you realize you're crossing over the center line... and over-correct, sending yourself into a ditch. That is what happened. The system over-corrected and sent our children into a ditch.